The Dream Dictionary from A to Z [Revised edition]: The Ultimate A–Z to Interpret the Secrets of Your Dreams

Mouth/Jaw/Lips/Tongue

The mouth represents the devouring, demanding aspects of yourself; it can also signify your need to communicate about something that is upsetting you. If the mouth is open, this may represent your receptive side, as in mouth-watering. On the other hand, perhaps too much has been said and it is time to close your mouth – in other words shut up. A dream of your mouth being buttoned or sewed up can again suggest regret over what has been said or done. If you dream that you are chewing, it might suggest that you are mulling over, or considering, something. If you are pulling something out of your mouth, perhaps you need to clear the air by expressing your feelings, or do you have a nasty taste in the mouth?

To see your own tongue in your dream signifies self-expression. Have you said too much or do you need to say more? If you rip someone’s tongue out in a dream, this means that you are extremely upset by what someone has said in waking life but have been unable to express your anger. To dream of your own jaw in your dream represents your stubbornness, determination, and forcefulness. If your jaws are tight, this could suggest unexpressed anger and other powerful feelings that you are holding back. If lips appear in your dream, this is associated with sensuality, sex, love, and romance, as well as communication, as in ‘read my lips’.

Neck/Shoulders

To see your own or another person’s neck in your dream signifies your need to control your feelings and keep them in check. Consider the familiar phrase ‘don’t stick your neck out’, which serves as a warning against a situation. If your neck is injured, this can indicate a separation between heart and mind. If your neck is thick, perhaps you have been quick-tempered recently. Consider also the following idioms: breaking one’s neck, up to one’s neck, stick one’s neck out, dead from the neck up/down. Shoulders in a dream suggest strength, responsibility, and burdens. Do you feel that you have much responsibility to bear in waking life? On the other hand, shoulders can also represent support and your ability to soothe others, as in the phrase ‘a shoulder to cry on’. To see your throat in your dream symbolizes the ability to express yourself and communicate your thoughts and ideas. If your throat is sore, perhaps you are having problems expressing yourself. Alternatively, you may need to swallow your pride. If a graceful, long neck appears in your dream, this suggests good fortune in waking life.

Nose

The nose in dreams represents curiosity and intuition. To dream that hair is growing on your nose signifies extraordinary undertakings needing a strong will and character to be carried through. To dream of a bleeding nose is prophetic of disaster and danger. Consider also the following idioms: have a nose for, nose out of joint, rub one’s nose in, up one’s nose.

Skin

Your skin is your shield against the outside world and your dream may be referring to the way you present yourself to others. A skin rash may be a pun, suggesting that you are making rash decisions or it may highlight concerns about your appearance. Are you thick skinned and reluctant to express your feelings?

See also TEETH.

Body Fluids, Functions, and Internal Organs

Blood

Blood is an important symbol, not only of life itself, but also of the soul, of physical strength, and rejuvenation. Whether you were cut or seriously injured, dreams in which you are losing blood or suffer a hemorrhage may therefore refer to loss of moral or physical strength; they may simply indicate a need for more emotional nourishment. Dreaming of drinking blood or receiving a blood transfusion may refer to the opposite: gaining strength and vitality. If a person you know gives you blood in your dream, your unconscious may have signaled that they have the potential to revitalize you. If a woman dreams of blood, it may be associated with the onset of a period, the blood depicting whatever feelings she may have about menstruation. Blood is also a symbol of passion, love, anger, and even violence.

Blood on the ground or bloodstains on clothes in a dream suggest great injury or emotional pain to someone, perhaps to you or someone you know. If you dream of blood in a sexual context, this may refer to loss of virginity, fertility, or menstruation.

Bones/Pelvis/Skeleton/Skull/Spine

In dreams, a human bone represents strength, the structure, and support within yourself, and the need to be aware of your basic instincts. If you are burying a bone, perhaps you are hiding something about yourself or saving something for the future. If you are digging up bones, you are remembering something from the past. Broken bones may reveal your insecurities, depending on which limb is broken. For example, a thick plaster cast around a broken leg in a dream can suggest reluctance to face up to problems that are hindering your progress.

Dreams that feature the spine, back, or backbone are all symbols of your moral power and your strength and ability to stand up for yourself; but if you dream about the pelvis, it refers to your sexual functioning as a whole, including your reproductive success. The pelvis also links in with the way you merge with someone else in a relationship, or if you can allow that merging to happen. Some dreams show the pelvis connected with snakes or lizards; this is a symbol of powerful instinctual drives and urges that can flow up your spine and expand your consciousness.

If you saw a skeleton in your dream, especially if it was in a cupboard, are you concerned that certain things in your life you are trying to hide may come out into the open? The symbol could also refer to feelings or talents you have cut off or killed in real life. If you see a complete skeleton, you may need to reconsider the full structure of your life. The skull and crossbones are a symbol of danger but since the skull is a representation of the head, it can also symbolize intellectual ability. To be conscious of your skull is to appreciate your intellectual skills. To see a skull where there should be a head represents a part of the person that has died. To dream that you are talking to a skull is to recognize the need to be talking to people with whom you may have lost contact. When a skull is talking to you, a part of you that has been rejected or denied is coming back to life. As symbols of death, if you were frightened by skeletons, skulls, and bones in your dream, this could point to your fear of dying or of a loved one’s demise.

Breathing

A dream in which you have asthma or problems breathing may refer to problems in your waking life. In women, it may indicate difficulties with your animus or the male part of your personality; in men, it may relate to your sense of manhood. Alternatively, it may indicate a need for more space, air, or freedom. Dreaming of respiratory ailments or breathing problems can also suggest general anxiety about work, relationships or a difficult situation. Heavy breathing, panting, perspiration, or sweat in dreams is a symbol of some kind of fear, but also of excitement. If you dreamed that you needed an oxygen mask, your dream might be suggesting that you need to get some fresh air into your life, not just in the form of outdoor activity, but in the form of ideas and energy.

Internal Organs

If your dream features images of an appendix, either your own or someone else’s, this indicates something within yourself that may have become a problem; it may also suggest an internal problem to do with appendix itself. If you are having your appendix out in your dream, this represents inner pain or problems that urgently need to be attended to in waking life.

If you dream of your brain, are you concerned about your poor memory? In dreams, brains indicate your intellect, insight, and creativity but they can also suggest what you really think. You may dream of something happening to your brain; something may tear at it, shoot it, or it may be impaled. Things that invade or harm your brain in dreams typically represent current factors in your life that are coloring your perspective or outlook. On the other hand, if you dream of having brain surgery or of prying a foreign object out of your brain, this may reflect a change in your way of thinking.

In dreams, the heart generally indicates emotion, pity, sympathy, and likes and dislikes; not just romantic love but your way of loving all things. It can also reflect problems with not having followed your heart or a change of heart. Being stabbed, shot, or in any way injured in the heart may depict emotional hurt; it could also be a warning of a physical heart problem, reflecting an anxiety about, for example, your high blood pressure.

Unless you are a heavy drinker and your dream is urging you to take better care of your liver, in dreams this organ represents the liver as in someone who ‘does the living’. The dream is reminding you that you are not a machine and life should be lived to the full if you are to find true fulfillment. In dreams, lungs might relate to tension or feelings of being suffocated in a relationship or situation; they may also be to do with smoking and your desire to give up.

Dreams of the ovaries and uterus (for women) and testes (for men) represent not just sexuality, but a sense of validity or adequacy in the real world. Such dreams may also represent fears or feelings about having children or the ability to express your creativity. But if you were to dream of the rectum – a place often seen by children as the origin of babies – it may indicate the place from which things begin, your deeply personal self, your need for privacy, and your resentment of intrusion.

Menstruation

Dreams that feature images of menstruation indicate the very mystery of life itself; the acceptance of the life processes in yourself if you are menstruating in your dream, and non-acceptance if you are not. Such dreams can also represent the desire to have children. If irregular periods, PMS, or problems with menstruation appear in your dream, these may refer to emotional problems needing your attention, or issues concerning sexual selfishness on your part. In his book Our Dreaming Mind, dream expert Robert Van de Castle describes research he did on the subject of menstruation and dreams with the help of nursing students in Miami, Florida. He found that dreams changed according to the different phases of a woman’s menstrual cycle. Before ovulation, more male characters appeared in the dream and the women found them more appealing, with women characters pushed to the background. After ovulation, the dreams tended to be more hostile toward men, depicting them as less attractive. If you are a man dreaming of menstruation, it may refer to your receptive, nurturing nature, or the aspect of yourself that is creative.

Research has shown that in the week or so leading up to menstruation, women who suffer from PMS spend an increased length of time in dream sleep, the dreams they report being extremely vivid and colorful. The conclusion drawn by researchers is that one of the functions of the dreaming mind is to help dreamers deal with difficult states of emotion and anxiety. Dreams that focus on the menopause are likely to indicate change, the end of one phase and the beginning of another.

BOMB

See EXPLOSIVES (#litres_trial_promo).

BONE

See BODY (#ulink_9f2f12e2-5295-5e49-8f1c-8f5fce75fbc2).

BOOKS To dream of books can symbolize knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, the search for knowledge, and the ability to learn from the opinions of other people. If you are surrounded by books in your dreams, this might suggest that you are more concerned with theory than practice. Depending on the kinds of books that figure in your dream, they can also suggest the world of imagination and escape. Are you surrounded by literary novels, racy best-sellers, or fascinating biographies? If the books are very old, this suggests learning and inherited wisdom. If the books are account books, this indicates a need to take care of financial matters.

Sacred books, such as the Koran or the Bible, signify a search for hidden or sacred knowledge. Dreaming of a sacred book can also represent a need to know you are heading in the right direction. To dream of an encyclopedia suggests a hunger for knowledge and new experience, as an encyclopedia represents collective human wisdom. On the other hand, it can also suggest information overload and a need to find focus. To dream you are searching in a dictionary suggests a need to find answers to a particular problem or situation in your life. It can also suggest an over-reliance on the opinions of others. If you look up a particular word in your dream, this can be very significant. Finally, a poem is the ultimate form of self-expression, so if you are a poet, or a poet figures in your dream, or you are reading poetry, your unconscious is urging you to find a creative outlet in waking life.

BOOT

See SHOES (#litres_trial_promo).

BOSS

See WORK (#litres_trial_promo).

BOT

See INTERNET (#litres_trial_promo).

BOTTLE This symbol could suggest bottled up feelings but if there is something in it, it may indicate resources you have or are unaware of.

BOTTOM Is there something at the back of your mind? If you are at the bottom of a well (or anything else) it may suggest feeling that you are no longer sustained or held up by your daily routine.

BOUNDARY A dream featuring a boundary or a frontier may suggest challenge and criticism or the ability to overcome problems.

BOX

See CONTAINER (#litres_trial_promo).

BOXING If you dreamed of boxing, wrestling, or practicing any kind of martial art, such as karate, judo, or kick boxing, your dream may have had either hostile or defensive undertones. The violence of boxing or martial arts reveals a repressed hostility toward someone or something in your waking life. A knockout can indicate a guilty wish to inflict punishment or pain. Your dream may also be urging you to adopt a more calculated or self-disciplined approach to a certain threat or challenge in real life. At its most basic, boxing is an endurance sport; in dreams, it can suggest a period of uncertainty during which your intuitive and rational halves will be in conflict with each other. Your dream is telling you that if you have self-discipline and patience, you can develop inner strength and resilience.

BOY If the child in your dream is a boy, you know the dream is commenting on your feelings about the boy but referring these things to yourself. For example, if the boy is disruptive, it may depict your own desire to cause disruption of some kind in waking life. It may also indicate a male child in waking life who is giving you cause for concern. If you do not recognize the boy, it suggests that you need to be a little more adventurous and bring excitement to your life. In a man’s dream, an unknown boy can represent new potential and the part of himself he needs to ‘father’ in order to grow and mature. In a woman’s dream, an unknown boy can suggest your developing ability to express your feelings in actions.

BOYFRIEND

See RELATIONSHIPS (#litres_trial_promo).