Doll

This frequently represents yourself when you were a baby, or at least, your feelings when young.

Many dreams including a doll show it being savagely beaten or injured. In this case it could show you how hurt you felt in your own childhood, or perhaps it means you are angry and need a target that will not hit back. Occasionally, in a woman’s dream it could mean you want to be cared for like a precious doll.

Many ‘doll’ dreams are, as the example, using the doll as a target for violence. This may refer to how the dreamer felt as a child when smacked or attacked emotionally – like a helpless doll.

It could also be a means of displacement for anger or feelings the dreamer would like to discharge on another. See also: toy; cuddly toy.

Example: ‘She continues to attack him and to my horror and feeling of helplessness, his head comes off. But the neck is made of some sort of material with a string hanging off it, and I realise it is a doll’s head.’ Mr R. H.

Many dolls are used to express a desire to have a baby.

Dolls can also express the way we feel about the past, or represent different people – Mum and Dad, brother or sister. We use them to act out or experience things we might not be able to do in daily life. Using a doll in the dream frees us from any guilt we might feel if we really expressed our real feelings.

Example: And then last night, I dreamt that I had really long hair, which I have had, but now it is shoulder length; and then I went to put it in a braid because it was all in the way, and easily tangled. Instead I cut it all off, unevenly… I looked like a bald Barbie doll, varying lengths of pieces sticking every which way, and a shiny bald spot on the front. But I wasn’t upset, just a bit confused why I cut it off, because I liked it long.

In the above dream the person had recently gone through a massive transformation and the dream shows her uncertainty of how she sees or feels about herself.

Sometime a desire to return to wonderful days of childhood or a part of you that needs to be brought to life.

Example: In answer to this rather truculent question the patient flared up. “You fool, how do you think I can give it to myself? Can I go back and make my parents rich? Can I take back the doll my sister stole; can I go to school without those awful holes in my dresses—ashamed, ashamed of everything I had and was? Oh, God, oh, God, it’s frozen in time, like a fly buried in amber, and nothing can ever change it. As long as I live that little girl will go on wearing her coat to hide her dresses. As long as I live that hateful woman will always be turning away, cold and disapproving. Nothing can save that girl, nothing!”—and now she ‘was sobbing quietly for the past she could not change.

The rupture between the patient’s ideal of herself and the facts that shattered it was eventually healed, but her dilemma points up a fact that all of us face. Reality can seldom be bent to our dreams for ourselves, either the reasonable ones or the unreasonable ones that could never possibly be achieved. Our hopes are too big for it. Every life bears its residue of unfulfilled dreams, and every parent looks to his children to satisfy them. See Opening to Life

Example: I noticed a large rag doll on the floor. I seemed to know the doll belonged to Joan, and was unconsciously used as a substitute for her deep longing for a son. I held out my hand to the doll, with love, and it came alive and crawled to me. It came to me as a lonely child might come into ones arms hungering for love. I held it close to me, and Joan came over and I held her too. Then all barriers seemed to melt, and everything disappeared from view. All that existed was I as a united being and consciousness. It was, I think, beautiful. I used the word think, because I find it difficult to describe the experience. We melted into each other beyond the sense of being separated by the surface of ones skin If one literally entered during sexual intercourse, and melted together like drops of water uniting, this is how it would be.

 

Useful questions and hints:

In my dream what feelings are there connected with the doll?

In what way is the doll being handled or used.

What does the condition of the doll express?

See Every 7 Years You ChangeSecrets of Power DreamingAutonomous Complex

Comments

-Nwe Oo Khin 2018-06-04 18:32:13

Iast night i dreamt about doll.In my dream I was being a berbie doll.what means for me.please tell me about dream meaning.

    -Tony Crisp 2018-06-06 9:32:45

    Nwe – A Barbie doll is often used, but it can have several meanings which only you can know – you find out by using https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson

    It could mean you are being used like a toy instead of a person by a man. Or it could mean you treat yourself like a doll, beautiful and made up.

    I’m a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world
    Life in plastic, it’s fantastic!
    You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere
    Imagination, life is your creation
    I’m a blond bimbo girl, in the fantasy world
    Dress me up, make it tight, I’m your dolly
    You’re my doll, rock’n’roll, feel the glamour in pink,
    Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky.

-Kookie 2018-05-08 11:08:09

What does it mean when you dream of a doll that changes it’s expressions but don’t move or talk?

-Ellie 2018-01-31 16:00:12

Last night I had a dream that i accidentally got pregnant after 2 months of being with someone and i had the baby. I cannot remember for sure if it was a boy or a girl. I remember feeling like a very nervous mother, the baby was so small and fragile and i was scared i wouldnt be able to look after it properly. I remember leaving to go to the train station and when i got there, i realised i had left the baby at home. I rushed home and when i got back the baby was on a conveyer belt, like at a supermarket. When i pulled back its blanket it was wrapped in, the baby was a plastic doll. I remember being confused but tried not to panic, putting the plastic doll into its pram. I was going to leave for the train station again but i remember thinking “i cant go on the train like this. What if someone looks in the pram and sees my baby is a plastic doll” and thats all i remember

    -Tony Crisp 2018-02-05 13:47:28

    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

    Ellie – The dream seems to be about your concerns and desires to have a baby. The dreams theme is that you are uncertain that you are scared of the responsibility of caring for a baby. In large families girls often learn such mothering skills by caring for younger siblings. But it sounds like you never had the opportunity to care for a baby.

    The way you deal with is to leave the baby at home. But that wasn’t satisfying so you returned and found a plastic doll; such dolls are what young girls at first learn to care for a baby.

    But Ellie, don’t feel bad about the things that happened, because dreams are ways we can practice and learn important life lessons, and a big lesson in caring for another being. After all, you had the baby, and so you were faced by the difficulty of caring for it – and that is what dreams are for, to teach you something – for dreams offer us as many chances as we need, they are not for punishment.

    So use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ and get back in your dream imaginatively and play it over and over until you feel satisfied.

-Vesna 2017-10-01 7:36:24

Hi
I had a dream about a haunted doll.
The doll was black nothing else. Her skin was black, her hair was black basically everything. She had a long hair and a long dress and i think she wore a hat too.
What does this dream mean?

-We'am Ahmed 2017-08-13 23:45:17

This may seem irrelevent,but earlier I dreamt I was taking a shower in an old dirty bathroom.The shower head was broken but it still would produce warm water out.So I opted for washing myself using a bucket,and in the process of this,I saw two dolls with super long hair just behind the shower.Their faces was covered with their long wet hair.What does that mean?

-Ashlee 2017-07-30 4:51:22

I’ve been having this dream, where my favourite doll when i was young (still have it in my room now) Is kind of alive and always have 3 people standing around my doll and telling me to treat my doll well and she’ll treat you and they were giving me steps on what to do. If I don’t do these my doll will be upset. Ive been having this dream every night (different scenario) for the past 3 weeks.

-Alex 2017-07-28 8:04:40

I had a dream that i found a doll that looked like someone i know, it was wearing a white dress also. I have yet to find any information on dolls representing friends so any info would be appreciated. Sorry for only a few details, it’s all i remember. Thanks!

-Olivia 2017-04-17 14:11:24

Hi, I’m Olivia and I’m 14. Last night I had a really long dream but I have most of it figured out, just not this one part. I was in someone’s house with a friend, and that person went to the bathroom. For some reason my friend and I really needed some of the stuff in this person’s house, so instead of asking, we stole it. We were quickly going around gathering stuff when I came across two dolls. I got really excited because they were dolls of my idols. (danisnotonfire and amazingphil on youtube) (here is an image of them so you know what they look like: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0543/9945/products/Photo-Poster.jpg?v=1410436845) So, I waved my friend over and she told me to take them, so I did, but once I turned around, the doll representing Phil (which before he had black hair and blue eyes) now had blonde hair and brown eyes. The doll representing Dan now had black hair and green eyes. I told my friend, “This isn’t Dan and Phil!” And I quickly put them back, but when I did, they looked like they originally did again. I didn’t take them in the end, and the dream didn’t stop there, but like I said all I needed to figure out was this part. Help?

    -Tony Crisp 2017-04-18 6:29:55

    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/ 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

    Olivia – You say you have understood the first part of you dream, but didn’t say what it was. Actually, I doubt if you have got to the depths of its meaning. Unfortunately few people understand that their feelings are not their own, so they take them personally – I feel – I love – etc. You, like all mammals, have an intense instinctive push to start looking for a mate. Not only is it instinctive, but also it has been largely shaped by influences from ones family nearly everyone is unaware of.

    The person who went into the bathroom is you. 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.

    You were seeking to get clean – the bathroom. Then the need to get things that re not yours – like the instinctive urge that is not entirely yours. You find the dolls that are a form of not real love. A thumb suck.

    In the end they show you that, because as soon as you really deal with them you see they are no the reran thing. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/#mammalbrainhttp://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/animal-children/#Programhttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/

-Mimibernal 2017-03-04 15:30:29

Had a bad dream of possensed doll of me and my fiance it was harming us.In my dream I couldn’t get anyone to hear me out about dolls.when they were finally able to noticed them we found away to kill them ,snapping their heads off.but they kept getting lifeBack. When I woked up my whole body was tired like if the dream was real.

-Jessica 2017-02-02 23:26:29

I keep dreaming I’m eating a tiny vantage doll. I snap the legs off and chew them up they are crunchy. I know it’s going to taste bad, because in the dream I remember eating one before it’s a disticnt taste I remember it when awake. When I think of it while awake it makes me want to puke!

-Ahimsa 2017-01-09 6:19:03

Thank you for sharing this information.

My dream this afternoon is like most can describe as “odd”, and very disturbing.

It starts with me nearly having an intimate experience at home with one of my colleagues (who I should add, is the most introverted abs mysterious of the team. And while I find him physically attractive some days, I am not interested in him romantically).

He and I are engaging in whatever intimate things were going on, which at this point I recall being more sympathetic touching than anything sexual. I turn my head, turn back, and he’s now lying on the bed in the form and size of a barbie doll but it appears to be a female doll, whose head is wrapped in tin foil and whose limbs are mutilated, with blood even. I pick up the foiled head and it’s blood from the back is warm. The limbs are now separated and I can pick them up in individual pieces.

Suddenly he reappears as himself, but in medium sized form, and is solemnly sitting on the edge of the bed.

Then I wake up.

In “real life”, this is someone I rarely talk to. I also am 6 weeks pregnant with my significant other and know that this is adding an element of strangeness to my dreams.

    -Tony Crisp 2017-01-09 9:25:29

    Hi – I must take time to upgrade the dream dictionary, so must halt from answering your posts – I started revising it in 2006, and haven’t neared the end yet. I believe someone else may start giving interpretations.

    So, for a while I urge you to read http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/i-am-no-longer-interpreting-dreams/ – It describes ways that can help you. And often it would help if you looked at http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing

    Tony

    Firstly when you think about a friend or a person you meet, you are only taking in your thoughts, impressions and feelings about them. So many people do not realise that they have an inner person equally as powerful as the external person you know. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by meeting or living with them, and they are what makes you the person you are.  The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event.

    So the man represents the most introverted and mysterious part of you. It sounds as if you have not dealt well with that aspect of you. Maybe look at http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/

-Ery 2016-11-21 10:09:23

My dream was extremely weird and stupid. I had a dream in where I was in a relationship with Marilyn Manson and he had an obsession to make animal experiments and mutations, like trying to mix two totally different species and making them alive (sort of like a Frankenstein thing). I was made into a doll by him and was forced to marry him. I woke up. I don’t even know how or why I dreamed it. I haven’t even listened to his music so in a very long time. And the weirdest part is that everything was in stop motion “animation”. I never really dream any of these weird things. Does it mean something or..?

-Melissa 2016-08-20 16:52:53

okay I just had a dream where me and a friend moved in to a new apartment and it had an upstairs. the apartment already gave a weird creepy, vintage vibe but as soon as we went upstairs it got worse. there was other, about four or five of them, bedrooms upstairs and they were children rooms. several human looking dolls and plush toys occupied then on the floor and they were all sitting down facing the door. does that mean anything?

-Sommer 2016-08-09 20:30:54

I had the most disturbing dream last night. I was at a pool and saw a baby drowning. There was no one else around. I started feeling like this baby was mine, although I don’t have a daughter. I get her out of the pool which is like an inside YMCA type pool. I start doing Cpr and she starts breathing. I then get my phone which is on the side of the pool.. I start scrolling through it, lose sense of time…look back over a few minutes later, and the baby has shriveled down in size and had become a squeaky toy doll. I go to touch her and it squeaked! I was so confused and paralyzed… I woke up.. I have no idea what to think of this strange dream. Please help me!

-Minh 2016-07-13 13:23:16

I seldom dream these days, but I had one yesterday. Was having a baby on my hand, cuddling; and out of a sudden I realize it was a doll. Then as I flip the baby’s hair behind the ear, I found a wireless earphone, which might function to spy for domestic conversation. I then ran out from my house to the police station. As I ran out, I woke up feeling real scared! till now…

    -Austin Robinson 2018-02-03 0:26:06

    Hello Tony. I had one dream including a dolls head.
    I was laying in my bed and I look to see that there is a blonde doll head infront of my mirror. I believe it started making faces and it scared me so I told it to stop. It made a face to me through the mirror, as if disgusted and I said “just kidding.” And the doll just seemed angry. For some reason I felt the urge to scream for someone and as I tried, I couldnt. I have reoccurring nightmares where I try to scream but I can’t so at this point, I knew it was a dream. But instead of waking up, I dream of that I went to my moms kitchen and told her about the nightmare and she asked me if the doll had a smile on its face or a frown. Which, when she asked this, she mocked the dolls face. All I remember after that is me joking about her giving my a haunted doll. Well, I don’t really understand what this could mean. There is more to my dream from that night that I vaguely remember but that’s the only part that included a doll.

      -Tony Crisp 2018-02-06 11:50:11

      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

      Austin – Your urge to scream was probably stopped because you were experiencing what many people experience – paralysed while they are partially awake but dreaming. This may be due to the fact that voluntary movements are inhibited during periods of the dream process. All brain signals to the voluntary muscles are stopped. Therefore if we become slightly awake and attempt to move at that time we feel paralysed. This is not sensed as a problem if we are unconsciously involved in a dream. While dreaming another level of will takes control of the body, so any sounds or movements made are not from ones conscious will.

      While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we sleep and dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will, all that while we sleep and dream. As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories.

      The mocking doll was probably caused by your mother, as the dream suggests, by her playing with it with you and acting out the angry face. She had probably never seen that face before, and children are very sensitive to what their parents are showing them. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/sleep-paralysis/

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