Cradle Cradling

A cradle is something you have prepared to hold a baby – your baby perhaps. The mood of the dream tells you whether it is done with love or fears.

Cradling shows you giving care to whatever is cradled, supporting it – or conversely dropping it and offering nor care or support.

Example: I had a dream that I was at my parents home (my mom just passed away last year and her favorite place in the house was the kitchen). There was an infant baby on the counter in the kitchen that everyone just left. I found it and brought it into the living room where I placed it on by chest and cradled it. I told my family that this was the way I had cradled my oldest daughter when she was an infant. Then I woke up.

The dream tells me that when your mom passed she left something behind her that is very special. You found it because of your love and your feelings for your mother. And the baby wasn’t your mother, but something that was born out of everything that your mother left you. It isn’t a static gift but something that will respond to the love you give it, and will grow and thrive. You will gradually see it in things that appear in the way you see and respond to everyday life – the kitchen.

Example: Dreamt that a snake – a huge python—had raised me. I had the sense that it had cradled me in its coils when I was a baby, and that it had taught me without words how to survive. This was a sort of jungle/life wisdom.

Example: A pram and cradle are in the middle of a room. Then a strange woman runs in and says ‘She’s got a baby in here with all these creatures’. I see beetles, snakes and lizards crawling around, and a massive spider in a web. Then I’m a butterfly and the woman is a caterpillar. I fly to the web to destroy it, but am on the floor as myself again.  Melanie 14

An interpretation given to Melanies dream – I think you need to cultivate a feeling of wonder and beauty about what is happening to your body as a teenager, rather than accepting attitudes that there is something creepy crawly about periods. I say this because the pram and cradle show what is happening in the ‘middle’ of you to get ready to have a baby. This is what the butterfly and caterpillar refer to also, the transformation going on. Your hopeful and pleasurable feelings, represented by the butterfly, might get caught up in negative attitudes about womanhood presented to you, perhaps by your family, or others. Being aware of these can help avoid them.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the cradle a central part of the dream?

What are you cradling – or is it you being cradled?

What feelings are involved in the dream?

See – Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Associations Working With – The Dream as a Code