Child
“The message from my father, “You are a bright kid,” left open the freedom, creativity, and energetic resources of my Child Ego State. The Child is the most “real self” as well as the strongest part of the personality. It is responsible for feelings, biological needs, motivation, and expressiveness. It is the child at two, and at four and at ten, with all the daring and spontaneity of those early years.” Quoted from All My Children by Jacqui Lee Schiff
The child in a dream can represent the innocence and wonder of childhood, the strange openness and ability to be part of the holiness of Life; the grandness if the heavens opening to them. But also the crucified child in agony through the terrible state of adults ignorance.
Unfortunately many of us do not get encouraging words or good information about life from father or mother, instead we get the most terrible put downs, or else wordlessly we are defeated and crushed. Usually links with your own feelings arising from your childhood. The Dream child can also depict feelings regarding your growth or vulnerability, such as dependence, or the emotional links you have with people. What is happening to the child in the dream will give a clue to what sort of feelings. If the dream child is one of your own children look up son or daughter. ; boy; girl; daughter; son
Sometimes a child can represent the marriage – what was created by their marriage.
Hitting a child: Sometimes an attempt to repress or control your own urges that you were trained to hold back, or were punished for during your own childhood. See: archetype of the child; hitting.
Children appear in so many roles in dreams, and mostly as already said, point to those facets of oneself that either were hurt in your own childhood, or have not grown beyond that stage. But a child can express playfulness, uninhibited enthusiasm, or feelings of pain or hurt. The lost child might indicate either feelings of responsibility and panic about something vulnerable, or that you need to ask yourself how you have suppressed your own inner child. See: Inner Baby and Child; baby in my dream.
The child in a woman’s dream might also have a connection with the deeply instinctive process of producing, caring for and rearing a child. So it might indicate what is happening within the dreamer in regard to this. The following dream illustrates this as Angie, the dreamer who is 18, struggles with the difference between her inner feelings and the attitudes of those around her. See A Woman’s Creative Power
Example: I dreamt I had a child and had to cancel a test because I had to take care of the baby. I was breast feeding the baby, because it is healthier to breast feed than to give formula from a bottle. The person that I had been seeing wanted to know what I thought I was doing. The question was in an accusatory manner, like I had no business breast feeding my own baby. Then I left the baby with my friends and left. When I came back, they were feeding the baby Tabasco sauce because they ran out of milk. This shocked me because I thought my friends were more responsible than that.
Carrying or looking after child: In a relationship sometimes we come up against the child in our partner. The child manifest in the adult as jealousy, dependence, anger or helplessness if left, unwarranted emotional outbursts, and other behaviour that is natural to young children but difficult in an adult. Sex may also be more of a ‘thumb suck’ if it hasn’t matured beyond the child stage, rather than two people caring and sharing. An example of this is given in the following dream.
Example: I was near a hospital where nurses were trained. A lot of young women were about and I hoped to become friends with at least one. Later I was with one and hoping to become intimate. We then went into a room where a woman was examining a queue of nurses. She asked each one questions as their turn came.
There were a lot of children, mostly girls, who had no parents and were trained for nursing from an early age. One of the girls came to me as I lay in a chair. She wanted a cuddle. I held her for a while. Then a boy came for a cuddle. I said to one of them, perhaps the boy, “There are plenty of mums about (meaning the nurses), but you want a daddy don’t you?” I held him with my strength. One of the children asked me if my nurse friend had got a man yet. I considered for a while, then said no, she hadn’t, as I realised I was not her “man”, only a friend. Alec.
Alec was a married man with children. His wife had been a nurse. When Alec explored his dream he described what he experienced as follows.
It was clear early on that the nurses represented my wife, but the rest of the dream was still beyond me. But as I imagined myself as the young boy I knew this was me. I didn’t like seeing that part of me. I had kept it covered up with pride over the years, but it was there and I was at first ashamed to see this childlike, dependent, emotionally hurt part of myself. It was because I related to my wife in this dependent, childlike way that the dream showed me holding him. My father had never really been a man for me and the child me was desperately in need of knowing that strength. The boy’s question was a turning point for me. In fact my wife didn’t have a ‘man’ yet because I was still moving toward real manhood. But suddenly I felt what the little girl in the dream meant. I said to my wife, “You’re the little girl in the dream. Do you see? Every time I get back to my warm sexual feelings I’m a little boy again, because I haven’t really grown up sexually yet, and that scares you. Whenever my weak side shows, you feel really threatened so you attack that part of me. It’s because you need a strong daddy, and every time I show my weakness it triggers the little girl in you whose daddy was weak. He never grew up, so you never had a strong man for a father. That’s why you married me. Okay, I am strong enough now to be your strong daddy like I am in the dream.”
There was more to the problem though. Why did my wife’s little girl trigger my withdrawn little boy? I enter into into this. I remembered how, when we had separate beds, I had often wanted to masturbate but had stopped in case my wife heard. I realised how much I wanted to hide my masturbation from her. At the same time I realised how I easily stood before her naked and with an erection, so what was this problem over masturbation? Of course, it was mother again. My mother had given me hell over masturbation as the disapproving mother, and when my wife got into her “downing” role I saw her as the disapproving manhood killing mother again, and was deeply repulsed by her. I am not going to be killed again by/mother/wife, so I will cut off from her and will give my manhood to women who do not kill me.
Child dying or dead: One dreamer said, “I saw him jump off a bridge to his death.” This occurred at a time when her young son was making his first moves toward independence, and it was a difficult thing for the mother to face – the loss of her son. So it can easily be shown as the death of ones child in a dream.
When a mother or sometimes a father sees their child leaving them it is like the death if one part of their life. A parent has been everything for their child for years, has told them what to do or even ordered them, and when a child begins to make its own decisions or leaves home to go to college it is the end of a long period and can be shown as the death or even murder of their child.
Another women describes it differently as follows:
‘I am standing outside a supermarket with heavy bags wearing my Mac, though the sun is warm. My daughter and two friends are playing music and everyone stops to listen. I start to write a song for them, but they pack up and go on a bus whilst I am still writing. I am left alone at the bus stop with my heavy burden of shopping, feeling incredibly unwanted.’ Mrs F
Mrs F was dreaming about her young daughter leaving her, and she has to grieve it, almost like a death.
Example: A male reporter who was interviewing my wife and I about our work ended by asking us about the meaning of a nightmare he experienced the previous night. In it he was walking arm-in-arm with his wife across fields, followed by his four year old son. Looking back he saw his son fall into a small but deep hole. He ran to help, but the child had disappeared under water in the pit, and he was tormented by the decision of whether to jump in himself – he might be killed by the fall. Then his son was out of the hole, his heart faint but still beating.
The man was deeply anxious in case the dream had predicted the death of his child. This may seem ridiculous if one has not had such a dream, but the strength of emotions in nightmares tends to create anxiety in even the most rational minds. The original scene, however, depicts marital togetherness, which led us to tell him the dream was about a recent threat to his marriage rather than his child. Astonished he confirmed his marriage had hit a bad time, and he was fearful of the survival of the relationship. “But” he said, “why did I dream about my son?” The reason is probably because the son represents what has been created by their life together. There may also be the added association of the son being a factor which bonds the marriage, and a threat to the son would mean less mutual bonding.
Holy child: This miraculous child is a symbol of the Self that literally “depresses” the ordinary human being, even though it is the only thing that can redeem him. In many works of art the Christ child is depicted as, or with, the sphere of the world, a motif that clearly denotes the Self, for a child and a sphere are both universal symbols of totality. When a person tries to obey the unconscious, he will often, as we have seen, be unable to do just as he pleases. But equally he will often be unable to do what other people want him to do. It often happens, for instance, that he must separate from his group-from his family, his partner, or other personal connections-in order to find himself. That is why it is sometimes said that attending to the unconscious makes people antisocial and egocentric. As a rule this is not true, for there is a little-known factor that enters into this attitude: the collective (or, we could even say, social) aspect of the Self. (A quote from Jung’s writing.)
The miraculous or holy child is a symbol of your whole self – your waking self and the parts of you that you never have been aware of – Jung calls it the Self. This Whole Self as always is both benevolent and malefic; like life it is both the light and the darkness, male and female, creative and destructive – but the Whole is the balance between the opposites and is often shown as the sun, or Christ – the cosmic man. But man in these cases refers always to mankind, both female and male.
The image is made up of all human life
Here is a modern image of the same huge being. It depicts the meeting of the one individual with what lies behind it – the cosmic mind. Again made up of the many, all human lives.
Useful questions: What is happening to this child in the dream, and what, as an allegory, does that suggest about my relationship with my own inner child? Is this about my relationship, showing how we are triggering each other’s childlike responses? If I imagine myself as the child what do I feel and how do I describe myself. (See Stand in Role under peer dream work for help with this ). See Stand in Role – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Easy Dream Understanding
Comments
I drempt that i had a daughter but she had passed away years ago and i could not remember her at all. I was crying and saying how i cant remember her. Like i had blocked her out because the memory was painful. Another part of my dream i drempt i saw my ex from years ago and she had a daughter who i thought was mine.
Ryan – Sometimes we can identify what the dream daughter represents by using https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
But it may be a couple of things. The first is that men dream of having daughters. Forgetting a dream daughter cold suggest you have denied or repressed a female part of you; and of course it would lead to sadness. See https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-anima-the-female-in-the-male/
Or it sometimes happen that a daughter wanted you to be parent.
“It happened three years before the birth of her first child, when she and her husband were driving home to Montana after a Christmas trip. In her own words:
“I thought a car was coming toward us so I swerved, over-corrected, went into a spin on the snow and flipped over, and landed on our wheels in the Stillwater River.
“J. tried to paddle the car with the snow shovel but we were in a small whirlpool and just went around in circles. He climbed out the window into the river and got the spare tire out of the trunk for me to float on. He swam for shore and I tried to push off from the car on the tire. Unfortunately the tire was attached, so that I couldn’t use it for flotation as it was going down with the car. By this time I was ready to give up, death seemed a treat (I thought I would see my mother again). J. hollered at me from shore and then seemed to disappear under the ice. I resigned myself to an easy death.
“Then I heard, ‘But I haven’t even been born yet!’ This didn’t seem relevant at that time, but a hand or force or whatever seemed to grab me by the collar of my jacket and much as a cat carries a kitten, propelled me to shore. Later, when we had broken into a cabin and were running out of energy, I woke up and seemed to hear the same admonition — “I’m not born yet.” We were rescued in the morning.
“Three years later my son was born. The first night I was home with him he woke in the night to be fed. As I nursed him I had a vision back into the past of my mother, grandmother and so on nursing their children, and I felt connected to this pattern or plan. Then I knew it was my son who had spoken the night of the accident.”
Such things happen often – so maybe the daughter your ex had was this girl wanting to be born?
In my dream I was looking my child although I didn’t have any child in real world. I think I knew he was an adopted child. I thought the child was kidnapped and I was searching the kidnappers’ place. I was crying while I was searching and felt guilty about this.
Cansu – There is no need to feel guilty, because while we dream we exist in a completely different world/dimension. In the world of dreams whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.
In this dream world, every feeling and thought changes and creates different environments and events. So, because you related to the child and the event as if it was the same as if it was happening in the waking world of your body, your thoughts that the child was kidnapped or was adopted led to feelings that made you cry.
But everything you dream about is yours, your creation, so the child is yours too, but was made difficult because your thoughts that it couldn’t be yours created the difficulty. A dream child is a sign that you have or are developing a new aspect of your personality – maybe a new talent or approach. So, take are of this new part of you.
I had a dream i found a young boy, i was upset he was all alone and set about cleaning and feeding him. I then put him down for a sleep in my parents bed. I watched him sleeping and wished i could keep him. I woke missing him.
Hi – It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/news/summing-up/ and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/ which has so much information in.
Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practising what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/
Tony
Paulla – If you think about it, in the natural world virtually every living thing seeks a mate and has offspring. It is innate in women to dream of being creative and having a child in their dreams. So I believe that such a child is a very real part of you – though an inner and not always an outer part. It is because you are a female mammal and females are designed to have children – it is instinctive and unavoidable to at least dream of creating a child.
But you didn’t give birth and you did not claim the child as your own. That might be because you have feelings about birth. But your feeling of missing him is also because of the values you take in from the world you life in. Most of us interiorise our morals or beliefs into our dream life. In other words we take as a truth that what is important outwardly is as important inwardly. In other words you are as upset by a dream as if it had actually happened in waking life. Such mistakes make us feel things that are ridiculous.
Every thing in your dream belongs to you. So the boy child of your dream is yours; you created him out of your longings and love, so don’t desert him now.
I had a dream where me and my 2 sons 5 years old and 6 weeks old and my 5 year old sister in law were walking down a busy street. My sister in law had took of running and i was screaming telling her to come back so i tried running after her and then she disappeared, Then when i stopped to look back at my sons, my oldest is throwing my younger son up in the air and hes falling on the concrete he picks him up and does this again. A car stops looks at the boys and stares at me judging me. When i run up to the boys and pick up my little son and look at him his face is blurry, then i woke up. What is the meaning of this
Hi – I am stopping from answering your posts fully – but will try to give hints; sometimes long ones because I quote from masses I have already put online. Also I need to take time to update the site – dreamhawk.
It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/
Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practicing what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPersonOrThing or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/
Tony
I am guessing about this one, but did you even get hurt when you were about 5? Because the dream suggests you are now becoming aware if the past and are trying to deal with it. Try using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPersonOrThing
Hello!
Last night my girlfriend had a dream that I’m curious about. She had a dream that she was on stage at a concert, being given edible mushrooms from a guy on stage who later died (she did not see death but was told about it). She said that she was married to a little boy and that everyone was judging her but she didn’t care because she loved him. That’s really all I’ve got and it’s not too much to work with but if you have anything I’d love to hear! Thank you in advance!
Hi – I am stopping from answering your posts fully – but will try to give hints; sometimes long ones because I quote from masses I have already put online. Also I need to take time to update the site – dreamhawk.
It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/
Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practicing what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPersonOrThing or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/
Tony
The concert shows you with a big section of you aware of what is going in within you. The mushrooms may suggest magic mushroom that enable people to enter their inner world. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/#MakesInner
Your girlfriend in dreams usually represent parts of you you cannot recognise, because it might be you
cannot recognise what they are saying. It is saying that the male you relate to or will relate to, is, no matter what his physical age is, is emotionally a little boy. See http://dreamhawk.com/relationship-sex/ages-of-love-2/
I had a dream, a baby said…Mama, Kuya was hitted and suddenly I woke up. I don’t know this baby called me Mama and said that his Kuya, my eldest son was hitted. I don’t know what kind of my son hitting by…
I had a dream where I was stomping on mice, crushing them under my feet. There were also small kangaroo mice which were harder to kill. Then I picked up a bat and a voice in my dream egged me on to beat a puppy to death. I kept beating it with a bat but it wouldn’t die. The voice was mean and kept telling me to kill it.. Then the puppy turned into my 5 yr old son. The voice said to keep hitting him. To kill him. I kept hitting him on his torso and head, trying to kill him. Then stopped and said I don’t want to do this anymore. My son said to me, “I don’t want you do do it anymore either”. The voice said to kill him. I woke up crying.
Socorro – Your crying was a point of change as the conflict about your killing was met.
But understand your dream, nearly always when people dream about someone they know or a strange new person or situation they automatically believe the dream is about that person, situation or animal. But when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them. So dream images are ways of communicating via our associations not actual things or people. In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream.
The mice and other small creatures were all vulnerable and couldn’t hit back; the small son was the same. But the dream is showing you trying to kill out your own vulnerable feelings, probably because when you were young and vulnerable you were hit and it left you feeling that you it was awful it feel like that, and you wanted to stop/kill such feelings.
You need to turn your anger – in imagination – to whoever did that to you.
Tony
My mom had a dream of me as a baby and as an adult (my younger self and older self standing next to her and she was in the middle) I was trying to get an answer for her what it might mean.
In my dream I had walked out a jungle like area and was staring at a metropolitan type of city, but the outskirts of the city were older and forgotten,and it was all surrounded by water .I had began to fly(more like floating actually) towards the big metropolitan city but then I saw a young boy around 5 years old playing by himself, I didn’t want to stop but I just couldn’t fly anymore I don’t know why. So I landed near him on a concrete slab, and on that slab was a spider so to get away from it I jumped onto the slab the boy was on. But on that slab was at least 50 of the same spiders , as I kept trying to avoid them, one of them but me on my palm. The reason I couldn’t fly anymore I think was because I had to use the restroom in real life which made me have to use it in my dream, because while flying I realised I had to be relaxed to fly. So I had to use the restroom and this is when I woke up, what can you interpret about my dream, or the boy in my dream
In my dream we were all in a house that I did not recognize. There were many children and I had gotten them to bed. Originally everything seemed fine, then it turned into a nightmare. 6 of the children had been taken. I was searching frantically for them. I woke my husband (in the dream) and told they were gone. I looked behind a curtain, no kids, in the linens on the bed (there was one bed for everyone to sleep, sort of 13th century japan) as I searched a stuffed animal (a cow) was laughing hysterically and saying look under the bed. I woke up screaming where are the 6 children. I was terrified when I woke up. That was at 11:45 p.m.
I had a dream this morning I found a male child about age 1 wondering around near my home in the street. As a mother myself who is pregnant currently with my second child I was very upset to see this child unsupervised in the middle of the road. After several.minutes of debate over what to do b/c I had no clue where he came from or who he was I took him.home with me. My husband arrived home from work & I told him what was going on. I then woke up b/c of the alarm clock. So weird….I felt nurturing towards the child but nervous & anxiuos to return home from where he came from. I just didn’t want to upset anyone by just taking him. But I couldn’t leave him alone to wonder in the middle of the street.
in my dream I saw 2 kids. whom I do not recognise. They both were continuously following me everywhere in my house. no matter what I do, they just won’t leave me. I punched them couple of times but still they followed me laughing. and they could walk through objects and also through walls. what’s the meaning of it????
Dear Keshab Thapa – Your dream may reflect two aspects of your inner child that you try to leave behind and you become aware that because they are a part of your inner nature that there is no point in trying to get rid of them.
You do not recognize these inner aspects in your dream and why would you want to get rid of something that you cannot see as a part of you yet?
To explore that question please use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson for your own dream figure in your dream.
Also please do remember that whatever you resist, persists.
Walking through walls may reflect the will and ability to break through or overcome some barrier or obstacle in your (inner) life; there is nothing that can stop you.
What happened in your life that you do not want that approach (anymore)?
Can you imagine acknowledging, integrating and transforming this child-part of yourself without throwing the “kids” out with the bathwater?
You can use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson too for exploring these 2 kids in your dream.
What does it feel like being these kids?
How do they perceive being punched?
What makes that they are not easily discouraged?
How do they perceive objects and walls?
When you have a feeling understanding of this part of your inner world, then you can use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/ to become aware where you use “their approach” in your waking life. (Not recognizing these 2 kids in your dream may reflect that you do not recognize your own behaviour, it is still unconscious.)
Often looking at “how you do things” without judging it, will transform it; your conscious interference is not needed for transformation.
Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/autonomous-complex/
Anna 🙂