The 25 Most Common Dream Symbols

These symbols are the twenty-five most requested symbols in dream psychology (listed in alphabetical order). Their interpretations are meant as starting points and will vary in their meaning depending upon the individual dreamer. See dream dictionary for specific symbols. 1.Animals - Instinctive part of self attuned to nature and survival (survival in the social world). Animals sometimes represents one's parents, especially their relationship to a parent (love, hate, etc.). Being chased by an animal may represent some repressed emotion or aggression. Look at the particular animal to determine the symbol it may represent. 2.Baby - may symbolize vulnerability, or your need for love. Also your pure, innocent, true self (other than the ego). It may represent some new development in your life. A baby commonly appears in the dreams of pregnant women and may be a straightforward expression of pregnancy. 3.Clothes - Clothes may represent your persona, how you look at yourself and how you feel others may see you. Old and worn out clothes mat symbolize anxiety about your attractiveness or you need to discard some habitual way of thinking. Changing your clothes may indicate a change in your lifestyle (past, present or future). Clothes in a dream being worn by someone else may suggests that there is some part of you that you relate to in that particular person. See naked listed below. 4.Cross - Represents perfect balance (as in the Christ within or Buddha consciousness). It may be a symbol for a crossroads in your life or a burden to heavy to carry. It also may be a symbol of death, something coming to an end in your life (relationships, job, change of lifestyle, etc). 5.Death - Death or dying in a dreath most often represents changes in one's life, something is coming to an end. Very seldom does death symbolize true dying of a person. The old is dying and with the death of the old comes new beginnings. The death and resurrection of Christ is a good example in mythology of the death motif. What it represents is the death of the egoself and its resurrection to a spiritual realization. A dead person in a dream may relate to past relationships with that particular person. If the dead person is you then consider your true condition as you see it, I feel dead because of my job, life, relationships, etc. Or death may simply represent your anxiety about dying. 6.Falling - Falling - May represent your real life fear of letting go of something or someone. It also may suggest a loss of controlin a situation. Self-inflation is another possibility. Are you above yourself and due a fall? 7.Food - Food represents knowledge. Physically food nourishes the body. Mentally knowledge nourishes the mind, thus the old adage of "food for thought". 8.Devil - Evil spirits, not necessarily religious. It may represent some repressed emotions that need to be expressed. It may symbolize a need to change one's behaviour (devilish) and find a spiritual center. 9.Hair - Represents knowledge, most often conscious knowledge (or the lack of). Abubdant hair may signify virility or male sexuality (Freud). Cutting hair may symbolize los of virility, or castration. Loss of hair may express a fear of getting old or being unwanted. 10.Hands - Symbolize ability, particuraly practical and social abilities. Tied hands represent a feeling of an inability to succeed in a particular endeavor. Washing your hands often symbolizes guilt- what are you trying to get rid of? 11.House - A symbol representing yourself. The rooms or different floors may represent emotions, attitudes, complexes, ideas. Going upstairs symbolizes conscious thinking. The basement represents the deep unconscious. 12.Killing - May represent repression/suppression of some aspect of yourself - you want or need to kill that part of your personality. May indicate hatred or envy between siblings or hostility towards some person. Also putting an end to negative feelings or unwanted situations in one's life. 13.Marriage - A blending of intellectual and intuitive parts or masculine and feminine aspects of oneself. A bridge between the conscious mind and the unconscious self (as in dreams). 14.Money - Represents one's values in life. May symbolize self worth. In exchanging money, it may represent changes about to happen in your life. Take note of any numbers and find their meaning(s). For instance, five often symbolizes changes in life. 15.Mountain - Climbing a mountain may symbolize achievements or tasks to be performed. Looking from a mountain may symbolize your life under review, without the conscious emotional involvement (dreams looks at your life without prejudgicies). A mountain may represent obstacles in your life. 16.Naked - Being nude may symbolize the 'naked truth' about oneself. Totally open and exposed. It may be an expression for childhhood innocence and freedom from artifical inhibitions. Showing off your nudity may be a desire for sex, or a desire for recognition. 17.People - Most often represents the different aspects of oneself; emotions, attitudes, desires, fears, etc. look to the particular characteristics of a person or persons in the dream. 18.Radio - Communication between conscious and unconscious self (as in dream). Communications (or lack of) between aspects of self or between persons in your life. 19.Roads - Your direction in life, the road you are following (may need changing or modifications). Patterns in your life, something that you continually do that may be harmful or unnecessary. Goals in life. ehat is your path in life? 20.School - Lessons in life. Self understanding is learning to know yourself (psychological). Life's experiences. Have you learned from them or do you ignore what is evident for what is convenient? 21.Sex - Sex with a partner may symbolize a unification of unconscious aspects in your life to a conscious realization. Uniting parts of oneself that was previously separated due to repression/suppression. May be a straight forward desire for sex. Uninhibited sex may suggest one's actual persona is uninhibited. 22.Teacher - A symbol for your higher self (spiritual or creative). Insights that show you the way on your path. 23.Teeth - Assimilating of knowledge (unconscious) so to understand and make use of it.Losing teeth symbolizes change in one's way of thinking. Also symbolizes a fear of getting old. May symbolize aggression. 24.Vehicles - A symbol representing yourself. Are you driving (in control), in the back or passenger seat (not in control). Is your mother driving? Perhaps she has too much control of your life. A bus may symbolize yourself and the passengers aspects of your personality. 25.Water - Water represents the unconscious self (mind). Pools of water, lakes, rivers, symbolize the personal unconscious, whereas oceans and seas represent the deeper collective (universal) unconscious.