Marriage and wedding

Feelings about being or getting married; uniting two different aspects of yourself such as intellect and feelings, practical and intuitive self; the ‘marriage’ between conscious and unconscious self – any children of the marriage would be flowering of new abilities or qualities. But children of married partners can often indicate the state of the marriage, its problems of wonders.

Sometimes it refers to what our energy or drive is uniting us with – such as a new business venture or creative scheme – any children of this type of marriage suggest our intuitive assessment of the likely outcome.

There are many urges in a woman or man other than getting a good partner. There is also the urge to find recognition in society, to move toward independence, to find a comfortable place in life – probably alone, to achieve financial independence, or to have children.

In some cultures dreaming of a wedding signifies a death in the family.

But from the viewpoint of the unconscious marriage is not about a church or civil ceremony. As the most orthodox church Catholicism states, you are not married unless you have had penetrative sexual intercourse. If that has not happened there is no need for divorce because marriage never took place.

The unconscious sees it similarly. As soon as you have penetrative sex with anybody you have formed links that are not physically visible but make a form of marriage. But it has to be between a woman and a man, for marriage is a holy rite leading to the wonder of procreation, the giving of life, which is what we are all about being life forms; which is  holy, not because the church says so, but because Life itself is a holy mystery.  So a man can never be married in the true sense to another man, or a woman to a woman. They can have a civil ceremony but not a real marriage.

But although the point of marriage is procreation, in dreams the creation of a child still takes place as many woman and men have dream children – which is the birth of a new part of oneself. It is a bringing to consciousness a new part of you that has been developing but remained previously unexpressed. Such births need to be honoured even though there is no physical sign of a child. So the new dreamt baby is a vulnerable part of you that needs care to grow and become a real part of your waking life.

But from this viewpoint there are two types of marriage, the first is through sexual intercourse between a woman and man. The second is through a complete union of the whole couple. Some believe that the spiritual marriage comes through the agreement to abstain from sex which should be a free mutual decision, rather than resulting from impotence or the views of one party. But experience shows another view which arises as one is able to open one’s life to the divine within you. This leads to the full marriage which includes the body, the personality and the divine impulse.

Example: I was led into the experience of my merging with Divine Love in marriage – when I married P. Gradually I was led to realise that it wasn’t me and P. that were married, the marriage was between the duality if Life meeting itself in wonder and love. This went on to a visionary experience of knowing the birth of each of us was the birth of wonder, of light and transcendence. I realised that we are all then ‘put down’ by those who raise us, and so the light we are is dimmed to an extraordinary degree. And I carried this light to my own spiritual self and all the women and men – including my children – who I loved. This felt incredibly real as if they would realise for themselves that they are married to the Highest. Example: I wanted them in some way to share what I had experienced – that the most high had incarnated into us.  God was not outside of us.  We are it, living this strange, often difficult, but wonderful life.  To have experienced that divine union in myself in the images of the divine female and the divine male as we join in a wondrous union, still moves me deeply as I write this.  To be shown once more that I am, as we all are, an incarnation of that very mystery of life, is a very great gift.

Dreaming of wedding if single: As in the example below, Mary could equally as well have dreamt she was the bride, but being in her thirties and unmarried it is easier for her to consider or experiment with the idea of marriage using the image of her friend. Should she marry whoever offers? When single one often dreams of marriage as a way of clarifying – what it would be like; could one succeed in it; is the present partner okay; how shall one achieve it? Man dreaming of marriage: For a man marriage faces him with something quite different to a woman dreaming of marriage. It is a woman’s initiation, and a man may feel as if he has to give up his manhood. So he may be facing such fears in his dreams – although marriage is a meeting and often a merging with his feminine self. For a man it can also be intimating the uniting of his female characteristics. See hermaphrodite; archetype of the anima Marriage: When a woman and man marry, something that often happens is that the woman interiorises the man and feels she is now complete. She has her man in her life and in her. The man can do the same thing. That is fine when it works by them staying together faithfully. But if the man leaves the woman, or the woman leaves the man, because they had taken their partner into them to become whole, the leaving feels like something has been ripped out of them. It is a terrible shock. See Archetype of the Animus Wedding dress: Feelings and hopes about relationship and wedding; in a negative dream it represents anxieties about ones relationship or the future. Wedding dress given by mother: Qualities and strengths or problems absorbed from mother about relationship; letting go of external mother by expressing her qualities in the present. 

Example: I am at the wedding of my best friend. The groom doesn’t turn up and she decides to marry the first person who comes along. I wonder whether this is a good thing to do.’ Mary T. Example: When I was engaged to my present husband I dreamt we were married and I looked down at my wedding ring. It was twisted and bent. In fact I now see it as a warning because we have not made a good marriage.’ S.W. Example: I am a gay 20 year old woman. I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about four months now. Previously, she had been my best friend for six years. Last night, I dreamt that we were married. I didn’t dream of a honeymoon, or announcing our marriage, or even proposing or anything of that nature. In the dream, I just…knew that we were married. My girlfriend’s hair was significantly longer than it normally is, if that means anything. In the dream, she insisted that she wanted to have a baby, and she wanted to do it by becoming pregnant through a sperm donor. It was a little strange, because neither of us are really keen on the idea of having kids at all, much less actually becoming pregnant. We were both excited about it in the dream though. Example: It was the realisation that in the little community I live in I am the only single male. I am feeling, or guessing, that the other males here are curious about that. This led me onto spontaneous speculations about what this meant in my life and whether it was a problem I was not looking at. I saw that some of the women in my life have wanted me to be more fully involved as their partner. I sometimes puzzle why I don’t have the same need, or I don’t feel the same need in reverse. As I explored this it felt as if I didn’t want to be contained within a woman’s needs. It reminds me of the proprietorial aspect of male female relationships.

See: Integrating the female in the male; Integrating the male in the female; bride; bridegroom.

Comments

-ta 2014-09-22 13:41:53

I had a dream i was a brideman in my girlfriends wedding. We were trying to find her but one of our male friends continuously got in my way. All the brideman were looking everywhere for the bride,but all this guy wanted to do was dance with me. I finally got away from him to look for the bride,but still never found her. Please help, really confused

-cleo 2014-09-12 5:22:00

i just want to ask the meaning of my dream.ill ne getting married hopefully this coming december amd last night i dream that i married some guy that i dont even know and obviously not my fiamce.the scene is like im on church together with other people and with a blink of an eye the ceremony is done and i even have to ask if i get married then somepne said yes so the feeling is like i just accept it but what i noticed is that im not wearing a ring neither the guy that i marry what im only wearing is my engagement righ in real life thats on my right ring finger wherein im really wearing it on my left ring finger in real.and one of the weird thing that i remember is the guy seems like changing physically from fat it becomes tall and the last time is the guy’s lips gets some bliod while hes talking ti me and my sister but just a little blood i think when someone slap you hard

-Jacey 2014-09-04 19:27:03

I had a dream that I was getting married and instead of my fathers walking me down the aisle, my ex boyfriend (that I still have feelings for) walked me. I still got married, regardless of the objections my ex tried making. After getting married though, I could not stop thinking of my ex and how the marriage was a mistake. I have no idea who I married, and I’m thoroughly confused. I’m only 19 and I am single. Help?

-Fabiola 2014-08-15 14:09:55

I had a dream that I was at a party. Just friends getting together and I was talking to someone about how I had just made a decision. In my mind, in the dream it had something to do with my mother but next thing I know I’m married to my boyfriend and everyone is exited and celebrating. There’s no wedding dress involve, no actual planning involved, no church in the dream either. At the end of the dream I kept telling my (in the dream the groom) bf we need to go get our wedding license; and as we walked out of the place I was trying to vision myself with his last name. Through out the whole dream there was a feeling of peace and celebration; gracefulness and understanding. It was all so confusing! What do I make of this?!

-Shontella 2014-08-10 18:45:02

I had a dream last night that I was about to get married to my ex boyfriend, we broke up 3 years ago so it’s weird that I dream about him but he’s been appearing in most of my dreams lately. Anyway we were about to get married but I couldn’t go through with it because I didn’t want to be with him, I wanted to be with my current bf so I left the wedding and hid in a closet.

-Margaret 2014-08-03 2:00:43

A friend called go tell me she had a dream that I was getting married in a church. I am single, my friend lives in another country…

-nadiyah 2014-07-23 8:55:04

I had a dream that started positive but woke me in fear. I meet a man an we got along perfectly we worked through any obstacles. I was planning and event and I could change the colors of the curtains with my mind. It then turned into a surprise wedding. I was wearing a gray dress curtain were pink but my husband wanted dark coral. We waited for my children. I also had a flash back of a dream I had where I was delivering from my womb boatloads of live fish. I lied and my husband the dream was about dead fish and a the previous wedding was called off. On my wedding day I could not remember my 4 child’s name and I dont have a 4th childs name. Them my oldest son fell of the bleachers and was flattened but was screaming and trying to unflatten. I woke up distraught and upset

-Kay 2014-07-21 18:08:16

Hi Tony, I just read some of your interpretations, and would like too see of you could interpret this for me. I have been married for about 5 years now and have two little boys. We didn’t have church ceremony though. In my dream I’m getting ready to be married I think at my Mom’s house. I lock myself I’m the bathroom while the guest are waiting in the back yard for the ceremony. I’m pretending to do my makeup but mostly I’m just stalling. At first I don’t know who the groom is, later in the dream I see a glimpse of a guy I had a crush on in college, like 10 years ago. He was dressed as a groom, and I assumed he was but I still didn’t want to come out of that bathroom and get married. During the dream my stepfather and his daughter try to convince me to leave the bathroom if only to let others use it. That bathroom was exactly like the one in my house but I wasn’t in my house but my Mom’s. I am wearing a white dress simple but beautiful, also I look skinny like I lost 20 lbs. I’m looking at myself on that bathroom mirror trying to finish my makeup but at the same time thinking I don’t want to get married. I wake up after this.

-Nikolina 2014-07-11 4:35:20

I dreamt that I was getting married to stranger and wanting to hide that away from my family. We were on our family holiday and one day I woke up and realised that I am getting married. I met my in-laws and they were nice people and because of them I got the positive feeling avout marriage. And later I met the groom and he alredy knew me as well as everybody else but I didn’t remember anyone. I wanted to say no and runaway from the altair. But then I changed my mind and wanted to get married. And later I was announced and had to come down but I wasn’t dressed and tried to search for someone to help me put on my wedding dress which was on real life sized doll. I searched for my sister and tried to hide away from my parents who were there and had no clue about wedding. I found my sister amd told her to go to help my but my grandmother came too and she was the reason I didn’t came back to the wedding house instead I took a walk next to it and continued in opposite direction while I wanted to get married but couldn’t because my grandmother was there.
I forgot to say that all my friends and enemies were there.

-Della 2014-06-21 4:49:33

I dreamt I got married to my friends crush! Like he put on the ring on my finger and I did the same for him. And only my parents knew about this and they were okay with it, the next day I am about to kiss him and he moves away, and he knows I’m unhappy because he hasn’t got his shit together, I leave to a mall with a really heavy bag where’s he guy I married to changes to ex crush from a long time ago, and then it happens again it changes to another recent ex crush whom I’m much happier with. What in the world does this mean? And in my dream my knees are always hurting which slows down my walking

-Ashley 2014-06-05 9:32:12

I just had a dream that my ex bf’s wife was on the Bachelor. Anywho, it was filmed locally and it intrigued me that she was on there, for the money. So I thought I would try, but I didn’t seem to be there for the money or the guy. Just the idea that I could win. But I’m married in real life, as well, and recognized my marriage in the dream. I have never even watched The Bachelor. I will not eat sea food for anything, yet, this handsome man was convincing me to eat cooked whale filled with tiny, raw fish. And I did it. Now, if not for the money, why else? My ex made a comment in the dream that he could never forget me. And I only dated him for a few weeks in reality, so he was never an ideal setup for life and yet he does ask about me when possible. But it’s like, he was only key to half of the dream? My husband was involved in the entire thing. And I treated him how I normally do.

I should maybe mention that in reality, my marriage is a little rocky right now. But somewhat stable at the moment.

-Brittany 2014-05-21 12:05:17

I dreamt that I was a bridesmaid to a woman I’ve never met, we were in a foreign country, I think Mexico. In the same dream I was engaged to a much older man, that I’ve also never met, but I was very happy.

-jade 2014-05-17 11:39:16

Hi,recently i had a dream that i’ve got married to my ex boyfriend, this happaned two days in a row. On the first day i dreamt that i was dressed as a bride nd and i got married to my ex boyfriend. And the next day i dreamt that i got married to him nd at the end someone had died in my dream. What does it mean?

-Yoana 2014-05-09 15:10:14

I had a dream about having my own wedding & I was wearing a white dress but as soon as I get to my wedding in my dream I’m no longer wearing a white dress but a black dress with white heels what does that mean ?

-Shelby 2014-05-05 16:12:20

I dreamt I was getting married in a church. It was very unorganized and not well planned. I seen myself in my wedding gown as I went outside and it was raining, I had long hair (its short right now). I went back inside and my hair and dress were wet, I then put a heavy coat on and was walking around the church wondering why none of my bridesmaids were there and had recalled I never informed my best friend that I was getting married. I went into a room filled with old computers were my daughter was. The groom never showed but all of his family and groomsmen were there. He wasn’t my current boyfriend and the relationship that I had with him wasn’t very long or significant to me. Please help! This has been weighing heavily on my mind.

    -Tony Crisp 2014-05-07 8:31:38

    Shelby – I believe you dream is showing how uncertain you are about marriage. The man who you were getting married to is simply a representation of your feelings, and is often used to disguise your feelings about your present relationship.

    The wet hair and dress is about the feelings you have, uncomfortable and full of emotions. Not informing your best friend probably shows a lack of enthusiasm. And the old computers might show that your ability to think about and communicate your feelings are based on old viewpoint, and are outdated.

    Your dream may simply be a reflection of your present uncertainty, and it would be helpful to explore the dream using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/

    Tony

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