What are body part dreams about?

You can gain insight from thinking about any dream, no matter how strange. Only you, as the dreamer, have final say on what your dream may or may not mean. Each dream is unique.

The DreamWell dictionary provides information on how each dream symbol appears in dreams in general. Finding how experience body parts in dreams can be a key to understanding its meaning.

Our emotions in dreams can help us understand its meaning. Pay attention to how you felt in the dream. Pay attention to how you feel about body parts in dreams. See how you feel about body parts now, in your waking life.

Parts of the body such as the head and feet have specific symbolism. Look them up individually—a list is provided at the bottom. This entry will give possibilities for overall symbolism.

Since you live in your body and get nightly updates about its health and status via dreams, you dream frequently about it, usually shown through symbolism such as a home, other structure, or vehicle. See: Buildings, Buses, Cars, Home, Trees

For example, a man dreams that he’s in the home of a famous baseball pitcher, who has been fixing up the place and is patching up the ceiling. The dreamer offers to do it. It’s a way of saying he knows his body isn’t what it used to be—like during his baseball days—and he’s willing to take the steps to “patch it up.” The ceiling that needs patched represents his head. That’s where the game is really won.

Sometimes the connection between the body and health is rather obvious, such as in dream imagery featuring a hospital bed, an autopsy, getting examined by a doctor, or getting an X-ray. People sometimes have vivid dreams with this imagery when an illness is developing or their health is on their mind, and after spending time in medical facilities. See: Dissecting, Doctors, Hospitals, Illness, X-rays

Parts of the body can be symbolized, such as a fishbowl representing a bladder or kidney, windows representing the eyes, or branches representing the arms. See: Skyscrapers, Trees

A dead body can symbolize detachment—especially detachment from the physical condition and needs of the body. It can express a fear of what will happen if you allow your health to deteriorate.

It can express the idea of being dead inside, or exhausted. This use of the symbolism is particularly likely if you see yourself dead in a dream. See: Zombies

A dead body can mean that something about yourself is receding back into your mind, or a time of life is over. You are changing—out with the old and in with the new. This use of the symbolism is quite common in the dreams of people who resist change or hold onto something for too long. See: Death

In many dreams about seeing the dead body of someone close to you, the meaning is found in the fact that the relationship is changing. The person portrayed as dead is “dead to you” in the sense of no longer as important in your life, or no longer as emotionally connected to you. It’s very important to see beyond the imagery of death and recognize it as symbolism.

A dead body can mean something is figuratively killing you inside. Any sort of tense situation that’s close to the breaking point can spark dreams featuring corpses.

A dead body or bodies can signify that old parts of yourself are passing away, or it’s time to change. People who make big changes in themselves are known to dream about dead bodies, representing parts of themselves no longer needed or wanted.

For example, a woman dreams about being forced at gunpoint to fly a plane. She manages to do it, lands on an alien planet, and sees dead bodies stacked around her, killed by aliens, but is not bothered by the sight. The dream shows the big changes in her life. She forces these changes on herself by thinking about the consequences of inaction, symbolized as being forced to fly at gunpoint. The aliens and alien planet symbolize being in a foreign place in her life. The dead bodies symbolize her old ways as a self-described “couch potato.” That part of herself is gone, and her nonchalant reaction to seeing the bodies indicates it’s a welcome change.

The symbolism of a dormant body can be like that of coma, shut down inside, or unable to express yourself. See: Comas

A sleeping body can reflect the fact that as you dream, you are asleep, so the imagery reflects your physical state. Or it can be a way of saying you are “sleeping through life.” See: Sleeping

Wounds to the body are a physical representation of a personal situation, often tied to how you feel: damaged, battered, sore. It’s particularly common to dream about wounding to the body after going through a rough patch. Just how rough it was and how you feel about it are shown in the severity of the wounds. See: Wounds

A shriveled body can indicate declining health or shrinking prosperity.

A decomposing body can symbolize a dead situation, or something dwelled on too long. Time to move on. This use of the symbolism is common after close relationships end. Or it can mean putting something off for too long, perhaps allowing an opportunity to pass by.

Disposing of a body can mean you want to forget something, you’re done with it. Or you’re hiding your feelings and emotions. It can reflect feeling disrespected, unrecognized, or discarded. See: Hiding

Burying or hiding a body can symbolize trying to hide or cover up something, such as a secret. Or you feel guilty or ashamed. You want to hide something about yourself or cover up your actions or behaviors. Think of the phrase “where the bodies are buried” and how it’s used as symbolism. The bodies are things you want to hide. See: Burying

Stretch the idea of hiding or covering up. Hiding a body can mean you hide your body because of embarrassment. Or you have a weakness you want to conceal. Or you don’t want to acknowledge something about yourself because your ego wants to keep its illusions.

Covering a body can symbolize choosing to ignore someone or something. For example, covering the body of your father can symbolize choosing to ignore his rules. For an example dream, see: Casino.

If you dream about a pain in your body it can be caused by pain experienced while asleep. Oftentimes it’s translated into symbolism, such as when a stabbing pain in your back is dreamed about as being stabbed or shot in the back. You can even continue to feel it the next day as a sort of nerve memory. Tells you how believable your dreams are.

See also: Amputation, Ankles, Anuses, Arms, Attics, Basements, Beauty, Birds, Biting, Blood, Breasts, Breaking, Buildings, Burying, Buses, Cages, Calluses, Calves, Cancer, Cars, Casinos, Clean, Comas, Crying, Death, Deformation, Disease, Dissecting, Doctors, Ears, Eggs, Elbows, Elderly people, Excrement, Eyes, Faces, Feet, Cemeteries, Hair, Hands, Heads, Hearts, Hiding, Home, Hospitals, Illness, Invading, Jails, Knees, Legs, Lips, Mouths, Necks, Noses, Ovaries, Pain, Paralysis, Parasites, Pregnancy, Skin, Skyscrapers, Sleeping, Stomachs, Teeth, Testicles, Toilets, Trees, Ugliness, Uteruses, Vaginas, Weakness, Wounds, X-rays

This interpretation is from ""The Dream Interpretation Dictionary: Symbols, Signs, and Meanings" and is provided by J.M. DeBord aka "RadOwl". He is the author of several acclaimed books about dreaming, the host of The Dreams That Shape Us podcast, and is a moderator of r/Dreams, one of the largest dream sharing communities on the internet.