Alternatively, did your dream focus on one aspect of birth – the umbilical cord, for example? If the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck, this may indicate that your ideas are being strangled or in danger of being strangled. If the cord was neatly severed, this can indicate that your ideas have been cut free and are now independent of you. If there were problems cutting the cord, this could be a symbol of a grown-up family that is beginning to leave home. Or it may be that you yourself are finding it hard to fly the family nest and branch out on your own. If you are not able to see your baby after a difficult labor, this can indicate that you are laboring in vain in waking life and aren’t being rewarded by the sight of your mental offspring.
Birth Dreams during Pregnancy
Pregnancy is one of the most life-changing and physically and emotionally demanding challenges a woman can face in her lifetime. Research shows that the dreams of pregnant women can comment on the physical, psychological, and emotional issues she has to deal with. The most common dream themes at this time concern animals and water. In the early stages of the pregnancy these dreams may be gentle and calming, but toward the end of the pregnancy they can be traumatic or even become nightmares. Such alarming dreams are considered a normal reaction to the anxiety every woman unconsciously feels about her unborn baby and about giving birth. It is also very common for pregnant women to dream about having the baby and these dreams are again often bizarre and disturbing – for example, dreaming about a baby that is born dead, malformed, or with a monster’s head. It has been suggested that such anxiety dreams serve a purpose: they release a lot of unconscious tension and fear, allowing the mother to be more relaxed at birth.
BIRTH CONTROL
See CONTRACEPTIVES.
BIRTHDAY
See CELEBRATIONS.
BITE Being bitten or biting someone is a symbol of aggression or hostility, either toward you or toward someone else.
BLACK
See COLORS.
BLACK-AND-WHITE DREAMS To dream in black and white suggests that you need to be more objective in formulating your decisions. You may be a little too unyielding in your thought processes, and thus need to find some sort of balance between two opposing views. Consider the views and opinions of others. Alternatively, black-and-white dreams may be a sign of depression or sadness. You may feel that there is not enough excitement in your life.
It is a quite commonly held belief that we dream only in black and white, but many people are able to identify tones of color in their dreams. If this is the case, why is it believed that we dream only in black and white? It may be because dreams that appear to be black and white only appear so because the color is not relevant. This doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that such dreams are in black and white. Black and white is a function of television when the color information is removed, but the same is not true of the mind. For example, grass might not be green in a dream, but it’s not gray as it is in a black-and-white movie; the color simply is not relevant and your unconscious isn’t highlighting it. This non-relevance fools the conscious mind on waking up into concluding that, by implication, the dream must have been in black and white.
BLACKBIRD
See BIRDS.
BLACKBOARD The blackboard sets information out in black and white, so in dreams it can represent unambiguous insights or the need to make your mark on the world.
See also CHALK.
BLACKMAIL If you are blackmailing someone or they are trying to blackmail you in your dream this indicates emotional blackmail that you may be using to try and force someone to do as you want, or emotional blackmail used on you by someone else to get what they want.
BLANKET This image in a dream suggests a deep need for emotional or physical comfort and security. It can also suggest being wrapped up in someone or something or withdrawal and vulnerability.
BLEMISH Feelings of dissatisfaction for someone or about something.
See also BODY.
BLIND One of the things most of us fear is losing control of our faculties. Dreams in which you are blind or you see blind people may represent your refusal to see the truth or face reality. Perhaps you are unable to see any other point of view but your own, and it is time to open your eyes. The blindness may relate to an object you seek but are unable to find because of your blindness; this object is generally your hopes and goals in life, and becoming blind indicates that you have lost sight of your ambitions and are unclear about how to regain your focus. For Freud, loss of sight indicated a man’s fears of being castrated. In the Greek myth that inspired Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex, Oedipus unwittingly killed his father to marry his mother. Once aware of what he had done, he blinded himself, an act Freud saw as a symbol of self-castration. Another interpretation suggests that blindness is a mystical dream symbol that represents inner vision, wisdom, and self-knowledge. To imagine that you are deaf or dumb in a dream, or unable to make contact with people, may symbolize irresponsibility, laziness, or an inability to get your point across.
BLISTER If you dream you have a blister, consider what irritant in your real life may have caused it. If you burned yourself, have you got too close to the flames emotionally? Dreams in which you are burned alive or someone else is torched suggest the need for some kind of drastic change in your life. Rashes, sores, and eczema are all unpleasant ailments that are not serious but uncomfortable as well as embarrassing. So if these conditions appear in a dream, what are you feeling ‘sore’, uncomfortable, or embarrassed about? Although it may seem a big deal to you, your dream is telling you that you have no need to feel anxious as the situation is not as serious as you might think. The skin is a symbol of how you present yourself in public, so blisters, rashes, burns, and other skin blemishes are recognized as one of the most clearly psychosomatic disorders. In dreams, therefore, a skin rash can express lack of confidence in your ability to face the world. A dream bruise may reflect some emotional hurt or emerging health problem, while scars can carry their figurative sense of hurtful memories and suggest an awareness that emotional healing takes time.
For Jewish or Christian dreamers, boils may express feelings of guilt for how they have behaved toward someone in their waking life; this is because in the Bible, boils were the sixth of the ten plagues visited by God on the Egyptians to force Pharaoh to free the Israelites. Rough skin suggests a rough exterior, while burnt skin might indicate hurt in a relationship with the outside world or people. If you are shedding skin like a snake, you are changing your way of life and leaving old attitudes behind. Pimples and blemishes represent your sense of not being good enough in some way, and a feeling СКАЧАТЬ