Arrested Arresting
It often suggests a restraint of your natural expression by moral judgements or questions of right and wrong. Depending upon the rest of the dream it can also depict restraint of your anger or sexuality, or other ‘unlawful’ feelings. Because such dreams often include the police it can be about feeling that circumstances or social pressures are holding you back; or that your development or growth is held back.
If you have difficult feelings about police or social authority, the dream could point to the way you restrain yourself due to those feelings. Such dreams are often experienced by people who have survived harsh political regimes and know the terror of being arrested. See: police
Arresting someone else suggest that you are trying to hold some part of you that you feel you must control – as example:
I am with some black kid/guy who probably won’t have a full life and I feel so sorry about that. So sorry. We are in a toy store and he is looking for toys – inspirational books/movies – a train set to take my/his mind off the sadness of it all. The black kid scares me because he is so wild, so out of control, so energetic, so untamed. I hold onto his hand. I have arrested him – for much of the dream. I have to threaten to shoot him to bring him under control.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What of my feelings or motivations does my dream suggest I am ‘arresting’?
If it is someone else being arrested, what do they depict of my own urges or traits?
Does my dream indicate I am feeling guilty about something – is so what?
Do past experiences with authority lie behind this dream?
Use Talking As to define what the dream means for you, or Processing Dreams.
Comments
why do you use the example of a black kid/guy?
Hi – I used it not because it was a black guy, but because it is an excellent example of a person dreaming about being arrested.
It is often difficult to find good examples, I search through thousands of dreams to find them.
Tony
In my dream I was arrested for pot possession when I had none. The arresting officer kept putting his hands on me which made me very angry, In a town where I once lived the entire police department was crooked. Women would be stopped for speeding but could get out of a ticket by going to dinner with the officer. I was stopped once for going 2 miles over the limit. The officer was angry when my husband, in his car, pulled in behind us. I was let off with a warning. I had not thought about that incident in a long time but it came to me as I wrote this comment. Thank you for this website!
Dear Katherine – Thank you for expressing your appreciation for Tony’s website.
You wrote; “I had not thought about that incident in a long time but it came to me as I wrote this comment.”
It sounds like writing is helpful for you too; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-diary/
Anna 🙂
I drempt cops were arresting a man with aids but at first they didn’t know then one said”watch it,hes got aids”, so I got some protectivbe gloves for them, cause the guy had some blood on his hands I think.