Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about sex & relationships. If you’ve got a good one, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg just might tell you what it means! Click here to submit yours (18 and older only for dream interpretations, please). This week, a reader asks Lauri about a scary pregnancy dream:
So, I have been having this dream in which I wake up (in the dream) to my family shouting at me for being pregnant after seeing a pregnancy test. To punish me they strip parts of my car. Then they tell my ex I’m pregnant. And from then on, the whole way through the dream, I feel fear. He comes to my house and I try to run away, but it’s like he’s made a fake town and every road I take leads back to him. I can’t escape. In the end, he traps me in my garage and takes a knife to my stomach and starts cutting it.
This dream feels so real I wake up out of breath and sore . Can you tell me what it’s about? It’s been happening for a few weeks now (I’m not pregnant in real life so it’s confusing me).
Thank you.
Lauri: Recurring dreams are most often caused by recurring behavior patterns or an ongoing issue that has yet to be resolved: for as long as the issue continues, so will the dream. I believe that is the case for you. You have been stuck in some mind set for a few weeks, now so the dream cannot move forward until you do.
The dream begins as you wake up (in the dream). That is most likely connected to a recent “awakening” or realization you have had in your real life. And whatever that realization is, it seems to have made you angry at yourself. Even though your family is shouting at you in the dream, it is really you shouting at yourself.
The pregnancy is symbolic of “a new life” you are trying to have, I assume after breaking up with your ex. And it seems pretty clear you are having a hard time doing so, as there are tell-tale signs all over your dream: your car is your ability to move on but it is stripped; every road you take leads back to him; he traps you in the garage.
At the end of the dream, he is cutting the fetus out of you. That is horrible imagery, but it is also the way your subconscious is being brutally honest with you. The new life you are trying to have after the breakup is being sabotaged. But by whom? In real life, is he not leaving you alone? Or are you the one who can’t let go of the pain?
The fear you have — and the anger you have at yourself (via your family) — in the dream makes me worry that this was an abusive relationship. It is very common for women who have been in abusive relationships to be angry with themselves. If this is the case with you, you need to redirect those thoughts from being angry and feeling stupid to being proud of yourself for getting out.
If he wasn’t abusive, then ask yourself what it is you are holding onto that is not allowing you to move forward. Is it heartbreak? Anger?
That fetus in the dream is a new life without your ex. It’s trying to emerge but its very existence is threatened by the ex and the fear that occupies your psyche. Try to nurture that future with peace and the hope instead.
Response from dreamer: That is spot on with what is happening in my life at the moment. It was an awful relationship; I was a complete shell of a person and if I was upset about anything he’d done he would turn it around on me, and make me think it was my fault. It took me a while to realize that what he was doing was a reason for me to be upset. If it wasn’t for friends reassuring me I’d still be there today. I guess I’m still pining for the person he was at the start of the relationship. Thank you for the interpretation.