Hello Everyone,
I read recently somewhere that our first remembered dream...or first dream in starting analysis tells us the outcome of how things will turn out. With that in mind, I'd like to post my first remembered dream that I consciously recall all the content of. I remember before this dream I had many nightmares, that woke me up scared and that my parents had to comfort me with, and one of them is me telling them I saw a monkey in my sister's bed. I was very young then, maybe six or seven or younger, but it was what my mom told me what I said I dreamt. The following dream is what I recall and I was about eight or nine years old or maybe but I doubt it, I was a few years older.

I dreamt I was pregnant. In the dream I was the same age as myself, a child. This seemed strange to me so after I had the dream I told my mom, asking her what it meant. I am so dismayed now by the terrible and destructive response that I got from her and the emotional effect it had on me. Now, that I am an adult I know that pregnancy in dreams means birthing of the soul, of potential, of the creative process...a very good thing. My mother told me it meant I would have a lot of troubles. On some level this conveyed to me that pregnancy was a huge burden, something horrible, dreadful and would cause trouble. In fact, I remember that day very clealy. I was filled with a deep deep sense of dread, a horrible foreboding, a deep sense of calamity, depression and some sort of dark anguish. The feelings I felt after telling her my dream were so heavy, so dark, so painful, and so overwhelmingly negative. I can see now that that emotional response was my body and psyche's response to her response to my creativity.....

Ok, I've said alot, but I am very very open to hearing what other people have to say, I am sure it will be very healing in light of the carried around from this incident for so long. I am really lucky that now I do know enough about dream interpretation to know that what my mom said is most likely wrong, and the dream was offering me a gift, which if I can connect with its true meaning now, will be very good for me, and hopefully help me over come what negativity my mother's response instilled towards my entire creative process.

I also believe that her response hurt how I see real life pregnancy as well as my overall ability to create in life...to be empowered, to give birth to myself.....fortunately in the past I have had dreams of children who were healthy and growing....but the emotions I felt that day were such a deep heavy sense of dread forbodding and calamity that I'm amazed I can recall the sensations with such viceral clarity as I write this....I felt really really really horrible despair anguish...ok I think you all got the idea.

Thanks in advance,
May
ps. it seems a horribly ironic way to feel after having such a beautiful dream......??????

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May,
I'm not so sure that the first dream tells us the outcome of how things will turn out. In the first place, what 'things' is it that the dream is addressing and how would it project an outcome? Remember, a steadfast law of Jungian psyche is dreams tend to compensate and not predict. Although compensation can lead to direct understanding of what will, or should occur, the age you had the dream makes it difficult to understand its predicting how 'things' will turn out.

Another conclusion that may need to a re-assessment is 'pregnancy' symbolizes birthing of the soul, of potential, of the creative process. It could mean that but for a child I would think that possibility is less likely. Pregnancy can mean many things.

The darkness and pain felt in the dream {at the age of 8 or 9} would most likely be addressing conditions in your life at the time of the dream {another steadfast law of Jungian psyche}. In the dream you were the same age as yourself which indicates the dream was addressing conditions at the age in the dream, and your actual age at the time of the dream {if you were older but in the dream your were younger then it would take on a different light}. And how you actually felt at the time of the dream in your waking life was a deep sense of dread.

You point to your mother's response as a an affront on your creative Self. Where does that come from? At 8 or 9 was there something in your life concerning the creative aspect?

Your statement 'carried around from this incident for so long'. It may actually have to do with your 'mother's response' but could it be about some other emotional issues involving your mother? I know this may go against some of your thinking on certain matters of the dream but clarification is most important. we need to get it right if we are to find true healing from these dreams.

Perhaps I have missed something about this dream as it relates to childhood and creativity. If I have please inform me and i will take another look and see what those possibilities are in context of the dream symbols.

Gerard

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Hi May

Some things that caught my attention in this dream were i) that you had repeated nightmares ,,, and this dream about something being birthed - and your mothers response.
Why the repeated nightmares ,, surely these were reflective of feeling unsafe or threatened by the world in some way ,,, I assume a degree of this is normal, if it is repeating there must be something in the child's psyche that is being worked through or faced (in the subconscious).

And as for the dream that you remember ,,, can you re-write the interpretation ? In other words - your mothers response may have embedded in you attitudes and beliefs ,,, that until now you were unaware of where they came from, by re-interpreteing the dream you may help to rewire the underlying beliefs in a way that is more cosistent with what you currently feel.

Be great
Justin

ps: thanks for you positive feedbacks in previous posts - it helps me keep going, even in the midst fo my own inner struggles

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Hi Jerry!

Thanks for the reply, but there was a lot of misunderstanding and confusion. Thanks for your clarifying questions and I will try to sort things out here:

1. When I was a little girl I dreamt I was pregnant. What does that mean?

2. What does pregnancy mean in general and what does it mean in a child's dream in particular.

3. I had no negative feelings in the dream.

4. The negative feelings I described in the original post were the ones I had after I told my mom the dream.

5. Our early dreams can sometimes give clues as to 'how we will turn out' psychologically.

6. Creativity is not only part of every one's life but it is the natural way of being, especially for the feminine. Creativity or personal growth, to my mind can be symbolized by pregnancy in a dream.

Hope this helps.
Thank you,
May

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Hi Justin!

Thanks for your reply. You are so welcome!

About this dream, I only dreamt I was pregnant. I was a child when I had the dream.

I only had negative feelings about it as a result of my mom's response. It wasn't so much about something being birthed as it was about something about to be birthed, and perhaps my mom's response made that impossible.

I did have a lot of nightmares, my parents told me that, I do remember that myself although I think my parents also told me as well.


The dream was not negative. The feeling of dread was after my mom told me what the dream meant. After I talked to her I felt a sense of dread about myself, my life, my future. I had that feeling of dread alot, I got it again when I was in high school and college. I dreaded coming home. I didn't feel accepted for who I was, and the problem was with my mom. In fact, she once told me I don't exist, as an adult. When I was a teen she once told me straight to my face I will never accept you. (I could never figure out who that 'you' was that was so terrible to her. Did she mean, me?)

I grew up with a lot of pain and axiety as a result of this. To this day I am not completely comfortable with my mom. I feel nothing I do is ever good enough. For my whole life she demanded impossible and sometimes contradictory things from me and had high standards for me which she called 'principles' and because I couldn't live up to them I was never good enough for her and never good enough to be loved.

I think that initial dread and foreboding I had when she reacted that way to my first dream of me being pregnant was an unconsious grasp of the emotional reality of my relationship with my mom, that she could never really let me grow into my own, that who I was was somehow flawed to her...that would cause 'trouble'. What really scares me is that I have read alot about psychology and children that are rejected by their mother and it is really devestating.

I also think that it goes back to even when I was in the womb and she was pregnant with me, I think she was unhappy and could never bond with me.

She was emotionally unsupportive and abusive to me my whole life.

As her daughter I never felt I really had a mother, a mother to go to to tell my problems the way other girls/teens/young adults did.

I felt I had to mother myself. If I ever did make a mistake, she would be the last person I could trust, she would rub it in my face how horrible I was and how I hurt her.

When I was really hurt once and went to her, instead of acknowledging what she did to hurt me (which really is too horrible and too personal for me to post here), she actually said, its you who hurt me. As a defense, and then she blamed me!

I think that in addition to being hurt by her, and not having had the nurturing I needed, I think also my concept of being a woman and being feminine was also damaged. Even looking back on what she said about this dream: that it means I will have troubles.

I interpreted the dream to mean my future development, and so her tellling me that that meant trouble is really hurtful. At the time, I was really scared. I don't know if I thought the dream sybmolism was literally or not, but I was totally traumatized by her interpretation. And hurt.

I am still trying to seperate the real dream from her reaction. Thats why I still ask, what does it mean for a girl child to dream she is pregnant?

Thanks,
May

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May,
I will address your questions first then look at the possibilities given the clarifications you present.

1. When I was a little girl I dreamt I was pregnant. What does that mean?

Normal children's dreams are very much different from adult dreams. I say normal because any traumatic experiences in a child's life can provoke dreams that reflect those experiences, as it can at any stage of life. But normal children's dreams, while often full of frightening figures are not about abusive experiences but a normal developing psyche. Being afraid of the dark is a normal happenstance in childhood {I can remember such experiences as early as 6 years old}. Television and movies {and video games} are full of suggestive fears that may inhabit a child's dream with little or no meaning beyond having seen similar figures in a movie or game.

As for what a pregnancy would mean in a child's dream. I would look first to such suggestive impressions when you were a child and had the dream. Was your mother pregnant, or were you influenced by some experience where there was a pregnancy? Those things influence a child's dream but have no 'real' meaning outside the waking experience. What I would not look for, normally, would be a 'archetypal' meaning to such a pregnancy. A child's psyche is focused on the world outside them and not the inner world of deeper knowledge and experience.

2. What does pregnancy mean in general and what does it mean in a child's dream in particular.

I believe I answered the question about pregnancy in a child's dream. In general a pregnancy can have several different meanings, many of which a good Jungian is cognate of. From the MDS Dream Dictionary:

Often pregnancy in a dream symbolizes something new is coming into your life, and not always a new born baby. It may symbolize a new direction you are about to take, or wish to take. If you want to be physically pregnant, this may be a message of that desire you have in life.
A fuller explanation can be found at HyperDictionary website

3. I had no negative feelings in the dream.

Children do not normally have an emotional response to such impressions, in dreams or waking life. They are responding to stimuli that affects their senses and not an emotion. That comes later in life after the psyche has developed a more sensitive nature to the world around us.

4. The negative feelings I described in the original post were the ones I had after I told my mom the dream.

Can I say Ah! Ha! to that pronouncement. Your negative impressions, those that are still with you were not from the dream but from your mother's response and impressions. You had the dream and let your mother's 'emotional' response become your impression of what the dream meant. It was not an emotional impression on you but your mother. {Unless I have misunderstood what actually occurred}.

5. Our early dreams can sometimes give clues as to 'how we will turn out' psychologically.

If we emphasis the 'sometimes' in your question then the answer could be yes. But that is not a normal function of dreams. That would be in line with predicting the future, which dreams do not often do. It is the nature and the nurture {an emphasis on 'and'} that determine a person's psychological deposition. Experiences in life and what you are born with genetically determine much of that psychology. There can be clues to the psychology in a dream but again the dream is not focusing on such behavioral traits so early in life.

6. Creativity is not only part of every one's life but it is the natural way of being, especially for the feminine. Creativity or personal growth, to my mind can be symbolized by pregnancy in a dream.

There are some children who will have dreams that can foretell a creative instinct within a child. But that is not the norm. Although I believe it is the creative {and spiritual Self} that is the ultimate 'bliss' for an adult, such 'metaphysical' aspects do not come to surface until later in life {often at mid-life}. Although creativity may be inherent it is not something that is apparent. If it were then there would be millions more people who discover these 'hidden aspects' than we witness in our waking lives. Creativity is a function of the psyche but that function is mostly dormant until later in life. Unless you are lucky, as was Joseph Campbell who discovered his bliss at an early age {the study of Native American myths}.

Let me make a statement here that clarifies my thoughts on archetypal dreams. They are not an usual occurrence. The 'big dreams' do not 'normally' invade our psyche on a nightly basis. I believe all dreams in some way point to archetypal references within the psyche, they do not reflect a normal occurrence of experience at every turn in one's life. Most dreams are dealing with current emotional experiences of the waking life. The 'universal', or deeper aspects, of a dream are purely secondary. That is up until a time when you begin to recognize them in a context of Jungian schooling {or some other advanced thought process that deals with the inner Self}. Then there is a recognition of their value. Most people will have such dreams but never recognize their importance.

I do believe, and it has been demonstrated here at the Dream Forum, that some people's dreams can be shaped in a form of archetypal dream experiences but not always be a 'big dream'. Justin and Steve have such dreams. But I believe they do so because they are orientated to the hero cycle and the influence is so great their psyche dreams in archetypal proportions. They are cognate of their journey and thus the dream compensates their advanced knowledge of the hero path and not always an actual archetypal experience in their waking lives.

If an 'uneducated' person should have such dreams then I would look to life changing transformations in the dreamer's waking life. These would be more or less unexpected and not in the order of the dreams that Justin and Steve experience. Again I look to Jung's experiences with patients who had never had contact with the archetypal images in their. The 'universal' psyche has dug deep into the unconscious and discovered these images to fit the waking condition. And most often they are life transforming.

I look at my own dreams to help shape my 'opinions' of the dream. And they seem to match what Jung/Campbell said happens in the hero journey, dream-wise. When I first began to understand the real importance of the archetypal psyche, and had really begun to use them in my waking life, I had archetypal dreams. The Black Madonna figure was prominent in many of my dreams during that time and phase of my journey. It reflected my transformations. And I have had infrequent dreams of archetypal proportions since then and they always match a transformation phase in my life.
But to what extent are archetypal is not always easy to discern. This past Thursday night I had a dream where I was finishing up a deck project {I am a contractor who builds fencing and decks} and everything turned out perfect. My last dream image was nailing down the last board and thinking 'this went as planned and turned out perfect.

I can look at this two ways and both could apply to my waking life. One I am sure of, the other I am very hopeful of. The one aspect I am sure of is the project I am now working on will turn out as planned, go perfectly {my son and I finished the outer joists to the project and everything is on course to be finished in a couple of days}. This part of the dream is reflecting real waking life experiences, everyday experiences. That is the normal nightly function of our dreams.
The second aspect of the dream, focusing on my deeper desires for my life could also fit into this dream scenario. Having now been on my personal 'hero journey' for some many years {it began in 1992} I am ready for a full-time transformation to that perfect Self. That is a time and place where I can put all my energies into my dream work and continuing evolution of Myths-Dreams-Symbols. That is my perfect project to be completed, my perfect completion of my journey. Could this dream be signaling that is about to occur? That would make it a predictatory dream, which are infrequent but possible. Or is a compensating an intuitive aspect of the psyche that sees beyond the normal range of sight? That is to be determined.

Comparing my recent dream to your childhood dream, there is a notable difference. Big differences. Although it is not impossible to have such dreams early in childhood, I would look first to the obvious, the childhood and waking life. And since predictatory dreams are infrequent even for an adult, my dream may be compensatory {let's hope so} if not predictatory because I have consciously followed that hero path of behavior as a part of my waking life. I put a lot into being ethical and spiritual in ALL that I do in my waking life {this is the ninth project I have performed for this family - a result of being ethical in my working life}. It is a spiritual endeavor that shows results in life {what goes around, comes around}. If we look to the myths there is almost always a spiritual {often shaded in religious grab} aspect to the journey, and if followed? A blissful life. I think so.

I know I have gone beyond simply answering a few questions but I feel it important to clarify my thoughts on the subject of creativity, future events and archetypal dreams. I believe my own experiences are in line with what Jung and Campbell prescribe in the hero's journey {available to anyone who is willing, and ready for such an adventure}. And all the new science boosters the conclusions these two great minds formulated years ago. I have yet to see one really damaging piece of evidence that contradicts their thoughts. With the new age of the internet I am constantly looking at all the new science, and the old, looking for collaborating or opposing views. Thus far, and with all the evidence that is before us, Jung and Campbell got it right.
I think so.

Let me know your thoughts about my impressions of your dream, with my clearer explanations of your questions. Perhaps we can get a clearer picture of what your childhood dream was really saying, and less of the impressions of your mother. There is most likely a hugh difference in the two.

Gerard

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Hi Jerry,

I am so glad that I still remember this dream, and decided to look at it more closely. I think it is really important for me to seperate the meaning of the dream from the negative reaction I got.

I think the dream was foretelling something new and positive would come into my life, perhaps the development of inner creativity and talent. And on some unconscious level, this change and birthing was a threat to my mother. As I've written about her in the previous post, there is no need to elaborate here, save for the fact that her response to that dream characterised most of her responses to me and my self expression throughout my life.

I think it is a very unusual image for me as a child to dream of being pregnant, and I don't think it had to do with any one around me being pregnant, because even little girls know that they don't get pregnant until they grow up.

The foreboding feelings were from my mother, but also maybe from me as well. Perhaps as a young girl I felt the 'burden' of being different. It makes me think of the immaculate conception, of Mary being pregnant with the Christ-child. A tremendous experience, overwelming, definitely birthing something 'divine'......

so for me its definitely a big dream and perhaps it was foreshadowing the future course of my life

that I would be creatively inspired and giving birth to something special, maybe a new idea, art, whatever, but that as a child-mother, would be vulnerable, perhaps it is something slightly anti-establishment.........

these are the lines along which I see my dream.....almost like a mission.

I see it as positive, but not well-recieved. It being my creative mission in life. I am called to do or make or write, or draw or create something, something big.....................

do you see how my reasoning worked with this dream?

Let me know your thoughts
May

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