The Dream Book of Self-Knowledge

Mother

  • a very frequent and very complex dream symbol; if it occurs frequently in your dreams I suggest reading the Father – Mother archetype, since only an understanding of the archetype ensures a precise interpretation of the mother symbol in dreams.
  • if the dreamer's mother appears often in dreams, the dreamer is dependent and does not have his emotional relationship to his mother resolved; on the other hand, a low occurrence of the mother symbol in dreams attests to independence and a relatively resolved mutual relationship.
  • mother as a model: the mother is the first to mold the child's consciousness, and then shapes it within the range of the mask of personality (persona) and individuality based on her own qualities.
  • the activities of the dream mother are aimed at deepening family relationships (even in a negative sense) and at strengthening the dreamer's bond to the earthly level of experience, although occasionally illuminated by emotions.
  • a man's mother turns into his sister, wife or lover: the mother occupies a completely independent place in the unconscious (in the Father – Mother archetype), is elevated above the instinctual aspects (wife, lover) and in a higher sense above emotional aspects (sister), but also contains both of these aspects in a latent form; the self-improvement process will at one time place a mirror before everyone, forcing the person to stand face to face with the instinctual and later emotional aspects of the Father – Mother archetype, and it is only up to the person whether he is able to deal with these phenomena; a prefiguration of this dream is when a wife or sister replaces the mother in certain activities.
  • someone else's mother: does not have a more significant personal meaning in the unconscious and expresses only various perspectives on maternal relations.
  • the mother of a wife or lover, or husband or lover (or of potential partners): expresses a negative character of the Father – Mother archetype and can represent a personification of the Shadow archetype.
  • crying, pain and suffering of the dream mother: it is important to recognize in this image the reason for the mother's grief, since if it is caused by the dreamer's egotistical behavior or moral faults, then this image is a warning of a fall to the lowest level of experience (instinctual). Conversely, if the mother's grief is caused by the dreamer's emotional and spiritual makeup, then this image is positive, even in the event that the dreamer comes to pity the state of his mother (this pity will eventually be transformed into compassion, which is the spiritual cure for all pain).
  • concerns about the mother's absence: this is typical of few independent and emotionally dependent people; if this image appears the dreamer should try to take independent steps, even though they could be flawed.
  • a domineering, destructive mother that devours, clutches, swallows and reduces through unnatural love and devotion: the dark aspect of the Mother Goddess.
  • a mother harms the dreamer (even unintentionally); a hurtful, painful, unpleasant hug by the mother: the dreamer is set before the dark face of the image of his own mother, who mainly represents instinctual personifications, while emotional personifications remain unaffected by the mother's negative acts; the unconscious is using this image to show the necessary path from instinctual living to emotionality.
  • inappropriate and negative acts of the mother (e.g. distasteful scenes, drunkenness, obscene behavior): if the dreamer sees in his parent a model that is still good to follow, then the unconscious distorts this model in his mind so that he looks for a different, better model on his journey; if the human model collapses in the dreamer's subconscious, there is nothing left for him to do but to find in his disappointment a different model and, in the best-case scenario, follow the models of the divine Mother*85 (e.g. Christians find the Virgin Mary) or to turn inwardly, in which the perfect model of the archetype appears.
  • a woman with a maternal aspect linked to autumn: the underworld Mother.
  • a woman with a maternal aspect linked to winter: the Mother that nourished the world and all beings in it.
  • a woman with a maternal aspect linked to the sky: the celestial Mother who controls and maintains the world.
  • harmonious relations with one's mother: the dreamer has fulfilled the model that the mother has been for him since his birth, but now it is time to set out on the path to knowledge; on this path the dreamer will have to deal with the disapproval and objections of his dream mother (spirituality vs. humanity).
  • being together with one's mother in the womb of beautiful nature: a frequent image of the initial phase of the Basic Perinatal Matrix archetype.
  • traveling with, staying with and doing the same thing as one's mother: symbolizes the dreamer's persistence in the model that was set up for the dreamer by the parents; such dreams are good for someone trying to find and fulfill the model of his parents and not good for someone who can abandon the mélange of instinctual and emotional experiences, overcome emotional dependencies and find a spiritual state of peace and tranquility.
  • images of a son and mother tinged with open sexuality or by less conspicuous sexual symbols: every man's role is to understand and overcome the Oedipus complex*49 and in unifying antithetical emotional components of his own mind to disregard the material level of experience since this always ends in sexual dependencies.
  • the mother is considered an opponent by the dreamer's wife: in the subconscious erotic relationship of the daughter to his father, the mother is perceived as a sexual opponent (Electra complex*50).
  • the mother as rescue and help, fleeing to one's mother: a frequent dream of adolescents and adults who are building new emotional relationships since one subconsciously confronts every misunderstanding with the model that he has firmly encoded in his mind; it is important to find his independent part and to free himself from the influence that the mother represents; only through this liberation does the dreamer get the chance to find the path to enlightenment (it is progress if the dreamer turns for help to personifications of the Wise Old Man archetype instead of his mother).
  • the dreaming man holds, in addition to the role of the father, also the role of the mother: the dreamer's active attempt to understand the mutual relationship of the male and female element within the Father – Mother archetype (a typical dream when practicing Asparsa Yoga*84).
  • helping the dreamer: a very frequent image that fully belongs to the developmental process of everyone; yet once the dreamer passes beyond the model of his mother, such even well-intentioned help will impede further development.
  • helping one's mother: the images evolve from initial help with common things to help in emotional matters to a patient explanation of divine realities so that the dream mother, who represents an understanding of the Father – Mother archetype, is freed of ignorance.
  • rescuing a mother: once a dreamer partially ascends to the spiritual level of experience, his return to the instinctual and emotional level of the human world are accompanied by dramatic images in which he is confronted with relationships that he has consciously abandoned; in such dreams he rescues his mother from the effects of the spiritual level (snow, ice, frost, flying etc.), as well as from the effects of the instinctual level and, above all, from instinctual personifications (animals and people) so that his mother is safely attached to the emotional level of experience where he can slowly adopt spiritual views for the future final step.
  • activities of the dream mother become impediments: the unconscious is telling the dreamer the need to overcome the human model and to ascend to a higher level; this is not a rejection of the dreamer's actual mother, but of the model that represents her in the unconscious (in similar dreams the dreamer's own real mother can become in the dream a stepmother).
  • conflicts with the dream mother: conflict between the male and female aspects (see Anima – Animus archetype); also see Conflict.
  • conflicts of a son with the dream mother: conflict between the male and female aspects (see Anima – Animus archetype).
  • death of the mother: a period of uncertainty and insecurity in mutual coexistence is ending for the dreamer; he no longer needs the help of the human model of the mother and the path to finding better models had been unblocked.
  • dream stories with a mother can also be a vision of the future or an incarnate view to the distant past; see Past and Future Visions archetype.
  • frozen, rescuing a frozen mother: see Frost.
  • of a princess: see King, queen.
  • a woman or goddess with supernatural abilities: in addition to the human model of the Mother there also exists within the psyche the divine model that has a purely numinous nature and obviously belongs to the Numinosum archetype; in Christianity such a figure is the Virgin Mary, who only under the pressure of believing Christians became a maternal goddess.
  • mythological figures of mothers and fathers: since everyone carries with him ideas of the Divine Parents and Divine Child, we must have at some time, in the distant past, been them; this is the main reason for the frequent mythologizing of parents, to whom their child, even well into adulthood, attributes the archetypal form of the divine pair; alas humanity's perception of his parents causes shame and dissatisfaction within him since the inclusion of parents among people means that even the child has fallen out of the divine scenario.
  • the union of the mother and son: an extremely important dream and turning point; to grasp it one must understand the principle of the unification of antitheses on an instinctual and emotional plane (see Anima – Animus and see Coniunctio archetypes); many alchemical tracts*86 speak of a similar union.
  • identifying with the feelings of the mother (giving birth) during one's birth: this wonderful, multi-dimensional and absolutely vivid experience with the feeling "we are one body, I am giving birth and being born" is a mystical unification described by the Eleusinian mysteries*15 that consider the birth of the child named Brimos to be a unification of the virgin, mother and child into a creature dying, giving birth and returning to the world.
  • the culmination of the mother symbol is a constant transformation of the human archetype of the Mother into an experience of divine perfection.