Undertaking a spiritual quest in order to understand our place in the world and the pursuit of spiritual knowledge is a way of developing our own personal attributes. Often, the trials and tribulations we have to go through in achieving something we feel to be important are translated in dreams into a quest or search. The way these events are faced is as important as the actual achievement itself. Many fairy stories and mythological tales have as their main theme the search for something rare or magical (e.g. Jason and the Argonauts). Such themes can be translated into dreams in a personally applicable way. We eventually find the rare and magical within ourselves. The Hero's Quest for both men and women is a fundamental pattern of human experience which can appear in many guises in dreams. It is a rite of passage and usually signifies some kind of initiation. To be searching for something usually indicates that we are aware that we must undertake a frightening task in order to progress. Also consult the entries for Hero/Heroine, Initiation, Knight, Rescue, Search and Task.