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Mother in dreams: what it can mean

  • Family
  • Love and relationships

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The short answer

Mothers are among the most frequent family characters in dreams. The dream usually reflects your real relationship, and sometimes the kind of care you need or give.

Your dream is not everyone's

Tell it the way you remember it. You get a reading about your dream and your life, not a dictionary entry.

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Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

The Hall and Van de Castle system codes dream characters by relationship, and family members, parents above all, appear often. The continuity view reads a mother in a dream through your actual bond: closeness, conflict, worry about her health, or her voice in your decisions. When the mother figure is unfamiliar, dreamers often connect her with care, protection, or criticism, depending on the tone.

Folk tradition

Tradition, not science

Tradition: American popular dream books, around 1900

Dream books around 1900 read seeing your mother as she is in life as a pleasant sign, and a distressed mother as trouble. This is folklore rather than prediction.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. What was your mother doing or saying in the dream?
  2. What is happening between you and her, or your memory of her, lately?
  3. Who is caring for you right now, and whom are you caring for?

Related symbols

Sources

Every reading on this page comes from these works. Page references have not all been checked yet; those still waiting are marked.

  1. Calvin S. Hall, Robert L. Van de Castle (1966). The Content Analysis of Dreams. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: coding categories: characters (reference not yet checked)

    The standard coding system for dream content (characters, social interactions, misfortunes, emotions, settings, objects) and its normative sample.

  2. G. William Domhoff (2001). A New Neurocognitive Theory of Dreams. Dreaming 11(1): 13-33.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: pp. 13-33 (dreams as simulations of personal concerns) (reference not yet checked)

    Dreams as embodied simulations of personal concerns (the continuity view). The backbone of our psychology lens.

  3. Gustavus Hindman Miller (1901). What's in a Dream (later reissued as Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted).

    public domain

    • Cited at: entry: Mother (reference not yet checked)

    An American popular dream dictionary. Its entries are written as omens ("foretells"); we only report how people once read a symbol, never as a forecast.