Dreams

A preggy friend dreamt about the child she was carrying even before the tests became positive. it made me green with envy. i had nothing but weird dreams involving exes and other unknown people. i was beginning to worry until i came across this article at http://www.babycentre.co.uk/refcap/547396.html


Dreams during the first trimester

In your dreams....

First your husband sleeps with your best friend. Then you sleep with an old boyfriend from your school days. Now you're trying to make a quick getaway - but from what? As you travel down the motorway, you have a nagging feeling that you've forgotten something. Suddenly you remember: you've left your baby at the gym!

Have you lost your mind? No — not your waking mind, anyway. During pregnancy, your dreams have more twists and turns than ever before. It's all down to your surging hormones, perhaps entwined with mixed feelings about your changing shape, and maybe the added ingredient of anxiety and excitement about becoming a mother, says dream expert Patricia Garfield, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Dreams.

Although it's impossible to predict what dreams you may have, there are some images that can often appear at certain stages of pregnancy. To help you work out what your dreams might be telling you, read on. The following excerpt from Garfield's book describes three first trimester dreams and their possible interpretations.

Dreams about birth and motherhood

'I give birth to a full-grown child. He is like a miniature adult, dressed like an adult, and walking and talking like an adult. — Donna's dream during her first trimester.

Many first-time mothers, when they discover they have conceived, dream of giving birth to a fully mature baby or grown child. Perhaps an older baby or child seems less threatening than a fragile new-born to the inexperienced mother. Donna thought the adult baby in her dream reflected her anxiety that she would have to go back to work and would therefore miss her child's growing up.

Early in pregnancy, first-time mums rarely know much about the childbirth experience; they often feel apprehensive. The combination of hopes for an easy delivery and incomplete understanding of the actual process leads to dreams of the baby 'popping out' or simply appearing.

Dreams about buildings and driving 'I am driving a car. At the same time I carry a spare tyre around my waist.' — Patricia Garfield's dream while pregnant with her daughter.

Patricia says: 'A woman's feelings about her body may either improve or deteriorate during pregnancy. In this dream it is obvious that the 'spare tyre' was my expanding middle. Driving a vehicle is often a metaphor for the way the dreamer is moving through life at the moment; with the spare tyre, the movement is rather clumsy. Pregnant women frequently picture themselves driving trucks, buses, or other vehicles that are more difficult to manoeuvre than cars in their dreams — reflecting their perception of awkward movement.'

Researchers who have studied the dreams of pregnant women observe frequent references to buildings in them, from simple rooms to soaring skyscrapers. The dream buildings are often places where things are made, such as a factory or a shipyard, probably paralleling the 'making' of a baby that is taking place inside the woman's body. Perhaps pregnant women dream about buildings because they are hypersensitive to their 'enlarging inner space'. Indeed the type of building pictured in the woman's dreams may increase in size as her pregnancy progresses; one researcher found that dream buildings became larger and more complex the closer the woman was to term; skyscrapers were especially common.

Dreams about water

'I'm in a region, possibly a tropical rainforest. I learn that the projected rainfall is 700 inches! I'm amazed.' — Joan's dream.

From goldfish bowls to family washing-up bowls to swelling oceans, the pregnant woman's dreams refer to water throughout her pregnancy. The mother-to-be will often find herself swimming in her first trimester dreams. Where animals appear in a pregnant woman's first trimester dreams, they are often aquatic creatures, such as tadpoles and fish. This water in her dreams possibly depicts the pregnant woman's awareness of the water gathering in her womb. Water in dreams may take on a dramatic form as pregnancy progresses. Towards her due date, the pregnant woman is more likely to dream of water as a symbol of the 'breaking waters' that announce imminent childbirth. One woman dreamt at the end of her second trimester of carrying a heavy schoolbag when big ocean waves rose and endangered her. We begin our lives as water creatures, suspended in a sea of liquid within our mother's womb. The pregnant woman is drinking fluids for two, herself and her baby. Little wonder that her dreams overflow with images of water.