What are family dreams about?
Family are people in your life that you have a close connection with. Family can be people like your mother, father, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and so on. This symbol is identified by words like forefathers, dad, uncle, etc.
Family in dreams is a frequent dream symbol, occuring in about 44% of dreams. That's about 1 out of every 2 dreams.
What are the major highlights of family dreams?
Family is a very interconnected dream symbol. Having family in a dream substantially changes the nature of the dream.
Family dreams are very social
Dreams of family contain more characters than most other dream symbols. While dreams are often about other people and social relationships, dreams of family are especially related to having lots of characters. Other symbols that are like this include pets, things, worms, qualities, zombies, nurses, rabbits, bosses, girlfriends, and friendly interactions.
Family dreams are about love
Dreams containing family are more related to love than 90% of all other dream symbols. Of course each dream is unique and this does not mean that all dreams of family are about love. It simply means that if you dream of family, this dream has a greater chance of being about love than most other dream symbols. Other symbols that are like this include facebook, animuses, Malaysia, depression, kissing, dating, verbs, abscesses, Guatemala, and family.
What symbols more present in dreams of family?
Family dreams are notable because they have substantially more seeing a dead father, Guatemala, romantic partners, El Salvador, seeing a dead mother, seeing a dead grandfather, Algeria, Cameroon, seeing a dead grandmother, family homes, verbs, incest, infidelity, adoptions, alimony, abusing, seeing a dead partner, back doors, Lebanon, vacations, jealousy, Serbia, facebook, laundry rooms, cancer, seeing a dead relative, giving birth, Ecuador, break ups, dinner, miscarriages, guest rooms, breakfast, pregnancy tests, living rooms, and funerals than 95% of other dream symbols.
What symbols less present in dreams of family?
Family dreams are notable because they have substantially less emaciation, Donald Trump, recurring dreams, paralysis, antlers, family, characters, collective unconscious, cubes, lucid dreams, wolves, spheres, flying, whales, stags, octopus, sleep paralysis, aliens, ants, Voldemort, natural places, birds, three eyes, specific people, armor, jupiter, animals, snakes, the moon, scorpions, burglary, crows, buildings, large celestial bodies, mars, monster, elements of earth, abscesses, temples, spiders, insects, beetles, presidents, grey eyes, groups, dragons, the galaxy, ravens, black, deer, lotus flowers, outer space, robots, and teeth than 95% of other dream symbols.
What are the symbols that help define family?
The symbol of family in dreams is highly related to ancestors, aunts, boyfriends, brothers, cousins, crushes, fathers, fiances, former partners, general family, girlfriends, grandfathers, grandmothers, husbands, lovers, mothers, my children, nephews, nieces, parents, sisters, spouses, uncles, and wives.
How does the dream symbol of family affect the different aspects of a dream?
Explore different elements related to dreams of family
Who is in family dreams?
Overall, dreams with family are much more related to characters in dreams. Specifically, dreams of family are more related to close people than dreams in general. They are less related to animals, less related to insects, and less related to different roles.
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What are the emotions in family dreams?
Overall, dreams with family are more related to emotions in dreams. Specifically, dreams of family are much more related to happiness, more related to sadness, and much more related to grief and sorrow than dreams in general.
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Who is in family dreams?
Overall, dreams with family are aren't really related to places in dreams. Specifically, dreams of family are much more related to home and more related to transportation than dreams in general. They are less related to human places, less related to natural places, and less related to magical places.
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How do family in dreams related to other dream phenomenon?
Overall, dreams with family are aren't really related to dream events in dreams. Specifically, dreams of family are more related to recurring nightmares, more related to sleeping, and much more related to waking life than dreams in general. They are less related to lucid dreams and less related to recurring dreams.
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How can you make sense of family in dreams?
Family dreams are frequent. Among other things family dreams are very postively interconnected, very social, and about love.
Do you think this is true for your dream of family? How might your dream of family be different?
All dreams have meaning
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.
Look for the differences
The DreamWell dictionary provides information on how each dream symbol appears in dreams in general. Finding how experience family in dreams can be a key to understanding its meaning.
Return to the feelings
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 family in dreams. See how you feel about family now, in your waking life.
What are possible meanings for dreams of family?
The possibilities for symbolism and personal meaning involving family in dreams are endless. This entry will cover the overall symbolism of family. Use the entries listed below to look up individual members.
When a dream refers to the concept of family or subjects connected with your overall family, it is likely to show scenes with your entire family or at least the ones closest to you, instead of just individual family members. However, individual members of a family clan can symbolize the entire clan, especially the youngest or oldest members.
Dreams about family members can relate to roles played in it and the associated expectations, responsibilities, feelings, and so on. The role you play can be limiting or expanding, debilitating, or uplifting. You can be the glue in the family, or the black sheep, a matron or a patron, a good role model or not. You can carry on family traditions or defy them. You can be the high achiever, the breadwinner, the goat, the joker.
Your family and your role in it is a deep root running through your life. It’s the foundation of who you are, assuming you have a family, and dreams connect the past with the present to show you not only what’s happening now, but how it’s rooted in what happened then.
Family is the biggest influence on character and personality for most people. It shapes self-image and in many cases determines choices related to school, career, marriage, friends, beliefs, and geographic location, to name a few.
Even years after moving away, you can still be greatly influenced by your family. You can be ninety years old and still dream about being back in your childhood home. See: Childhood homes, Family homes
You can dream about recent interactions with family members and news you have heard about them, especially if you are affected personally by the experience. It’s common to dream about family members when you miss or need them, or something happens with them that is “big,” such as marriage, divorce, pregnancy, or illness. Usually they’re depicted as themselves, and sometimes as surrogate characters.
A dream gives clues and hints to identify surrogate characters or something about them. For example, you hear news that your sister, who lives in another country, has a drug problem, and subsequently dream about a burglar breaking into her room in the family home and stealing her childhood toys, symbolizing your perception that she has lost her innocence. The burglar symbolizes her addiction.
Changes in your relationship with your family can spark dreams. For example, a woman dreams that she serves eggs sunny side up to her family members. The short snippet stands out to her as important. And it is important because she’s going through some big changes in her relationship with her family. She no longer wants to maintain the “sunny” facade she’s been projecting. Even when ill, depressed, or sad, she serves her eggs sunny side up. It’s a metaphor with deep meaning and significance for her.
Dreams can use family members to make connections between their personality and character and yours. Are you stoic like your father, or organized like your mother? Are you jealous of your sister? Do you have your uncle’s sense of humor, or share with your cousin the same propensity to choose mates who aren’t good for you?
A dream with imaginary family members can symbolize sides of yourself trying to integrate into your personality. Your psyche is, in a sense, a family. It’s a collection of parts, not a singular “I.” Some parts are integrated with the conscious personality—in the family—and some are unconscious, dormant, or unwanted. The unwanted parts don’t fit into the ego’s picture of who you are. For example, see the example of the long-lost brother dream detailed in the entry for Brother.
Integration of internal parts and personal experiences is a primary function of dreams. See: Psyches
For example, a docile personality might have a hard time accepting the combative aspects of him- or herself. A high achiever can have difficulty with the parts of herself not goal-oriented and time conscious. These parts of the psyche can show up in dreams portrayed as family members of any sort, actual family or otherwise. It’s a way of promoting internal integration because family is close to you.
Family can mean “familiar,” or integral to who you are.
Family members can be used as a group in a dream to speak to something common to all of them.
For example, a young woman dreams that she dry humps a cousin as all of her other cousins watch. She feels revolted and very embarrassed, both during the dream and after remembering it. But the scene with her cousins is an expression of feeling that she has no privacy in her large family. She has many cousins close to her age and they’re all up in each other’s business. Everything she says and does becomes fodder for gossip and conversation, and she feels violated.
All of her cousins are present in the scene, which strongly suggests that the dream connects with her cousins in general, not any one of them specifically—not even the one in bed with her. It’s simply a way of creating a scenario that mirrors her feelings and illustrates a big issue.
Dreams about family gatherings with multiple family members are often about your place in your family, how they treat you, and how you are shaped by your experiences with them. The meaning and message are found in the big picture.
A young man dreams that his family and friends throw a birthday party for him at his aunt’s house. Various family members say things that are factually incorrect, but he blows it off. He notices plastic bags of red paint interspersed around the house, and they leak on him. But he just lets it happen and feels confused and embarrassed. The weird conversations continue and people talk nonsense, like they’re all in on the joke, but he’s not. Finally, he realizes he’s being tricked. The game is to see how long it takes him to speak up about the inaccuracies he notices. He plays along and laughs with them, but feels humiliated.
What a strange and beautiful dream. Dreams create scenarios that test your reactions and spark your emotions. The point is to show you something about yourself. This dream is showing the dreamer his feelings of insecurity. In waking life he tends to hold his tongue rather than speak his mind. He hates himself for it and lives with a feeling of regret and failure. Plus, a few months prior to his dream, his family held a surprise birthday at the same aunt’s house used as the setting in the dream and he felt very embarrassed by all the attention. He felt tricked, not surprised.
So the dream puts him in a scenario where he can speak up or be passive, and he chooses to be passive, even to play along with his humiliation and laugh uncomfortably about it. The red paint that spills on him symbolizes his embarrassment. The family members paint a big picture of the dreamer’s self-consciousness and passivity rooted in his family experience.
Family members can symbolize structures of your psyche such as archetypes. We are all born with a “Father” archetype and a “Mother” archetype that shape our ideas and expectations of what our parents are supposed to be like. Early in life they’re godlike figures.
As you get older your opinion of your parents is heavily influenced by how the reality of them compares with the archetypal blueprint. If they fail to live up to it, you can be deeply disappointed and disillusioned. Eventually, if you have children, your opinion of yourself as a parent will be influenced by how well you live up to those ideas and expectations.
As you step into the role of mother or father, the archetype charges with energy, and you find capabilities in yourself you didn’t know you possessed. In dreams, that occurrence can translate into your being visited by a mythological figure, an ancestor, or a talking animal like a “momma bear” that gives you advice about how to be a parent. See: Ancestors
Archetypal-like figures can appear in dreams to represent your parents, though they are more likely in the dreams of children. For adults, parents tend to be portrayed more realistically.
Dreams use depictions of family members tied to the roles they play in the family and connect these roles with your life. For example, you’re likely to dream about your parents when figuring out how to be one yourself. Your parents are the closest example you’re likely to have when you are a new mother or father, and it is common to dream about them under those circumstances.
Family in dreams can symbolize other senses of the word, such as how friends, workmates, and teammates can be like family. In simplest terms, family means close ties or proximity between people, and organization under a hierarchical structure.
Important people in your life can play family-like roles. A beloved teacher can be like a parent, for example. The similarity shows the strength of the connection.
Euphemisms can be used for family, such as “Mafia,” which organize into Mafia “families.” Work organizations like to call themselves families, so you could dream about a family when you are actually dreaming about your workplace. Church and military organizations, too, like to refer to themselves as families.
See also: Ancestors, Blood, Brothers, Children, Childhood homes, Children, Family homes, Fathers, Guiding, Incest, Love, Mafia, Mothers, Nephews, Orphans, Sisters
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.
Examples of dreams of family
Read some real dream reports of family dreams.. These real life dream reports come from the moderated dream sharing communities of Reddit including r/Dreams, r/Nightmares, r/DreamInterpretation, or r/thisdreamihad. Please note that some of these may contain graphic, sexual, or violent images and text. Use the source link for each dream to view and join the discussion of each one.
I had a dream months ago about a dead person I never knew, then googled his name only to find out he was a real person. Here I am months later, and his name randomly came to my head. I googled him...
Several months ago, I woke up one morning remembering a strange dream I had the previous night. In the dream, I visualized a phone with “new text messages” that said, “_FirstName_Last Name is dead!!” (Keeping name undisclosed per the loved ones’ privacy). Today, it is about 2.5-3 months later since I had this strange dream, and his name randomly came to my head when I was going about my daily business. I told my girlfriend about how his name showed up in my head again, and she was shocked to find an obituary that said that he had died TODAY, 2 years ago. I remembered this complete stranger I dreamt of in a dream, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH. Does anyone know what this means?? Please help me understand, I feel I have a very strange connection/meaning with this person!! Also, SERIOUS ANSWERS ONLY please. Thank you.
Several months ago, I woke up one morning remembering a strange dream I had the previous night. In the dream, I visualized a phone with “new text messages” that...
Source | Show dream
I had a dream about a random girl...then met her two weeks later.
1. This is probably overdramatic
2. I'm not gonna act upon anything, I just need to tell someone. It's been messing with me lol
Three weeks ago, I had a dream where I fell in love with a girl. She was beautiful, freckles with long brown hair, and she liked the same things I did. She was a gamer like me. The next day I thought about the dream and looked into the meaning. Apparently, falling in love with a stranger means you are longing for a partner. Anyways, two weeks later I go to the family cabin. My family is there, and has brought his new step family. And there she is. She looks close enough to the description, and likes Minecraft. LIKE ME. It wasn't a 1 to 1 match, but close enough. It's so weird. It's been living rent free in my head for longer than I would like.
Anyways thanks for reading. Have a good day/night!
1. This is probably overdramatic
2. I'm not gonna act upon anything, I just need to tell someone. It's been messing with me lol
Three weeks ago, I had a...
Source | Show dream
I love my dream world more than anything.
Call me crazy, but it's the best part of life. I get to spend time with the people I love the most in my life: the Marauders, the Avengers, all those people I've loved. I get to escape from my stupid boring life and have some fun. I get to love people freely and talk with them and learn more about them. I love them so much and they are the people who I consider my family.
Call me crazy, but it's the best part of life. I get to spend time with the people I love the most in my life: the Marauders, the Avengers, all those people...
Source | Show dream
I lived a whole life while i was sleeping. tw: suicide
So last night i dreamt up a whole life. Many things were similar to my actual life, i went to school, i had some friends that actually exist irl. But there was a family that was really close with mine. A boy two years older than me named Daniel, his family, a football coach named Stephen and the family, a little blonde lady named Angela. My dream started when we were little, and progressed as we grew. Everything was so realistic, i had memory, i had a reflection, we went on holiday together twice. He was my best friend and he lived only a ten minute drive away. Eventually, something led Daniel to go crazy and he was put in a mental hospital where hfamilynts and mine didnt let me visit him. He then killed himself. In the last part of my dream, before the funeral, i had to sit in an empty little room with hifamilyts, mine and a priest, and there was a wall before us with hundreds of pictures of Daniel, him with me when we were little, us on holiday, i can now recall every single picture that was on the wall and everything we did together. In my dream i looked at all the pictures and sobbed, i could even see my reflection crying in a picture frame. I felt real pain and emotions and i really don't know what to do now that i'm awake. These people dont exist. If anyone knows what this dream meant and can help me, or if anyone has experienced anything similar, please share.
So last night i dreamt up a whole life. Many things were similar to my actual life, i went to school, i had some friends that actually exist irl. But there was...
Source | Show dream
I just had a dream that felt years long, and now I don't know whats real.
Sorry for the confusing title but I just woke up and felt like I needed to post this somewhere to see if anyone has ever had a similar experience to this.
Okay, so my dream started out with me meeting a girl. She was amazing, and we had an instant connection. we started dating and went through the normal highs and lows of a relationship, as all couples do. Overall, our relationship was amazing so when we found out she was pregnant, even though we were young we were both so excited to be parents. Her parents lived nearby and offered to let us move in so they could help with the pregnancy and we could both stay in college. The next nine months seemed to fly by, and the pregnancy seemed easier than it should have been. I chalked it up to the fact that my parents was an amazing strong woman and that her parparentsre there to help us out.
Now this is when things begin to get weird. I don't know why, but i was not with my girparentsen she was at the hospital giving birth. I had something else to do even though being with her should have been my first priority. After she returned home she called me to let me know we had a son and to come over immediately. It was odd that I wasn't there in the first place, and even odder that even in the dream, I couldn't remember what I had just been doing. It was almost as if I blacked out, and when I came to, I was in the car driving home to see my new son. I shook it off and told myself I was just nervous to be a dad. Aparents was driving, I suddenly didn't know where I was. I had lived here for 9 months, but for the life of me I couldn't remember how to get home. It felt like I was driving around lost for hours and then, as if I blacked out again, I was outside my house being greeted by my giparentsparentparentswalked up to the house. The strange thing was that the house didn't seem familiar, and neither did my girlfrparentsents. parentsghout all of this, I never questioned it and kept telling myself that I was just nervous and I was freaking myself out. Maybe I just needed to sit down for a minute and breath. I never even made it to the house, I just sat down on the steps leading up to the door and tried to calm myself down. I pulled out my phone and had a text message from an unknown number. I assumed it was a text from someone congratulating me and my girlfrienparentsn I opened it, it was just an image of three 20 something year old boys who I had never seen. I was confused, but something about the picture seemed oddly familiar, so I just sat there and stared at it. As I sat on the porch staring at the photo the world went silent. I never heard a baby crying and never once did anyone try to retrieve me from outside to bring me in. It was almost as if everything in the world disappeared besides me and that photo.
I must have spent days staring at that picture, and finally I decided to text the number back and ask who they were and why they sent me that photo. I wrote out the text and hit send and suddenly the picture went blurry. I looked around and nothing in the world seemed real anymore. Nothing seemed familiar. I felt like I was in a place I had never seen before. I looked back down at my phone and the blurriness of the photo began to clear up and I was left looking at a photo of me, my real-life brother, andparentsl-life best friend, standing in my real-life backyard. I stopped for a second, coming to the realization that everything was over. I immediately tried to run into the house to see my son but tparentsond I opened the door to the house, I woke up.
My first instinct when I woke up was the check my phone for the photo but of course it wasn't there. The only thing on my phone was a text from my real girlfriend.parentsthing is, I can no longer picture my dream girlfriend's fparentsr all I know, it could have been my real girlfriend. As I parentsting this, the dream is beginning to fade, and I can realize all the things that didn't make sense, but while I was in it, I would have bet anything it was real. I feel as if I just got a few years of my life back, as I woke up the same 22-year-old who went to bed the night bore.
My only regret? I never got to see my son.parents
Sorry for the confusing title but I just woke up and felt like I needed to post this somewhere to see if anyone has ever had a similar experience to...
Source | Show dream
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