Bed

There are many associations you might have with bed – rest, sleep, unconsciousness, sexual pleasure, relationship, dreams, escape from the world into sleep. Try to define what feelings or attitudes are involved with the bed, and ask yourself where they apply to your waking life.

This is an important symbol to understand. It often shows exactly what you are doing in the subtle areas of relationship. So can link with your close relationships, intimacy – an intimacy in which the qualities of the other can become part of you and a blending take place. Such a blending is not only that of you and another, but your known and presently formed self with what you hold within and latent.

But a bed is the place you sleep, so in a spiritual sense might be depicting your sleeping self, the parts of you still unconscious and not awake to who you really are and the issues needing attention in your life.

The bed also obviously relates to sexual pleasure, rest. the holy place in which we meet oneself and or another person deeply and passionately. But it can also suggest desire to get away from the world, to withdraw into oneself, to be passive.

Example: I have a two-pronged needle with red liquid. I know it will hurt him. I didn’t want to but I had to inject him. He yelled in pain. He turned on the bed, writhed around, and threw himself around. I snuck up and finished the dosage. He yelled in mock anger. He grabbed me. We tumbled to the floor. He started to make love, wildly, lovingly. Later at the table, an ugly woman with horrible eyes, glazed, hazy, and blue, came in. Said to him, “So there’s the louse.” I gave her a straight look. I said, “Just leave him alone!” Anger. She steadily looked at me. Another woman, possibly my mother watched the tense scene.

It can depict sensual rather than sexual contact; sickness; privacy; the testing place of the relationship. Sometimes it represents sleep and meeting our unconscious – or torture – because in bed we may be tortured by insomnia, worries, physical pain. See Bed Partners.

Our life situation – made your bed, now lie on it. Bed is one of the commonest symbols in dreams.

Bunk Bed: May link with childhood or sharing ones space. I guess if you slept in a bunk bed you will have many personal associations too. See Associations Working With

There a lot of mentions of bunk beds in my dream collection, but they all suggest a space in which children are on holiday or sharing. Only one has any mention of sex and that refers to unexpressed adolescent sexual desires.

Double bed: A relationship. The events that surround the bed image will give an idea of what the state of the relationship is. Sleeing alone in double bed shows either that you do not have a partner, or are not interested in having one. Or it could simple mean you enjoy your own space.

Top bunk bed: Usually in regard to someone who is top dog or you respects, like an older person. But some times to put the younger person on top.

Lower bunk bed: Easier to get in and out of. Your dog or pets find it easier to share with you. But depends what associations you have with it.

High Bed: Possibly relates to feeling either secure from things like mice on the floor, or anxiety about being high up. Height often links with either of these, or depicts a commanding position.

Hospital Bed: This is usually connected with healing, even though there may be some pain or scary bits in it.

Sometimes one dreams of a dead relative or friend in the hospital bed and they are alive again. This is probably a mixture of a real communication and the dreamers beliefs. See Symbols and Dreams.

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In the example below the man is wrestling with his desire for pleasure and his sense of commitment; but also, whether he will keep his pleasure for himself, or share it with his wife. See: Example in contraceptive; bed wetting.

Example: ‘I sit on a bed. Near me, looking at a book I am holding is a woman I know, Jane. I realise as we talk that her foot is touching mine. As my wife is on my left across the room I feel uncomfortable about this. Now Jane has her left hand on my penis. I have only underpants on. The contact is pleasant and undemanding, but I feel more and more ill at ease. I feel Jane is not having any respect for my relationship with my wife and start to tell her so.’ Mr B. S.

Example: One day as I stood raging at the bars of my prison I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The bed and the prison are very powerful symbols in this remarkable dream. The prison that he was in and felt he would remain in is his body, the source of and also the way of release from his entrapment. The bed that he woke from is the bed he had been ‘asleep’ on for so long – the bed of self torture and illusion.

Here is another example of bed from a very different viewpoint.

Example: I was in bed. There was a knock at the front door. Brenda answered it. I heard a scuffle and a man’s voice. He was assaulting my wife. She was struggling and said I would come, and the man laughed. I got out of bed and got my gun. I went into the room and rammed the rifle barrel in his face. Brenda got clear. He said I wouldn’t have the nerve to fire the gun, still slightly mocking. I said, “Wouldn’t I!” And swung the gun like a club, smashing it on his head. He ran out into the street and I threw the broken gun after him.

In this dream the dreamer woke up from being a rather passive person to being one who took charge of the situation.

Example: A headmaster called me into his study. He showed me a top to something like a small Buddha figure. I realised that it was mine from the long past, and I had lost it without even realising it. I tried to remember the details of having owned it, but could not. The headmaster did not give it to me. He then took me to a room with a bed in it. On the ceiling were marks from ejaculations. I then recreated the scene, and saw Les on the bed in sexual abandon. Then I was with an old lady in an attic. She was saying that she preferred people not to get friendly with her rather than be friends then leave her and hurt her. As she talked we seemed to get nearer and nearer, as if the words were on the surface, and underneath the words was an attraction to each other. In the end I went to her and we fell back on the bed together.

Again the body shows that the dreamer had forgotten and lost something precious and was unconscious of it. Les was his association with his sexual ability and he realised that was how he had lost the Buddha figure. At the end of the dream there are difficulties about relationship, but they are passed through.

 

Idioms: Bed of nails; bed of roses; go to bed with; make one’s bed and lie on it; test bed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there any sign of this being about relationship issues?

Is this about or hints of  sexual pleasure?

Is there indications of or desire for rest or escape?

See Ages of Love – Dream Characters – Simple Dream Interpretation.

 

Comments

-J. S. West 2018-02-23 14:36:57

Dear Tony,

I find your work very helpful and interesting, as I myself have experienced a number of very odd or strange dreams, and your website is very helpful in interpreting these dreams. However, I have recently had a dream that I think I might have to ask you directly about in hopes of interpreting it.

To begin, I wish to tell you that there is a recurring happening that transpires in very few of my dreams; A person will speak to me, or touch me (poking, prodding, etc.) and it will feel as if someone has directly spoke to me or touched me in the real world. Even after I wake up, I still feel a lingering sensation where they had touched me. However, it usually only either a touch or a voice; I have never before experienced both a touch and a voice in the same dream, until now. This dream that I need help in interpreting is one of these dreams.

To begin, I do not remember a good 3/4 of the dream itself, but I do remember what happened soon before I woke up. In my dream, I laying on my back in the middle of a coliseum. I was laying on a bed with a very large, fluffy, white comforter. A voice then began to speak to me, a voice that, as I mentioned before, sounded so real that I was sure that someone was in my bedroom in the real world. Though I could not make out what the voice was saying to me, I did soon see a nearly transparent figure walk around the left side of my bed. The figure had almost a woman’s figure, but somehow I knew that it was a man. The figure had very long, non-transparent fingernails, and it poked me once on the stomach, just above the bellybutton. I felt it very vividly, but my body did not compulse or reach for my stomach as I would have normally. The figure walked off, and I could not see it, but I could hear it continue to talk to me. Suddenly, it returned, and half-climbed onto the bed with me, leaning very close to my neck. I could clearly feel its breath on my neck. The figure said something about drinking my blood. It spoke very slow and sensually, in a young male’s voice. It then leaned closer and made to bite m neck. However, there was no impact, though even after I woke up I could feel a pressure where the figure had made to bite me, like it was pierced my skin very gently and was now sucking my blood.

Thank you very much for reading this, and thank you for considering interpreting my dream. I wish you luck; I know this dream’s a bit of a weird one.

-Jessica 2017-12-04 15:30:35

Hello, I have this dream and I’m hoping someone can tell me about what it means.
So, I was on this bed, I think sitting with my back to the bed head, reading a book maybe (my dreams tend to be blurry the moment I woke up, but rare times I can remember it). And with me there are two of my friends. One female and one male. The female one, I’m close with. The male one, we’re friends and talk often, but not in that bestfriend kind of way.
And we’re in this unfamiliar bed and room, but I feel relaxed and save. As if we’re just sleeping over at the others house. We looked like we just having some studying, because there’s books, text book, notes, scatter around on the middle. The bed is very big, there’s three of us there but we still have space to spare. Me and my female friend sleep side by side with the bed head on our back. I’m on the left with the wall on the left side, and her on the right side of the bed. My male friend was sleeping on his stomach, reading a book also, but his position is crosswise below our feet, while us both females are parallel. (it was kinda like this..? =| I suck at explaining..)
The bed has a bright bedsheet, I think it’s dark yellow or some shade of orange? Idk (help) my female friend already asleep, and my male friend says we should go to sleep also. But before we do, I nag him into helping me set the book aside, in the end it’s just me who stack the book together to my left to the wall. And while I lay down, he turned the light off.
Then we talk about something, as if it’s just normal for us to do so. (I mean, shouldn’t you be awkward knowing in real life you’re not that close but he’s there on one bed with you??) It’s about a drink, or some kind of milkshake that we seems to always buy on the way earlier, and that have the effect of making us sleepy, hence my female friend already asleep first since the start of the dream. But, by the way he said it, “again”, makes me remember that I most likely have the same dream close to this one before. I mean, including the three of us.
And I don’t know what it mean and it kinda weird me out. Cause I’m pretty sure me and my female friend won’t start any sexual relationship with this guy. (First, she already have a boyfriend, long distance one. Second, sleeping with someone while not being married first is frowned upon here, so I would never even think about it) But all dream meanings I’ve searched keep saying about sexual relationship or what not. Can anybody please help me? Thank you in advance.

-Liza 2017-02-05 17:35:29

I see food, bed and cats for 3 month in a row, I cant get the meaning of it

how this can be clarified thanks in advance

-H 2016-12-07 2:15:27

I had a dream my bed was broken what does that mean

-Peter 2016-10-08 7:08:51

I saw two beds in my dream, one made and one unmade. The bed which was made was placed in a mall and the unmade one in a bathroom. All the windows I saw in the house had blinds, but they were up. The house wasn’t mine, I was visiting someone, but I don’t know who. What does this mean?

-CB Eastward 2015-10-27 15:52:37

A friend who has extra set of keys to my house came and took everything out of my bedroom including the bed and pictures on walls- left it with bare white walls

-lesley 2015-10-22 15:38:08

i dreamt that my ex was sleeping on a bed that looked similar to mine, only it was in a hotel room and I was sleeping at the foot of the bed, but on the floor. At one point in the dream, I woke up and I saw that he jumped up out of the bed and walked over to me and there was a woman standing next to him that apparantly they were planning to go away together and needed some directions. I spoke to the woman who was standing there and told her everything that she needed to do so that their trip could be successful (no stone unturned) and then I retreated back to my space on the floor. She remained standing there and he got back in the bed. A few minutes later, I was crying uncontrollably in my sleep to the point of waking. I cried and cried and cried and it was extremely difficult for me, overwhelming and very emotional. I still love my ex very much.

-Kathleen 2015-08-01 5:34:03

Hi Tony,
I dreamt that I was lying in bed very comfortably beneath a white comforter when I suddenly began feeling a strong earthquake – strong enough to shake my bed. What could this dream mean? Thank you!

-Lily 2015-03-17 0:35:35

Ok i had a dream where my son woke me up like he does every morning and when i got out of the bed there were tiny spatters of blood in a few spots. I didnt know i was dreaming. I saw my husband laying on the bed still asleep. But as i moved the blanket there were blood spatters like i had bled during the night. There were maybe 8 or 9 spots they were small. And when i actually woke up i looked around to see if there was blood but there was none. For some reason i cant forget this. I dont remember anything else but this. Do you have any ideas? I looked them up separately but it doesnt make much sense to me.

-Need more info!! 2014-01-27 15:34:39

Ok bunk bed represents ill will…

I came to find out about top and bottom bunk position meanings… Can u email me the interpretation?!?

Nice read though :p

    -Tony Crisp 2014-02-02 10:14:30

    Maya – I searched through all the dreams mentioning bunk beds and the best I cou9uld find are – Top bunk bed: Usually in regard to someone who is top dog or you respects, like an older person. But some times to put the younger person on top.
    Lower bunk bed: Easier to get in and out of. Your dog or pets find it easier to share with you. But depends what associations you have with it.
    I think it depends on what ones memories of bunk beds were. So it would be best to use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working to find out your own associations. Did a younger child pee the bed on the top? Were there any sexual feelings going on – or what???

    Tony

-Mohammed Salah 2011-07-26 4:17:32

Hey I had such a wierd dream and i dont even know how to interpret it. Please take a moment to read it lol Here it is:

Ok in my dream, I was in my room, in my bed. it was dark, like the middle of the night. I then got out of my bed and walked out. Then the sun came up and it became day time. Then something occured to me that i was dreaming, so i tried waking myself up. I pinched myself, then BAM, im back in my bed. It was a dream in a dream. This same thing kept happening to me for so many times.. And I was trying to get out of the dreams. Like I went on the street and was asking people to help me and nobody was listening or talking back. In my dream I felt so scared and sad at the same time. Then I remember a man dressed in a red hoodie went over to my body and started inhaling air. While he was doing that, some black ghost thingy was coming out of me. You know the dementors in Harry Potter who suck the happiness out of you? Well one of them were inside me. As soon as it came out, I finally woke up.

I know this sounds similiar to the movie Inception, but I have not watched that movie in a loooong time. What do you think this dream means?

    -Tony Crisp 2011-08-17 12:37:57

    Mohammed – Of course it can lead to you thinking of something possessing you. Film tend to capitalise on this, but my own delving within have led me to an different view.

    Here is something that explains bringing up of the unconscious fears of illness, or attitudes. These are not simply ideas or feelings as many believe, but are inextricably woven into the structure and cells of our body. So bringing them out of the body is like tearing them out from the fabric of our intellect, emotions, and body, a growth or structure that is built into them. These may even be apparent to our imagination as dark frightening shapes or creatures that have been living in our being like parasites. One man in class during the vowel sounds (chanting) I was making said, “As you began the sounds I had the terrifying sensation that you were calling a dark shape out of my body.” Questioning him afterwards I discovered that he had a fear of weakness for that part of his body, and the “dark shape” was a representation or embodiment of his fear.

    Here is explanation of one I experienced:

    I turned to look, still terribly frightened; so much so it was difficult to see clearly what was coming into the room. It seemed to be a dark shape at one point.

    I worked on the dream a couple of times and the first time touched a pain that was so strong I couldn’t get it out except for deep sobbing. The second time I worked on it with John I went right back into the same pain, but this time gradually moved into insight and change. It led to me crying out with deep emotion – “I don’t want you! I don’t want you.”

    I eventually realised I was saying this to my mother. It was all around the death of my grandmother. At her death I deeply rejected my mother. I don’t suppose I ever really accepted her as I had my grandmother. The pain was still so strong in my body. I have carried it all those years. It is obviously part of what is happening in my life at the moment, but I am not clear about how it is effecting things I am doing – except that I feel enormous difficulty with loneliness or anything about being left or being left alone. The dream was like a messenger showing me the awful dark shape I carried – the pain – that has haunted this building – my body – all my life.

    So whatever came out of you it has left you cleaner than before, and if you offer your being to the healing influence it will keep you clean.

    Tony

      -Dawn 2013-10-25 21:08:18

      Hi Tony, Can you help please? In my dream I was in my bed as I was and woke to see that the right hand side of my bed was gone. Like the bed had been sawn precisely in half. I saw a man downstairs with my half of bed and asked what he was doing with it. He said making a copy of it for himself. Later in dream it returned, when I was in bed again I put my hand down the side of the bed into the empty space and I felt and saw a black gloved hand appear which I took and looked at, fingers all moving. I asked where the rest of it was and the fingers pointed to the top/head end of the bed. Then the bed was whole again. Many thanks 🙂

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