Baby

Principally the dream baby represents your own feeling urges at that level of development – such as possessiveness, joy, curiosity, responding to the world without words or formed concepts, innocent love, infant trauma; intense dependence; feelings of helplessness; vulnerability; lack of responsibility; being cared for.

Even as adults many of these early feeling responses still dominate the way we meet relationships and events. It is quiet common for instance for adults to feel intense and destructive jealousy about their sexual partner. This is exactly the sort of feeling we experienced naturally as a baby and child. Unfortunately in adulthood we seldom such feelings as an emergence of baby feelings which we have not grown beyond. Instead we accept them as adult behaviour and justify them, often blaming our sexual partner for them – i.e. You made me jealous by showing affection for that other man/woman. The baby often feels murderous rage in connection with such dependence and jealousy, but it is too small to effectively act on the rage. When an adult feels such rage however, it is highly dangerous and irrational. See personal growth.

The baby can also suggest a new phase of life; a new idea; new activity – as when we say someone has a new baby, meaning a new project or business. This baby might be part of the personality or ability that did not have a chance to be born or express before. Or it may be things learned in a rich life that one could not put into practice because of circumstances such as work pressure or parenthood. The baby in this aspect is the you that could have been if you had been free from problems and past hurts.

Aborted baby: In general something that was developing, a new facet of self, or a new opportunity that has now been lost or rejected. If in a pregnant woman’s dream, usually it is an expression of fears regarding ones ability to carry the child to full term – but it is wise to have a check. See: pregnancy.

Adult body with baby head: Suggests that the way one approaches life, ones thinking, is still immature, even though one is physically mature.

Adopted baby: Adopting a new stance in life, perhaps conceived by, or seen in someone else; taking on the responsibility of something or someone that needs care and help to grow; if you are trying to adopt a baby it would reflect feelings or intuitions about that activity.

Baby body with adult head: Suggests that while one has developed an adult intellect and rational thinking, or an adult self, aspects of ones feelings, hungers and sexuality remain at the baby level of development.

Baby Boy: If you have given birth to a baby boy, it is usually about the principle of maleness entering your life. Maleness is like the sun, it expresses most of its energy outwardly to give life. Whereas the female is like the earth, receiving and nurturing life.

Baby Girl: If you have given birth to a baby girl, it is usually about the principle of femininity. Femininity is about having the power of creating life within and nurturing its growth.

Beautiful, gifted or holy baby: Often shows the dreamer having given birth to parts of their personality which are connected with wider sympathies, or wider awareness, than their own personal ego or self. It may show an awareness of the universal processes of life. It is the same sort of meaning as Christ in symbolism. It can show the emergence of awareness of the levels of existence beyond the senses. See: esp in dreams.

Boy baby: Birth or emergence of a new phase of self expression in terms of activity or achievement. In a males dream may suggest a new self emerging, or new aspect of self.

Crying baby: Your fundamental needs are not being, or were not in the past, met. These include basic things like feeling happy and relaxed in ones environment, feeling wanted and loved, having a sense of connection with other people. There may be something distressing you at a feeling/needing level that you are not acknowledging; a new project or aspect of self needing more care.

Dropping a baby: Carelessness in dealing with your basic needs, especially in relationship; mishandling an opportunity; betraying trust; feeling you have been dropped by someone, perhaps in a relationship.

Girl baby: Birth or emergence of new aspects of feelings and feeling relationship with others. But in a females dream may mean an emergence of a new phase or a new start in her life.

Happy baby: Feeling at ease with oneself and surroundings. It may be that something has happened in a relationship or environment that brings a deeper level of relaxation and sense of security.

Hitting the baby: See: hitting.

Holy baby: See: child under archetypes.

In a mans dream: The same as general definitions, but also may be oneself at that age; desire for parenthood; weight of responsibility; fear of inability to produce.

In child’s dream: Themselves at that age; feelings about a baby sibling.

In woman’s dream: The same as general definitions, but also may be oneself at that age; desire for a baby; responsibility of caring for baby; worries about having healthy baby; worries about baby’s welfare.

Losing/not finding a baby: Losing contact with or not caring for your fundamental feeling responses to life; losing an opportunity or mishandling a delicate relationship; feeling lost and abandoned in ones own child feelings.

Man giving birth to a baby: Often happens during the pregnancy of the mans partner; shows the man bringing something to birth in himself. This is usually a new understanding, or a new sympathy or viewpoint. It can show the emergence of awareness of the unconscious.

Neglecting or forgetting baby: Many baby dreams, as in the example below, have this theme of neglecting, or even starving the baby. This is usually because we need to take care of, or be more aware of, how much personal need we have for things like care, appreciation and love being given to us. If as a baby our need for being held and given attention were met, then we can move into the next phase of our growth. But if these needs were never met, one is often stuck emotionally at this level of development. (See the second example below.)

If you are a parent with a baby, the dream may represent natural anxieties about ones ability as a parent – i.e. the dream may reflect a fear you are not giving as much to your child as you wish, or that you find yourself wishing for a break from parenthood.

Nursing a baby: Caring for ones own infant needs which still exist in ones adult life; giving care and love to someone who is relating to you in a baby way; wanting a baby, or needing to express the depth of your own ability to give and love.

Pregnancy – dreaming of baby during: Most women dream about their growing baby during pregnancy. These dreams are vary varied and often anxious or frightening. Such dreams are not to be taken as signs of a problem other than natural anxiety. Occasionally a pregnant woman dreams of the identity or personality of her unborn child, perhaps even before it is conceived. This can of course occur to the father too. See: pregnancy; birth dreams during pregnancy; fifth example under penis, in the body section.

Sick baby: Our babyhood experience builds the foundation of all relationship with other people and the world. If for instance we are punished for being curious, or are traumatised in our need for love and support, it will show in our adult relationships. Perhaps we will lack explorative curiosity, or avoid or have difficulties in a close relationship. The sick baby usually depicts such difficulties. Exploring our feelings in connection with the sick baby, or being the sick baby as in Gestalt dream-work, will help uncover the details and intense feelings involved in such unsatisfying emotions and habitual responses. (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

Starving baby: See: Neglecting or forgetting baby: above.

Twins or twin: The many polar opposites or splits in us – the split between waking consciousness and sleep or the unconscious; the split between what we want in our deepest desires, and what we can allow ourselves socially; the split caused by infant trauma; the split between our sense of eternity and the facts of physical mortality; introversion and extroversion; something of self which has got split off, or perhaps even died at birth, leaving us feeling only half a person; the lack of balance in our being; twins can represent duality, conflict, or two sides of an issue, but also the emergence of something new, something that was denied, or born with one, but never acknowledged as part of oneself; ones unconscious relationship with another person, such as occurs in a telepathic link; separation.

When appearing with a couple: The marriage – what is created in the relationship; the life process in us based on reproduction. What you have produced and care for or neglect together

Quoted from Dreams and Dreaming, by Norman Mackenzie.

Then I went back in my mind to being two years old when I felt that a terrible thing had happened to me, the realisation that my mother had no love for me. I saw her holding a male baby and I felt in that instant that I hated males. I had just this fundamental feeling, a terrible feeling, and it grew and I became full of hate and I realised that it was directed toward the opposite sex. I felt that this had begun at an early age when I felt that my mother had given affection to the male members of the family and not myself. I was the only female. I realised that at that age she didn’t love me and I must have felt jealous of the male This grew up within me.

This graphically describes the depth of feeling we often carry from our earliest years, feelings which deeply influence our adult behaviour. In this case it made the woman’s relationships with her husband strained and tense.

Example: I have my own baby who is lying in a cot in a bedroom looking very weak and pathetic with eyes closed. I know that he or she is getting weaker and weaker through lack of food and care. In fact the baby seems to be dying. The feelings of guilt are terrible because I know it is my responsibility to do something to make it well. I keep saying to myself I must go and feed that baby – but I don’t. I just keep worrying and feeling guilty. J. C.

Because of circumstances we may not have been able to satisfy all our babyhood needs – we may have been weaned earlier than we wanted; our need for attention may have been unsatisfied or we felt rejected or unwanted – and these are shown as a baby in our dreams, as with J. C. Dreams such as the above show how we sense the need of this part of us to be cared for and nourished. If some of these earliest needs are not met in some way, the development of our enthusiasm, our pleasure and ability to be involved and self-giving, may be diminished, giving rise to dreams suggesting the need for nourishment, as above. See: baby healing and helping; baby in my dreams.

Example: I am 48, have two children in their late teens and definitely DO NOT want another baby. Nevertheless I have a recurring dream in which I am always in labour, experiencing no pain, and although there are nursing staff I am in some sort of laboratory, although everything is very pleasant. I never actually give birth and when I wake I always have a vague feeling of disappointment. V. I.

This dreamers conscious decision to have no more children may be in conflict with her biological urge for another baby. But the dream might also suggest there is something she deeply want to give birth to in her life but has not yet achieved. Her creativity did not end with her children, there is still more for her to bring out of herself in some way.

Example: My mouth was full of what looked like liver. It was also coming out of my left ear. When I turned away from the mirror I saw medical people in caps and gowns who kept telling me to bear down. I then gave birth to a baby out of my mouth. I am an invalid and very sick at present. Mr. M. S.

This mans dream is about preparation for death. The baby is the extraction of all that can live on after his present life is left behind in death. See: death – is there life afterwards.

Useful questions are:

Useful questions are given in baby in my dreams.