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 Change – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex
Comments
I had a dream that I just woke from, where I would have and out of body experience and turn into a doll that comes to life. It wasn’t a negative dream at all, and did not have any violence or violent tendencies. I also revisited my husbands funeral, which happened 6 years ago, but it was in real time, the same age as I, as well as our son (who is now 6). I was alive (not a doll) during this portion of the dream. During that part, I was having trouble finding a seat at the funeral, kind of felt lost. After the music played, I walk up to see him, and wake up as He barely becomes visible laying in his casket.
I just had a dream that I was drawing outside my studio room, outdoors, where a bunch of stuff was cluttered around. My mother arrived and told me to do something so I got up and left for a moment, then I realized it was starting to rain when my mother was trying to catch a glimpse of what I was drawing. I worried about my things getting damaged, so I hurried to put things in my studio room. Some papers were drenched completely, including my drawing. Then, I grabbed hold of this beautiful porcelain doll and put her gently into my room, then I grabbed a plastic rose with a long stem and gave it to her, letting her know it was for her. She had white hair, but had a beautiful face.. since dolls relate to childhood, I guess I should mention yesterday I had a moment when I was crying over remembering when a teacher bullied me, then other memories flooded in about my hard times as a kid in school. Does this mean I was comforting my younger self?
It has been puzzling me all morning. I woke up and felt the strangest feeling. I dreamt me and some friends, whom I have never met in my life, were in a desolate land. More like a city that had been destroyed. I know there was more to the dream.. but all I can remember is this. We are sitting around talking after we have explored for a bit. A girl says “they brought back my grandmother from the dead.. I can’t believe it!” Another girl asks “but I thought they could only bring them back… Not with a voice though.” I am on a bench, by myself. Listening. I am holding a doll by the hand, the body hanging off the bench. It has a pretty dress, but I can see the face so clearly in my head… Her face, is that of a child. Like someone had ripped off her skin of her face and there was a bit of porcelain glass on her forehead… As if her face had been glass but was broken and underneath she was real…. I look down and I see her doll eyes move slowly toward me… I scream in horror and I see these images now. As if she had wanted me to see something. I see girls ieing.. in terrible ways.. and being hidden from the world forever. So there bodies will never be found and there loved ones will never know what happened to them…. I wake up with her face very freshly on my mind.
Dear Amber – Your dream may reflect your breaking through a barrier so that you can get in touch with your hurt inner child; http://dreamhawk.com/health-and-healing/inner-baby-and-child/
A desolate land and a city that had been destroyed may reflect the state of your inner world; how you feel and/or have felt.
Your friends reflect your unconscious inner resources that you have never met before and “they” provide you with the strength and ability to explore your inner world; http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/#MakesInner
If you feel up to it, you can continue to explore all the symbols in your dream: they all reflect something about you; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Anna 🙂
I had a dream where i died but it never showed me how i did, someone had told me. i was still on earth waiting to see what would happen, until a couple of days later i went to my front door and opened it and there was a small porcelain doll on a white bench right at the door and its hand started to reach out to me and my vision started to get fuzzy and i tried to turn around and tell my significant oter that i loved them but i couldnt walk. then i woke up. please explain this
Dear Jenna – I wonder if “someone” who told you that you had died and “your significant other” is the same person.
An intimate partner can be of help because he or she may be aware of what you perceive as difficult to feel and face and so avoid looking at; “my vision started to get fuzzy and I tried to turn around”.
When you stop expressing certain aspects of your selves – which may have its roots in your childhood – your dream can show that as the death of your own dream figure.
For many people, the emotional results of events in childhood have a paralysing effect in their present life. So if there is great fear or pain associated with the paralysis it would be worth seeking to get behind the fear or pain to its roots.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/health-and-healing/inner-baby-and-child/
Perhaps you feel like exploring your dream with the help of your significant other?
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/peer-dream-group/
Anna 🙂
I had a dream last night that me and a girl I don’t like met in a pub, we went to the toilet together and found a door that lead up a staircase. We ended up inside a life sized dolls house/town except it was abandoned. It was like these doll houses who had mechanical dolls in them used to be an attraction but now its was shut down and we were free to wander around the creepy/dark abandoned dolls town, but we felt like something didn’t want us there.
Does this have any meaning at all?
My very close friend (well more then a friend) had a dream. I was washing dishes and my other close friend (like a sister) was with me. My more then just a friend picked up my blue porcelain doll with a white hat and started joking around. He then took it outside to show someone? For now reason he thru it on the ground and the head broke of and part of the tummy. He came inside and showed my friend, she then told him i am going to be so mad cos my gran gave it to me and her gran gave it to her. I was so angry, but then we saw there is still a part of the tummy broken, Inside the tummy was a big blue gemstone with the finest silver we have ever seen. I said, i need to phone my mom, need to phone mommy!
Please bear in mind this friend of mind who had this dream is very special to me and we have a very close bond. He is also my boss, but that only happend later. Friends first then he became my boss. I am crazy about him, but not sure if he will ever feel the same about me.
Could you please help with this dream? It would be appriciated
I dreamt i was at a friend’s wedding at a house on a lake, the brides grandmother was mentally disabled and people were treating her weirdly, she kept trying to hug people, I spoke to her and asked her if she was enjoying the ceremony and whatnot. Me and her left the room to visit the bride, and she waited outside the brides room at the top of some stairs without her walking frame, and at this point I saw the room in 3rd person. There was a girl talking to the bride. Suddenly we all heard a thud and we thought it was a statue that had arrived late for the wedding, but when we got to the top of the stairs the grandmother had fallen, and she was a porcelain doll at the bottom with half her head missing. There was pandemonium. At this point I woke up and my childhood friend was there, I explained it all to him, and he calmly explained we were still in the dream, and we were sitting on a rock just opposite the house, on the outskirts of the lake. Then I was someone else being sold the house with my family, I had furnished it as a summer house and someone was attempting to break in, as they did in their youth so I just let them in. It was empty apart from the broken porcelain doll. Then I woke up again and all I could see was the grandmothers face, so I went to a bar where that same childhood friend was sitting with three of his friends I’d never met, but for some reason I was anxious to be there. I looked out the window and there was the house on the lake.
Last night I slept in my brothers room for the first time because my room has no bed and he slept with my mom. All night I kept having nightmare after nightmare, and the first three were all about dolls that came to life. The second and third ones were in the same room too, one I’ve never seen before with a rocking chair next to the closet. I remember them coming to life in each dream, and in the very last one a girl was calling me over and over but I was ignoring her and when I turned around she was a horrific face manifested In the closet door. She quickly changed back into a sweet looking face when she noticed I was paying attention, and she told me something, but I don’t remember. That was it.
Dear Claryssa – Unfortunately you do not mention how old you are and so I hope that the way I describe your dream will “fit your age”.
It is not always easy to give your “horrific” part a place in your inner life.
I am sure that what you perceive as “horrific” merely reflects a part of you that you have judged very negatively and therefore you are afraid of it.
Girls are often trained to be sweet and kind and so they learn to put what they perceive as their less kind and less sweet part in a closet and they learn to control these feelings when it breaks through the closet in some way: “She quickly changed back into a sweet looking face”.
The girl calling you over is like an inner call to look at this part of you that is not “a sweet doll” and accept it/her as a part of your inner world too.
It is good to be aware that even when you dare to experience feelings that are not “sweet” that you do not have to act upon it.
For instance you can be very angry at your brother and allow these feelings and decide not to hit him or hurt him in any other way.
On the other hand it is also good to be aware that not being sweet – or being willing to please others – may reflect your own needs more honestly and so you will be able to better take care of yourself.
Because the part of ourselves that we put in a closet is also called “our shadow” it may be helpful to read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-archetype-of-the-shadow/
Anna 🙂
I have been trying to find a good interpretation for this recurring dream/nightmare I have been having for the past few days… It involves a few different common dreams together.
In my dream I am forced to leave a school trip (due to extenuating circumstances) and stay with a distant relative (made up uncle perhaps) and his two children, my younger sister and a good friend. In the dream I am put in charge of watching the younger kids while the male figure has to go out and do something. The children are celebrating something, I believe a birthday and have many toys scattered around this nursery/room. As it slowly gets dark I begin to notice toys moving around. Specifically Dolls (really creepy old vintage ones) begin to cause problems and harm by throwing and breaking things. The male figure does not know and does not beleive me. Then the dream progresses and the Dolls begin to get closer to me as I am being chased around the room trying to escape them (at this point the dolls wish to cause bodily harm and have evil motives, possibly possesed). They are now close enough to scratch me and I cannot escape, then they begin to bite/eat me and then I wake up before more of them come (there is only one that makes it far enough to take a bite out of my leg).
Not sure what this means as there are many different meanings to being chased, eaten, and dreams involving dolls…. Any thoughts??? This is the third night in a row I’ve had it and I have had the exact dream similarly before (just not eaten)…
Thanks!
Dear H. Smith – “The male figure does not know and does not believe me” may reflect repression and denial.
Repression can be thought of as ‘motivated forgetting’: the active but unconscious ‘forgetting’ of unacceptable drives, emotions, ideas, or memories. Denial occurs when a person insists on a distorted interpretation of reality that excludes unpleasant realizations.
Because of your defence mechanisms you try to escape whatever drive, emotion, idea and/or memory the dolls symbolise.
Although repressed material is unconscious – it may surface in dreams – it is no less present and can lead to a range of psychological and physical problems.
Because I tend to believe that intention is everything, my thought is that it will serve a purpose to decide if you rather face “it”, whatever “it” is, or if you rather let it “eat away” at your strength and your physical and psychological health.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/evil/
Anna 🙂
I just had a dream where I was supposed to make this leap from a balcony type of floor to the ground level except it was still just a tad too high for me so I asked someone to put a giant seated barbie doll that looked almost like a chair underneath me so I could step down however the person constantly put the wrong doll in my path. One was a normal baby doll, the other was a smaller ‘chair barbie’ and I finally walked down some stairs passing by lots of people also waiting on me to set up the giant barbie chair myself. I finally went back up the stairs and never actually stepped down. Just stayed upstairs and spent time with the people up there. Very hard to explain….
I just had a dream I walked into work at Boston market, the windows where all steamed up n I got a weird vibe I waited for the employees and when they showed up we noticed this smell and the dinning room was torn apart. Paper towels n dirt thrown everywhere and I heard a chair move I looked down and there was a doll in a chair, she looked at me and said “yees” in this creepy voice. I got scared and woke up after this.
i dreamed my tv turning on and it was static then a creepy burnt doll baby was screaming and he was in a burnt barn the background was all black wood……creepyest thing ever
I just woke up from a dream where a doll was bound to my soul via a handwritten contract. The writer of the contract mislead me to sign the contract and was now attempting to steal the contract back so she could control me like a puppet. Her and her family previously tried to steal the doll back and there was a fight between our families. This time I was yelling for my family to help me but they would not come.
Dear Stacey – Because of the content of your dream I wonder if you believe or can relate to the idea of a so called “soul contract”; which concept serves as a guide for lessons you have chosen to learn on earth. The lessons could be related to a very difficult childhood.
Because you are everything in your dream, you are the writer of the contract and the woman who now feels she is “misled” to sign it, which perception could arise from a different level of awareness; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/levels-of-your-being/
Feeling misled could be a symbol for the conditioned reflexes that make you behave in a certain way; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/conditioned-reflexes-or-responses/
Stealing the contract back with the intention to control you like a puppet could reflect how a more natural part of you feels manipulated by the way you are programmed/conditioned and this can be the cause of an (unconscious) inner conflict.
Your (inner) family cannot help you because they reflect your inner programs; the values, attitudes and emotional or social responses you have absorbed from your family.
I hope these hints can give you a start in exploring your dream yourself http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson and/or with the help of someone else http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/peer-dream-group/
Once you have explored this dream, I trust that future dreams – when explored as well – will assist you on your inner journey.
Do remember though that a dream is something that comes from a deep part of you; it is something that is working upwards toward being conscious. As such it often, like a seed, takes time to break through to the surface, and then it has to grow. Therefore dreams are often not recognised for their full meaning until later; sometimes months or even longer. The dream images are attempts to communicate something that has probably never been thought about or even been consciously thought about, so has never been put into common conscious thinking before. It is a communication from the depths, from beyond thought, and so any interpretations that are given by thinking may completely miss the point.
But the source of the dream, which is a process of Life, is intelligent in its own way, and will take part in any attempt to communicate. So exploring your dreams by entering into their imagery and attempting to understand them will be a two way process.
Anna 🙂
I had a dream that I was making a doll. I had got the materials, sown then together, and I stuffed the doll with bandages. When I finished I seen some strings hanging out, some holes that were opened because they were not sown right, and I still didn’t have a head. One part of the leg busted opened when I moved the doll. I was looking for scissors, but couldn’t find any. And I told myself in the dream that I would finish later fixing the doll. Then the doll woke up, and for some reason it had a head. It started yelling trying to get people to notice it, and instead everybody around me made loud noises, so that noone would here the doll yelling.
Dreamt last night that I was supposed to go to one place to get a very important stuff then when I opened the door there was a giant doll guarding it. At first it didn’t seem to move so I walked in then all of a sudden it turned its head and body and was about to attack me so I have to run away very quick. Then I woke up, the dream is still fresh until now while I’m writing this.
Dear Ice – Are you aware in the dream what the “very important stuff” is?
Opening a door is a very powerful thing to do and if you take the trouble to understand what the giant doll signifies then you might become aware that it represents one of your (childhood) emotions and fears that you perceive as too big for you to handle; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
When we are young we manage to protect parts of ourselves from experiencing more pain than we can deal with, but at a certain point in life the solution might become part of the problem, when we still believe/feel/sense that we are not equipped to deal with whatever is “stored” behind the door.
The doll moving might indicate that you become aware of repressed e-motions that you perceive as difficult to handle and so you run from them; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/defence-mechanisms/
It might take some practice to learn to allow; http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/#Open
Was any of this helpful to you and if so what? Any feedback is appreciated.
Anna 🙂