Have you ever pondered on the meaning of dreams?
It has long been thought that symbols in dreams have meaning in real life. After all, if would make sense that because sleep allows your body to rest and your mind to sort out all the information you’ve taken in throughout the day, dreams could very well be the result of that processing of information.
In other words, while analyzing all the information, your subconscious marks a few things as “important” and those things find their way into dreams.
Unfortunately, these things don’t always appear very straightforward like, say, a big sign with “STRESS” written on it.
Instead, they come about dreams in subtler ways, or obvious ways that often require some form of decoding.
Understanding the meaning of dreams can help you understand yourself and better fix points of stress.
Here are the five most common dream symbols and what they each mean.
Most Common Dream Symbols
Teeth
Power and Confidence
Teeth are symbols of power and confidence. Think of them as being the most important part of a smile or a bite. They most often show up in dreams where people are losing teeth.
If you dream of your teeth falling out, it means you feel like you’re losing or lacking power and confidence. This could be happening at work or school, or if you’re around intimidating or controlling people.
Likewise, dreams where you have rotten teeth could mean your confidence has taken a hit.
A great smile, however, means you feel in control of your life and your subconscious is catching on to your feelings of both confidence and power.
Hair
Beauty and Sexuality
When thinking of what hair represents in dreams, it’s easy to think of all the women in movies using their hair as a tool to help exude sexuality and beauty.
So you might think that dreaming about hair has something to do with vanity and sexuality, right?
Not necessarily.
Men dream about hair as well — and they’re not likely to be using their hair to exude sexuality any time soon!
It’s no secret that our appearance ties in heavily with our identity. Therefore hair, like teeth, is a large part of our identity. Dreams involving hair that often occur are of hair falling out, or having a different hair cut or hair style.
Hair falling out is a sign that were are feeling less confident about our appearance in life, or we are experiencing low libido.
In the case of having a different haircut, often where hair is longer, fuller, or in any way more stylish than we’re used to, it’s the opposite. We feel good about how we look.
Dreaming about a different hair style can also mean that you’re feeling sexually aroused or feeling sexually frustrated in some way.
Tests
Stress and Evaluation
Tests are possibly the most easily understood dream symbols. Often they show up in our dreams around the same time as tests happening in our real lives.
This is because a dream test is an indicator of stress or evaluation in life.
While this could be in the form of real tests or exams, it could also mean a manifestation of any stress that you’re anticipating or a future judgement.
Also, similar to the animal symbol below, you may simply be dealing with more than you can handle.
Maybe you don’t feel prepared for a hurdle you need to overcome, and your subconscious is demonstrating this with a test you didn’t study for.
Water
Calm and Mystery
Water has two sides to it.
There’s the calm and serene feeling from light reflecting off the surface or the beauty of natural bodies of water, but there’s also the mystery of what goes on below the surface.
How you interact with water in a dream depends on you, and that interaction ties in with what it represents in your life.
Water could be an indicator of your inner peace and feelings of serenity. Maybe you dreamed of relaxing on a beach where waves were lapping gently, or of playing in a swimming pool. The water in these dreams mean you have been relaxed and content.
On the other side of that, dreams of drowning or being caught in a rainstorm are signs that you’re feeling overwhelmed and anxious.
Animals
Wildness and Survival
Animals as a general term can have broad meaning in your dreams. After all, there are many animals from domestic pets to wild predators.
Whichever kind of animal you may be dreaming about could be an indicator of how wild or how connected to nature you feel, although any animal at all would mean you feel some connection.
Running from or fighting an animal could mean your subconscious has turned to your fight or flight instinct.
There is something in your life that has triggered this, maybe a frightening experience or an upcoming danger. This does not have to be a physical danger, either. It may be you feel you are failing something important or that you have more responsibilities than you can handle.
However, dreaming of taming a wild animal, playing with it or riding it, for example, could mean you have conquered a fear or feel you are doing well in some aspect of your life
So now you know the most common dream symbols — what do you think the meaning of dreams is?
