I am cradling a new-born baby. She is beautiful and her breath is soooo sweet. I place the baby carefully on a lambskin I have stuffed between books on a high shelf, making a kind of hutch. I arrange things so she can’t roll off the shelf.
This was my dream from an afternoon nap yesterday. I woke with a sense of joy, tenderness and wonder. In ordinary reality, it’s most unlikely that I’ll have another child. It’s also most improbable that, if entrusted with someone else’s baby, I’d think it was appropriate to treat her this way, When I went down to my office, after my nap, I found that contracts had arrived for the new book I am planning to deliver this spring. This book will be my next literary baby, and the birth announcement came in the dream.
Baby dreams, like dreams on any theme, can be literal or symbolic. Expectant mothers dream of babies before they know they are expecting. During a pregnancy, baby dreams can rehearse both mother and child for the delivery. They can also be part of a process of “getting to know you” during which a new personality introduces itself and checks out the family it will be joining.
It’s not unusual for pregnant mothers to dream of giving birth to animals. Indigenous peoples are quick to recognize that such dreams can bring knowledge not only of the character of the incoming soul, but of its spiritual connections. A television host in St.Louis told me on her show that when she was pregnant, she dreamed of giving birth to a lizard. “It just slid right out.” Though startling, the dream was very auspicious. The delivery was smooth and quick. We also discussed qualities of the lizard that might belong to the new child, including the ability to grow back.
Baby dreams can be birth announcements from others in the family, advance word of a coming grandchild, for example. A dream announcing a literal birth may also be one that invites spiritual parenting. The First Peoples of my native Australia say that every soul on the way to birth needs a spiritual parent to help it find its way safely to its home in our world. The spiritual parent – a godparent in a deeper sense than that word has come to mean in English – may or may not be one of the birth parents. The connection between the incoming soul and the spiritual parent will be made in dreams.
As in my dream from yesterday’s nap, baby dreams are often about something other than a literal baby. If you dream of having a baby and you are unlikely or unable to give birth in a literal sense, ask yourself: what new thing am I getting ready to bring through in my life? What will I create? The creative act is always a process of birthing something new into the world.
A mother dreamed she grown a huge pregnant belly. Probing gingerly, she found she was carrying twins, but there was something really strange about their anatomies. They had hard, sharp edges. She was not enthusiastic about bearing twins at her stage in life. When we discussed the dream, I asked her to explain what was “strange” about the shapes she felt inside her dream self’s swollen belly. “It was like they had hard, sharp edges.” I asked her, “Hard and sharp like what?” She responded, “Like books!” She decided she was pregnant with two books she hoped to write. Several years after the dream, she has completed the first of those books and is writing the second.
Baby dreams can be more than birth announcements; they can suggest a care and nurturing plan we need to follow to support an initially vulnerable new life venture. A woman embarking on a new career dreamed she gave birth to a tiny, very fragile baby. She found it hard to hold the baby. It was very slippery and kept slipping from her grasp, so we would find herself struggling to maintain a safe grip or to catch it when it started to fall. This dream seemed to mirror, rather exactly, the challenges of birthing that new career.
Another dreamer was horrified when she let a newborn baby fall because she was overloaded with a huge crate full of stuff she associated with her work situation. Studying the dream, she realized she needed to let go of a job that was interfering with a creative project she wanted to bring through; better to lose the work load than the baby.
A birth announcement in our dreams may be about the beginning of new life in a spiritual sense. I was moved when a friend recently shared a dream in which she received a birth announcement from a deceased relative, announcing that he had been reborn on the Other Side.
Let’s not forget that Gabriel, the archangel of the annunciation – who brings the most celebrated of all advance birth announcements – is also the angel of dreams and the patron of travel on the astral plane.
Annunciation by Eustache Le Sueur (17th century)
posted January 15, 2011 at 10:43 am
I seem to dream of babies quite often… On occasion I have found myself caring for infants named after adults I know in waking life, perhaps symbolic of supporting them through a transition that could take a bit more cradling than usual. Some of the baby dreams relate to children born to people familiar from waking life, as I recall a few precognitive birth announcements; with one of the children I do seem to have an ongoing “spiritual parent” connection both in dreams and waking life.
I was coincidentally reviewing a report from August 2010 last night in which I take care of a baby girl whose mom walks in and introduces “Nichelina and Felix” to the room, pointing to the baby. I am confused because I know Felix and he doesn’t have a baby sister (yet). In a subsequent scene I find myself entering a bathroom stall directly after a friend whose spiritual name means Divine Mother. She is having some kind of difficulty while using the stall, and when I go in myself I land up flooding the room with a sudden rush of fluid. I feel embarrassed but a friend kindly says not to worry, it happens all the time – when one channel is blocked the fluid simply creates another. Interesting how dream material makes layers of meaning as bladder incontinence does come up during pregnancy but my mind also goes to a need to channel creative energy so it doesn’t spill randomly (and the dream contained a direct health advisory about increasing fluid intake).
posted January 15, 2011 at 11:29 am
I would say that dreams about giving birth to babies are fairly frequent, at least for women. Though I estimate that most of my dream babies came to the world when I was in teens. It was the time when I took more interest in soul matters and they probably symbolized new life possibilities just emerging. Two early dreams I remember better; first dream for the open environment, my baby was born in the town street on a very bright, shiny day. The second one I recall well because of an impossible character in a waking reality. I watched the man who was pregnant and the scene looked very natural in the dream. My later baby dreams concentrated more on a nurturing aspect, sometimes I was caring, sometimes my dreamself had to remind me of my “maternal” duties.
One of my latest baby dreams came in November and it suggested some new unfolding topics in this field for me. The dream starts with a large block of flats. I need to climb up the stairs to the top apartment but the building is all surrounded with a scaffold so I choose to use it. It goes well until I get to the highest floor. I feel one wooden board getting loose under my feet. At once I grab the nearest possible support. I trust the strength in my arms and lift myself up to the safe, stable place. Then I enter the room, which seems to be situated high up but opposite the block. The room is very lively, full of various practical things and the atmosphere is cosy. I see a young, cheerful woman bathing a few-month-old baby. After the bath, she dresses him in a purple cloak and on the front side I recognize the black outline of Christ face. Suddenly the whole scene becomes very solemn. More visitors arrive, little boys who sprinkle a few drops of water on my head. I am wondering if it´s really Easter time and wake up.
This is not exactly a sample baby-birth dream but after awakening I had a feeling that it brings up a new beginning (baby) which is already “pregnant” with the ending and hopefully leads to a completely new and transformative beginning (Easter symbols). Kind of never-ending process in us.
Thank you a lot for a lovely baby-scented post.
posted January 15, 2011 at 11:31 pm
With the recent blows to the phrases ‘lucid dreaming’ and ‘conscious dreaming,’ this morning my pal & ally Le Bleu sent me a present I’d like to share with the dear Dreaming Community. We might, unabashed, use ‘wise dreaming’ and ‘wisdom dreaming’ as vivid, thing-with-feathers descriptions of what we’re up to.
posted January 16, 2011 at 11:34 am
Many years ago (70s) I was in a dream class with Jeremy Taylor – a central issue at that time was working through my grief at the loss of my first child. I had a dream: “I am lying on a gurney covered by a white sheet. It’s time to give birth, but I haven’t been through labor.” Jeremy suggestd that the combination of “labor” and “white sheet” suggested to him writing about my experience with Chrissie as a part of my healing. I did that, and it did that!
posted January 16, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Wendy – My preferred name for what I teach and practice is “active dreaming”. That’s what it’s called, and it’s wise without need to say so. As for “lucid dreaming” and my own “conscious dreaming”, there is absolutely no need for anyone to be defensive about terminology because a madman ranted around it. Do we give up the Bible (or “David Copperfield” or “The Man in the High Castle” or Madonna CDs) because the less informed media pick up the idea that this was the devil that made him do it?
posted January 16, 2011 at 7:32 pm
When I was pregnant with my son I had a lovely dream. I was at a gathering and the medicine woman gave me her falcon to take care of. I felt honored, but also not sure if I could take it into the cave by myself. The medicine woman waited for me to decide, ready to take it back if I wanted. After I started climbing the ladder into the cave, both she and I knew the falcon would be fine. I had to stay in the cave with it for awhile. It’s kind of cool how this dream comes back so rich, like how I could tell you in detail about his delivery and feel it as if I were right there. I started to deliver two months early. Even then when I was not as tuned into dream understanding, I had a sense that he was going to be just fine. My son is 17 and quit an amazing fellow.
Patty
posted January 17, 2011 at 4:57 am
Patty – what a lovely dream of the falcon emerging from the cave – early, but fine.
posted January 17, 2011 at 5:56 am
Azima – That was good advice. We can indeed write our way through some of our hardest life passages. When I ask for a personal dream of healing, I often find my dream self doing something relating to writing and publishing – and proceed to follow his example.
posted January 17, 2011 at 6:01 am
Nina – Just before reading your comment I was traveling (in a dream) with a group that included a pregnant man. Thanks for adding to our range of examples of the baby theme that may be about more than a literal baby. If your most recent dream were mine, I would think about a possible collective situation – perhaps in the family, but probably beyond my personal family – where something important is under construction. The scaffolding is still up, but when a building process is complete, it is taken away to reveal the new facade.
posted January 17, 2011 at 6:06 am
Savannah – In the context of the baby theme, an overflowing toilet makes me think of the waters breaking. As you say, dreams are multi-layered, so my thoughts also range from a possible literal “washroom” problem to the need to keep open a clear channel for creative flow.
posted January 17, 2011 at 11:04 am
Just a quick note. I didn’t deliver two months early. But I did have to stop work and stay in bed. Well worth it for this “mover”. I spent much time practicing loving meditation and looking back it was kind of a holy time for me. Books, deepen stillness, feeling my body and his, and lounging out doors with a cold glass of lemonade. Again I am reminded of what you said about the energy of a dream being of utmost importance. Sitting in a cave with a falcon…a holy experience, hmmm.
Patty
posted January 17, 2011 at 12:05 pm
One of my friends, who is not one to pay attention to her dreams, shared (years ago) that she had dreamt of her grandson (he walked into her tent as a toddler in the dream, bathed in light) before he was born. The awe and beauty of her dream washed over us all as she told the story. I remember how her face glowed with grandmotherly love.
posted January 17, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Kit – what a beautiful experience. For at least a moment, your friend was able to see what becomes available when we draw back the curtain of our everyday assumptions and let the dream light in.
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