Teamklement – You say your daughter is about to go on a trip, which means she is becoming more independent. After 15 years of constant caring leaving is like a death for part of you, and also pregnancy means another huge change is happening within you – a change of roles.
Your love and care for your child can trigger your mothering instincts with a vengeance. Being female and a mother holds with it an enormously increased anxiety about your children. Mothers see all manner of things that might be a threat, and I believe that is what such dreams shows. Your imagination for such dangers is enormously increased. This is natural in all mammals.
My son used to walk wolfhounds, and the dogs were kept in a large pen, and the owner went to get the keys for the pen. While we were waiting at the door one of the dogs, a bitch, was kept in the house. The bitch came to the door to look at us, then ran back, only to reappear again a few moments later to look at us anxiously. This was repeated a few times. I asked my son if she had pups and he said yes. So as soon as she saw we were strangers she rushed back to her pups to check they were okay. Then, for the short period we were there she continued to come and look at us with obvious tension, and then run back to check her pups. Mothers are built to care.
The death is only the dying of the close link you had with your daughter. Nearly always when people dream about someone they know or a strange new person or situation they automatically believe the dream is about that person, situation or animal. But when we think of our child, friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them. So dream images are ways of communicating via our feelings and associations not actual things or people. In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream.
Tony
