Pregnancy is a time of intense change, high stress levels and rapid hormone fluctuations. Given the tendency of dreams to mimic our emotional and physical state, it’s no wonder that so many women experience very vivid dreams during pregnancy. When you’re expecting a baby, your dreams might reflect the confusion, joy and apprehension that you’re likely to be experiencing, but not so likely to be talking about. This guide can help you to understand the underlying significance of your pregnant dreams.
If you’re dreaming about giving birth to animals during pregnancy…
You’re subconsciously reassuring yourself.
For most first-time mothers, caring for a pet is one of the closest experiences they have had to caring for a baby. When I was pregnant, I dreamed about giving birth to animals at least twice a week, and sometimes several times per night. In one dream, I gave birth to a kitten, and exclaimed to my doctor, “I wish someone had TOLD me it was just a kitten! I know how to take care of a kitten, this is easy!
In my case, and in the case of many other pregnant women, the dream of giving birth to an animal is our subconscious mind’s way of reassuring us that we can handle the task ahead. Given the level of fear and apprehension associated with pregnancy, it’s no wonder that this theme is one of the most common.
If, during pregnancy, you dream about your ancestors and family members...
You’re linking your baby to past generations.
Will Baby have Grandma’s eyes? Uncle Johnny’s nose? Daddy’s ears? While you may not be dreaming about your baby’s appearance specifically, you are likely to be dreaming about your family members and even ancestors who you have never met. As your baby develops, she will begin to acquire the features of her family members. Your subconscious mind is reassuring you of that.
Many women I have known report being “visited” by deceased family members during pregnancy. Some believe that this is merely the result of rising progesterone levels, while others feel that it is an honest visitation from the ghost of a family member. Your own interpretation of these visions is likely to vary based on your spiritual beliefs.
If you dream about violence during pregnancy…
You are extremely stressed.
Owing to severe financial, health, and social stresses during pregnancy, I fought with dreams of violence quite frequently. Sometimes I was the culprit; other times, I was the victim. I wondered why I was bottling such hostile feelings until I realized a clear and strong link: the violent dreams only came on weekdays, when I was working.
If you are coping with dreams about violence during pregnancy, it’s likely that you are under a significant amount of stress, and that feelings of entrapment or distress are coming out in the form of violent dreams. Take a break, relax in the bath tub, and get some extra sleep. If the problem continues, seek therapy.
If your pregnant dreams are sexual in nature…
Your hormones are skyrocketing.
Whether you feel sexual in your waking life or not, you are likely to experience frequent erotic dreams during pregnancy. This may not necessarily indicate that you are feeling particularly sexy or romantic right now, and may simply be a reflection of the changes in your hormones. As your body prepares for the challenge of childbirth, your reproductive organs and endocrine system up the ante and result in highly sensual subconsiocus fantasies.
If you have frequent sexual dreams during pregnancy, it may result from dissatisfaction with your current sex life (especially in the third trimester, when intercourse may be awkward or uncomfortable). Your dreams may be reassuring you that you are still attractive, even when you don’t necessarily feel that way.
If your dreams reflect fears about your baby’s health…
You’re overly anxious.
Almost all women dream about complications like birth defects, traumatic childbirth, or stillborn infants at some point during pregnancy. The risk of these dreams may be especially high in women who have had miscarriages or complications before, or women who are coping with high-risk pregnancies. However, these dreams are almost always based in anxiety, not reality.
If every woman who dreamed that her child had a birth defect was right, almost everyone on Earth would be deformed. The same is true for dreams about other pregnancy complications: they are your fears, not your actual state of affairs. Should you continue to experience anxiety regarding your baby’s health, talk to your doctor for reassurance.
If you’re dreaming about life with your baby…
You’re bonding before birth.
Amid the dreams of violence, panic, and giving birth to animals, I occasionally experienced tranquility and a sense of security when I would “meet” my baby before she was actually born. In one particularly vivid dream, I was rocking a gray-eyed, black-haired baby girl in a rocking chair. Although I had no idea that my baby was a girl and had no way of guessing her appearance, she to this day looks exactly like the baby I would see in my dreams.
The highly intuitive nature of pregnancy enables some women to view glimpses into the future– an important step in bonding with our babies before they are born. When we visualize and connect with the people growing inside our wombs, we learn to love them even before they are born.
If you dream about death during pregnancy…
You’re very sensitive.
For most women, childbirth– especially unmedicated childbirth– if the closest thing to death that we can possibly experience during life. This is not because childbirth is an inherently dangerous or painful process, but because it is a powerful, life-altering, life-giving event. During childbirth, as in death, we plummet into something that we have no way of understanding, feeling, or fully imagining until we experience it.
If you dream about dying, graveyards, or corpses during pregnancy, it is a sign that you are feeling sensitive and intuitive about what childbirth signifies to you. While these dreams may be morbid, they might also offer powerful spiritual insight into your own feelings about birth, death, and what may lie beyond.
If your pregnant dreams focus on water...
You are aware of your baby’s world.
Your baby is suspended in amniotic fluid, and your own intuitive connection to your unborn baby might reflect his world. All throughout pregnancy, I had vivid dreams about living in goldfish bowls and swimming in oceans– and I even had a recurrent dream that I was a baby manatee swimming alongside my mother in a bay. The clear interpretation of the dream was that I was subconsciously imagining my own baby’s water-filled world.
All of us begin our lives as water creatures, so sea mammals like dolphins are likely to crop up when we uncover our own subconcious pre-birth memories and connect with our own unborn babies. Frequent dreams about water are an interesting metaphoric reflection for the world inside the womb.
