Hand

Most frequently dreamt of part of body. It depicts how you express yourself in action or relationships; your grasp of life, of ideas, of opportunities. It shows the way you hold on to – or let go of – people, your children, situations – this is why people are handcuffed to take away their power. The hand is an extension of your power – to give, take, wound, heal, support or do. Sometimes it is hands we reach out to protect ourselves or others. With our hands we touch other people and the world around us.

The hands express the full range of human emotions and desires. Everything from violence to the tender caress, or skilful surgery or creativity, are manifest through the hands. Here are some examples: He clutched at my hand – I put my hand over the receiver – She had her hand on my butt and pinched hard – He caught my hand and begged me silently to listen to him – The woman tries to hand me a purple composition book – they are second-hand  – Staff in hand I smash it down – I reached the cot and put my hand out to smooth the sobbing a little – The woman next to me keeps trying to hold my hand –– My dog took my right hand firmly in his mouth and led me.

Fingers: More than anything else it is through the fingers you feel and explore the things around you . Although your eyes allow you to see the world, it is with your fingers you take hold of it, work with it, create or destroy.

Fingers can be expressive of your feelings. It can be the finger of scorn; accusing finger; finger of suspicion; beckoning finger, or to put your finger on something and therefore know something about it.

Fingers represent your grasp on things, your method of materialising yourself, or leaving your mark upon matter. Therefore your personal skills.

The thumb is the jewel in the crown of the human hand. Without the thumb the human hand is nothing but a grabbing and holding thing. The thumb has the characteristics of personal identity.  The thumb in essence is a symbol of status, of human status. It depicts our personality, our uniqueness and what mark we leave on the world in living our life. Its strength shows what makes us stand out. Its weakness depicts the characteristics leading to our merging into the crowd. So it indicates ones standing in connection with other human beings, where you place yourself or where others place you because of their relationship with you.  The thumb is an indication to how assertive a person is, whether they are able to express themselves satisfyingly during their life, and how capable they are of influencing and mastering the environment around them.

The finger can represent the penis, as is common use in sex-play: or your means of sensing. or fingering things. Fingers can, as the wedding ring finger, suggest something like marriage. The finger print also denotes your uniqueness.

The fingers had a life long before human beings existed. They lived, they were part of life on this world; and they had to do with the gaining of greater control over food and movement. They are not peculiar to human beings. Their past is something we have taken up, we have carried forward, we have added to and shifted flexibility in the thumb. But the fingers were there, delicately shaped, and formed. They were already waiting for us to take them and glorify them.

The dog or the cat could pick up its babies and carry them and move them around but the ape can pull its fleas out. It can hold a stick and manipulate in quite a different way, and this is the fingers this is what the fingers built, this is the platform from which we are able to touch the world, move it direct it in a different way.  This past is still here in our hand. The fingers are the lengths they are because of the way our forebears or whatever creatures that we arose from, used them. They are the connection that we have with them.

There is a quality in the fingers relating to the physical world, with changing things, with being able to manipulate, being able to create, to take hold of the world and reshape it in an enormous variety of ways, much more so than other creature.

The first finger: Is what we point with and suggests directing ones power or influence outwards. It is what we delicately hold things with using our thumb. This is the finger we point with, it is a directive finger, it can even be rude to point with this finger because it is representative of us and our ego.

The second finger: Ninety nine percent of the time  this finger is the longest on the hand. It tells us of the conventional side of the character, the ability the person has to respond to law, to rules. It indicates family, responsibility and the things we carry as responsibility in our life. What I am saying is the finger connects with things that have deep and fundamental origins within us and that provide the balance and certainty and in our life and which we must take care and responsibility of. It not being a digit that alone sees any action, but one that is always involved right in the middle of all the fingers activity. This finger to me shows the basis of a person, their makeup and the responsibility they can take on, the importance of their family and those things that are very much supportive within their life.

The third finger: This finger connects with our creativity. It is about what we externalise in our life and about our energy and our drive to create.  This is the expression of the person more in raw energy terms. When we look at the hand and see the tendencies within that character, whether they are physical or artistic in some way or intellectual, this finger represents really the expression of those tendencies, expression of creativity in whatever way the subject expresses themselves. Generally this finger is the third longest finger on the hand. So this finger is partly unconscious. It represents the unconscious, because as a physical aspect it is less determined than the thumb and first two fingers. It is more spontaneous, it has less to do with personal deliberation than the other part of the hand.

This finger is less deliberate and conscious than the thumb and the first two fingers, so in that sense it has to do with many of the interactions that go on between us and other people that are less deliberate, that are semi unconscious in a way. Many people don’t recognise those factors in their life, they don’t recognise the emotional factors or the social factors in their life that although barely conscious, are extremely powerful.

The fourth finger: It represents how we communicate ourselves to the outside world, our ability to be fluent in communication. If this finger is very long and well formed the person is good in communicating, in relationships and in interacting with people, it is about our relationships with people together with our communication.

Blood on your hands: Shows you have hurt or even killed an aspect of yourself. See Blood on Hands

Claw-like hands: Clawing, wounding ability.

Dirty hands: Dirty work; unclean activity; something you have been doing that has left ‘dirt on your hands’ – suggesting perhaps that you want to get rid of the influence it has left in your life.

Fingernails: These sometimes depict your ability to effect or change something, to grasp small things. They could also reflect your way of life such as rough physical work or otherwise, suggesting whether life has been hard or kind. Perhaps also your state of health. They might be weapons, or reflect your personal condition – i.e. dirty or cared for, whether you are ready to really use your hands.

Fist: Anger; restrained anger; threat; graspingness, selfishness, arrogance, aggressiveness, tension.

Handshake: Contacting an aspect of self; friendship; testing a relationship or gaining an impression of someone.

Left hand: The left hand – if you are right handed – are those supportive qualities, those strengths and traits that express in daily life underlying and making possible the action of the right arm. In other words they are the loyalties, the care and strength of support, almost unconscious energy we put into what we do with our right hand and arm – our outer activities. The left arm is the qualities that support outer activities and relationships. In a certain way it represent confidence, the absence of which would undermine all the external things we would be trying to accomplish.

Palm of hand: It is the most used form of contact with the world, with matter and work or creative action. The other side of the hand is the opposite of that, and suggests a none physical action or purpose. It is about the mental faculty of decision making of non physical activity. It can also been seen as a notepad on which you write memos.

Right handed: If you are right handed this indicates your active outgoing self, your conscious and capable skills such as you express with this hand and arm. It is the part of you obvious to others and yourself, your strength or lack of it. Injury or malformation of this arm indicates inability to be creative and productive in the outer world. It shows problems regarding manifesting or making real, what you wish or will to do.

Rough hands: Marks left by difficult or demanding experience; roughness in handling others.

Idioms: a bird in the hand; a free hand; an old hand; at the hands of; bite the hand that feeds; can’t put my hands on it; caught red-handed; change hands; don’t hand me that; eat out of the palm of your hand; firm hand; first hand; give me a hand; hand in; hand out; hands are tied; hands down; hands full; hands up; hand me down; hands off; hand over fist; hand to hand; hand to mouth; hard hand; have it in hand; helping hand; in good hands; hold your hand; in the hands of; lay my hands on; laying on of hands; lend a hand; like the back of your hand; open-handed; out of hand; out of our hands; raise a hand; second hand; upper hand; wash your hands of; burnt fingers; at one’s fingertips; snap one’s fingers; soil one’s hands; try your hand at; green fingers; have a finger in; itchy fingers; sticky fingers; fingers crossed; lay a finger on; point the finger at; get one’s finger out; fingers to bone.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am doing with my hands or fingers – is it creative, destructive, giving taking, etc?

What feeling, thoughts or attitude am I expressing with my hands, and how does that relate to my life?

What descriptive words are linked with my dream hand(s) – strong, big, hurt, small – and what does that say about what I am doing?

See Processing Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Martial Art of the Mind – Karma