Skin

This is often shown in dreams as the quality you display to others, or your awareness of someone else’s quality. This means things such as skin colour, condition of skin, whether rough or smooth, young, old, thick, thin, spots or scars, healthy or injured.

It is also your contact with the world. Through it you feel warmth or cold, wet or dry, and all the subtle interaction with other people and your environment. So to understand the dream consider what impression you have of the skin, then ask yourself how this connects with your self image, or your sense of your own quality. See Your Amazing Circle

The skin may also relate to what tactics we use to deal with others; our strength or vulnerability in feeling the impact of other people, their remarks and actions. It is our protection against the huge forces we deal with every day; for our skin deals with and destroys thousands of bacteria every day. You also may be sensitive to remarks which is known as being ‘thin skinned’, or if you are not  influenced that is called ‘having a thick skin’.

Skin is a window on your emotions also – so any disturbance can show in your dreams as spots, boils, pus or maggots erupting or other things. So what emotions – strong ones have you felt recently? It could make you feel uncertain of what people think of you, especially if you have met a new girl/boy friend.

Example: All I remember is seeing red bubbles appearing all over my skin and being scared and then one huge one bursting on my chest. R.

When it was pointed out about skin as a window on his emotions, R. replied – Well I have met a lot of new people recently and am often insecure about what I think they really think about me; also I have met a girl here but it is still early days. I have also been worried about work and think the change in location has taken me longer to adjust to than I thought it would.

A skin can also be a disguise, a cover, underneath which another you, or another person exists. In these cases the skin might suggest something you have taken on that is not really expressing your real feelings or potential. So the dream might show you pulling the skin off or even tearing it off. See Potential

Animal skin: The spontaneous level of yourself such as instincts, flight and fight, and so your animal wisdom and survival drives. If the animal is being skinned, See: skinned animal.

Rough skin: A surface impression. If this is a dream about yourself, it suggest either that you have been through difficult times and so are well worn with a rough exterior, or you feel that is how others see you.

Burnt skin: A hurt you have suffered in relationship with the outside world or people.

Maggots breaking through the skin: It shows a possibly unhealthy condition occurring in that body area. But remember dreams use the body to often represent something other than the organ or arm – see Body

Seeing through the skin: An insight into what is going on under the surface of your mind or body.

Shed skin: Like a snake, changing your old way of life, or shedding old protective attitudes. This might refer to outgrowing a stage of your life, like a spider or snake shedding its skin because it has outgrown the last one.. So a move from youth to adulthood might be shown as this in a dream. This usually leaves you feeling vulnerable for a while as you adjust to the change.

Spots, blemishes, moles: Feelings about personal failings or some sense of not being as good or acceptable as other people. Maybe a feeling that other people see you as unattractive or can see failings in you. Often links with shyness or difficulties about facing or being in the company of people. See Victim – Avoiding Being My Own 

Occasionally it could indicate that you have inner disturbances that need to be dealt with. See: Acting on your dream.

Something or Stuff on the skin: If this is a liquid or substance it could mean you have been in contact with something. As the skin absorbs all that is on it, there might be a suggestion you are taking something in that is either harmful or healing.

If it is a thing or a creature on your skin this shows you sensing an influence. What it is depends on the dream. See  Animals

Things escaping from under the skin: This usually refers to powerful emotions that you have contained for some time and an event or circumstances are now allowing to surface. This means you will be aware of them in some measure in waking.

Depending upon what it is that is escaping, it can also refer to a physical condition. For instance the following dream refers to a virus the dreamer has.

I have had the same dream as I fall asleep for several years. I have it nearly every night just once, sometimes, rarely, twice as I fall asleep. I dream that I find a dried piece of skin or scab somewhere on my body, usually my foot or my hand, though it has varied over the years. I begin to pick at the skin/scab and scratch it until it comes off. When it comes off it unleashes a flood of seed spiders that engulf me. Another variation is I find some odd black hairs growing out of my body and when I examine them more closely they are regular sized spiders crawling out of me and they begin to engulf me.

Idioms: beauty is only skin deep; by the skin of your teeth; get under my skin; jump out of your skin; more than one way to skin a cat; no skin off my nose; skin alive; thick skin;.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the skin shown as protective – if so what against, and how well is it working?

Does my dream show the skin as an expression of who I am or the person is – if so what is the impression it is giving?

What qualities or racial type does the skin show – and what do I associate with that?

Try Being the Person or Thing and Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Comments

-Asia 2017-01-22 17:46:39

So just last night I had a dream skin related. I was being co-inhabited or possessed for lack of a better word and my skin started to float off of me like a tattered wispy cloth. I could see that it was layered, there was my normal skin then a thin layer of gel/fat then something else that kind of glowed. I cant remember the rest of my dream and I dont remember feeling frightened. In fact I’m sure it was more apathetic than anything. So what does it mean?

    -Tony Crisp 2017-01-23 9:12:59

    Hi – I am going to halt from answering your posts – the reason is that in so many of your post I give the same information to. That is because most posts do not realise the difference between dreaming and waking life. It makes a great difference.

    So, most of what I put in answers is my attempt at explaining what dreams are really about. It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing it would help me, and hopefully you too.

    Tony

    Your skin is a great protection, so are you feeling more vulnerable than usual? Glowing shows that you are going through a great change and your central self is being revealed. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/core/

      -Asia 2017-01-29 20:16:30

      Thank you. I’ll read the links.

-Dee 2017-01-19 5:16:04

I dreamed my ex husband had pimples all over his back and was asking me to pop them. I realized a few of them were plastic and I could pull them out. When I did, there were small plastic tubes coming out of his back. What does that mean?

-Hannah 2017-01-18 4:09:26

There’s this one dream that I’ve had a couple of times. In it, I’m standing in front of a mirror, and I’m looking at myself (it seems like I’m never actually in my body in a dream; just watching), and I’m applying makeup. I then begin to take a towel and scrub the makeup off, and then I apply it again. This keeps happening until, very slowly, the skin on my face begins to melt off and come away on the cloth. By the end up of, my face turns into a either a skin or red coloured mess of melted flesh. Another dream that I’ve been having lately (unrelated to skin, but bear with me) is me, standing on a tower, or pulling myself on top of a tower and trying to find a way inside, or being locked in a tower and needing to find a way out.
I’m usually pretty good with dreams but these two are vexing me and I’m unsure as to what they mean. If you can help, that would be great.

    -Tony Crisp 2017-01-18 10:26:24

    Hi – I must take time to upgrade the dream dictionary, so must halt from answering your posts – I started revising the dictionary in 2006, and haven’t neared the end yet. I believe someone else may start giving interpretations.

    So, for a while I urge you to read http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/i-am-no-longer-interpreting-dreams/ – It describes ways that can help you. And often it would help too if you looked at http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing

    Tony

    The mirror often represent your examining yourself beyond the surface you; and the face in the mirror may not match your own. In this way you are trying to discover your own uniqueness. Usually we think of this uniqueness as our DNA, but in fact it is your eggs you carry with you that are far more about your uniqueness than your genes. You are the survivor of ten million generations of ancestors, struggling, developing new strategies, on the heroic journey from the earliest mammals to your life today. All of that is held in the mystery of your eggs. And every young woman knows she has something very special, but may confuse this with her external appearance. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/individuation/

-Kirsten Tillman 2016-12-28 13:33:16

OMG!!!!! This relates to my current situation (the change of location, the up and down recent relationship that ended before it truly began and the new job that limits my creativity). The dreams make sense now.

-Krys 2016-12-04 20:53:50

Hey so like I had a dream where the skin on my hands and arms where peeling off but it also had like bumps and like my bones where showing and I went to many different surgeons to get help bit none of them wanted to help me

-Cristina Ferron 2016-11-19 4:21:24

I had a weird dream. It’s really bothering me. I haven’t had a real dream Like this in a very long time. What I mean is I haven’t rememberd a dream in a long time. I can remember almost ever detail of this dream. It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I was in a bathtub with my partner. Just relaxing. I look down to my lower left leg and it looked like a chunck of my skin was missing and I had a urge to pull and continue pulling where the Chunck was and my skin came off with little effort In a big hand full at a time. Chunks of my skin. When I looked in my hand I knew it was skin but it looked just like raw hamburger meat in my dream I start putting the handful of hamburger looking chunks beside me on the floor next to the bathtub and when I look down on the floor the raw hamburger looking skin had some brown coloring in it just as if you cooked hamburger and some of it is just getting light brown but still more raw than brown. Any help on this

-Nina 2016-11-05 0:03:30

So I had a dream where I was looking in the mirror and like I have acne and it was a bunch of tiny pimples all over my cheeks and I looked closer and they were like holes and I spread my cheeks and the holes like opened and turned into pale slits in my skin and it was scaring and it’s haunting me so much and I can’t rn

-Maddy 2016-11-01 11:33:55

Ok wow. I just jumped awake. I had fallen asleep on my couch watching the news.

In my dream I am laying on the same couch watching tv. Someone I don’t know who they are is by my head. They are talking to someone else and say ” do you see it? Right there is a thread.” I feel them part my hair on my head. And again I hear “see right there , a thread.” The other person says ” well pull it” They pull it fast from my head. I can hear it unwinding in my head. But as it does before my eyes everything spins and changes.I find myself fighting to stop it and when it does I see 2 steps leading to a decorated room from the 1960’s. I startled awake dizzy and freaked out. I felt I had to fight it or I my head would spin out of control. The whole time the string is being pulled, rooms from different times flew past my eyes like a blur.

    -Tony Crisp 2016-11-03 11:33:14

    Maddy – The word thread when connected to the head means a common theme that links different ideas or images together. So, pulling the thread out really does push you to remember things you are not used to remembering.

    You start with a 1960’s room, and a room often represent a period of time or a different way of life. The fact that you experienced “rooms from different time” show that something triggered wider awareness.

    It sounds as if you have never broken through to your wider awareness, and for many people this can be a shock. We are so used to living the small everyday life of daily bodily life th8at we are totally unaware of our huge history upon which our modern self is built. For instance, London was built on land, which when dug into had signs of the middle ages, Roman building and even giant rhinoceros’ bones. Likewise, if something opens up your deeps, you may find many such signs of the past. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/extending-your-awareness/ and http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/using-your-intuition-1/

    Tony

-aali 2016-08-30 14:08:49

I saw this dream few days ago. There were lot of small (1cm) bulgy wounds (like nodulars) on the skin of my right hand, from elbow to wrist. I was afraid and disgusted of them. My hand looked like some kind of vegetable. When I showed it to my father he opened them with a knife and then some seeds escaped. There was a seed in each. But we didn’t open all wounds. I don’t exactly remember if I bled or not, I think I didn’t. Please explain my dream, sir.

    -aali 2016-08-30 14:15:00

    *** correction of my earlier comment
    It was my left hand. Not the right one.

-mob 2016-08-02 6:40:50

I had a dream where I saw these weird hardening on my skin almost like scales on my waist evenly spaced. A few moments later they were gone but now I could see weird hair like growths coming out of it but they were too thick to be called hairs. Almost like dried strawlike dirt. As I touched them I could almost see the red flesh underneath. I also don’t remember them being anything itchy. I saw my parents too in my dream and I when I showed my father this I woke up. I remember him making a shocked face but I’m not so sure. Its just getting to me and I can’t shake this dream off. I even tried searching for skin diseases like that but nothing related came up. Can u please help

-Bo 2016-07-04 7:38:06

So, last night I had a dream where my scalp was itching. I proceeded to itch it, then, I noticed a small part of my scalp felt weird, kind of like a second layer of dead, hard, brittle skin. I felt like I had to get rid of it, so I ripped it off of my head, it felt like I was removing a scab. Upon examining the skin I had ripped off of my head, I noticed something. Little white spiders were crawling off of the scab. Then, I woke up. Is there a deeper meaning to this.

-Maha1 2016-05-27 13:22:26

I dreamt I was had a pimple and when I squished it a white straw came out, the kind you stick into small juices. What does this mean?

-Krys 2016-04-25 22:53:06

Is there a difference of meaning when dreaming about the skin on a certain part of the body. For instance my dream was about black burnt skin on the heel of my foot but in my dream it was also being removed to show new clear skin and I mean clear like a gel clear….

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2016-05-02 13:45:51

    Dear Krys – Yes, you saw it correctly that there is a difference of meaning as far as the context of your dream is concerned so your choice to post your dream in “foot” and “skin” was a meaningful one.
    There is also a difference of meaning between your right and your left foot and – depending on your associations – you may also find a clue if you know from which direction a hand came.
    See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/left-and-right/
    Exploring dreams is a bit like stepping into the role of a detective and a first step may be to use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
    What do you feel when your skin is black burnt?
    Do you consider that side of your body as dominant or “right” and the heel as a vulnerable part?
    Do you use that foot when you walk around; when you use personal effort to make your own way in life?
    Is the black skin painful and does it limit you while walking?
    What aspect of you is willing to remove the black skin so you can have a deeper look at what is going on under the surface of your mind?
    What do you see when you look through your skin?
    See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/active-imagination-and-dreams/
    Anna 🙂

-prasida 2016-01-07 1:14:29

Hi
I jst woke up seeing dead black dried skin all over my hands and head.i ws crying for my father to help me. My friend who is in India was also with me in my dream
She also had small scales texture on her hands. I woke up waking vry thirsty.I m scared to fall asleep again.

-Dezaray 2015-11-20 16:07:41

I was walking home but my legs were getting week and when i got there their was a guy with a gun he put it down and then i started peeling my dead skin off

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