Birth

When we were born, one world of experience ended for us and another began. When we witness the birth of a new child, we see a new beginning, the emergence of a new being and life. Birth is about the possibility of infinite potential expressing some of its qualities. Birth in a dream has the same meanings. So it can indicate the beginning of a new way of life; a new attitude; new ability; new project. But also the death of the old.

The birth can be about our own physical birth, its difficulties and trauma. But most difficult birth dreams are about coming to terms with our existence. Many of us are still wondering whether we wanted to be, or want to be, born. ‘To be or not to be’, that is still the question for many of us. Lots of us live at a remove from life because of this. If there are connections with our own birth, any negative feelings, fears and pain may need to be met before one can continue real development and growth in life. This is not an easy process as birth experience is deeply primal and existing at the very foundations of our identity. Even if one manages to let this material rise into consciousness in the form of present day fears – such as loneliness, feelings of vulnerability etc – it usually takes a long time to move through them. To help with this process see the features on active imagination; compensation, processing dreams.

Example: Ever since childhood I had a nightmare dream of being in a very confined bag and being suffocated, I try to get out of a small and seemingly impossible outlet. I used to dread this awful dream. Then, at the birth of my daughter, I realised my dream was of my birth. I never had a recurrence since. D. R. Hobs

This is very clearly a dream about her difficult birth.

When the birth in your dream depicts a new phase of your maturing process, a new stage of growth, see the feature on individuation for clarification. In such cases your birth dreams may be an expression of huge changes in your life that are occurring over quite long periods of time. The birth might have come after much has ‘died’ or been lost.

Birth is also the moment of our coming into a particular set of circumstances. These include everything from the relationship, social status, financial wealth, education and background of our parents, to the physical environment in which we grew, the social customs and culture in to which we are born. So birth can also depict a sort of destiny, the taking on of a set of influences, burdens and opportunities. In the East this is all placed under the one word karma – the situation of ones birth, its working out in the present, and the streaming influences from the past. See: karma and past lives.

Birth of a shining, talking or holy child: The beginning of awareness – not intellectual knowledge – of how the conscious self is interwoven with the processes and beings of the cosmos. Your baby is very special, and it is certain that you are giving birth to a new part of you that is growing very fast. By ‘new part’ I mean that each of us are all the time developing, and we have an enormous potential, and the new part is something special coming into your life. So it might be suggesting that you will give birth to a new level of life in you, a new realisation. This might not manifest as anything special outwardly, but it will change your outlook and ability.

For instance such a baby can, if kept healthy, grow into a youth, and a youth into a teenager, a teenager into a mature man or woman – and a mature man or woman can flower into a new type of awareness – if they can face the transformation. You do not have to live a holy life or be ‘good’. You just have to LIVE as fully as you can.

Boasting about birth of child: Difficulty about responsibility of parenthood, but coming to terms with it.

Giving birth or Birth pains: The creative process; pain of arriving at a wider vision. Giving birth to a more mature self is a struggle. The NEW in our life is sometimes born out of such pains. If you are pregnant at time of dream this is probably about working out of anxieties about birth. See: birth dreams during pregnancy.

Recurring dreams of giving birth: The drive to have a child doesn’t stop just because one has one or more children. Many women, even past childbearing age, dream this over and over as in the example below. The urge to care, to love, to give birth, exists despite one’s age, and the dream may be a way of trying to satisfy that. The dream may also be, as with Pamela below, an urge to have a child of the sex dreamt of. It might of course be that you are incredibly creative and constantly ‘giving birth’ to new ideas or conceptions.

Woman’s dream: Desire to have a baby. Giving birth to a new aspect of yourself.

Man’s dream: Envy of the creative ability of women. Giving birth to a new aspect of self.

Example: For years I have dreamt I am pregnant. I go into labour in different surroundings, not always hospitals, with different people. I never see the child but I think it might be a girl, and the labour is different each time. I stop dreaming as the birth is completed. I have one 33 year old son – my only pregnancy. Pamela B.

Example: I am on a table giving birth to a baby. It was very small and very ugly, with a hawk like nose. I am walking down a corridor carrying the baby, who is smoking a cigar. I must have had some feeling for the baby as somehow I lost it and was very concerned about its whereabouts. I must have found it again because I was walking down a street and passers by would stare and condemn me for allowing the baby to smoke. I awoke with stomach pains. Mark M.

Useful questions: Also see: baby in your dream.

What have I given birth to – i.e. what quality or potential?

If I imagine myself as the baby what do I feel? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)