Dream Symbols: The Embrace

Sometimes we have a dream where something really special happens.  A dream that touches us, that makes us feel close, intimate, connected.  Such is the dream of the embrace.

To understand the meaning of these kind of dreams, it can help to understand who it is we hugged, held closely or embraced, and what they meant or mean to us in waking life.  We can ask ourselves if this person represents the mother inside us, the wise older person, the strong brave leader, and so on.  (You can also try exploring the other posts about people to see how people represent certain qualities in our dreams.)

To dream then of embracing this person can be a profound symbol of integrating a new aspect into our personality, of learning a new way of living, a new set of skills, of maturing and becoming ready to play a new role in life.  If we dream of embracing our mentor, for example, it can be an indication that we are finally able to accept not only the lessons of our teacher, but also the responsibility that comes with playing that role.  It may be time to finally stop being the student and step up to be a teacher, or master ourselves.  To dream of embracing an enemy, or person we didn’t like, can be symbol that we are beginning to accept ourselves for who we really are, and forgiving ourselves for the behaviour or thoughts in ourselves that we didn’t really like.  To dream of embracing an enemy can be a powerful symbol of making peace with ourselves.  If we look to what this “enemy” represents to us, we may begin to understand what part or our personality we are learning to understand and accept.

Another lesson the embrace dream may be teaching us are lessons we were not ready to learn from the person we dream of when we first met them.  Perhaps we met a wise guardian in our teen years, but were too busy growing up, testing boundaries and finding our own way in life that we didn’t pay real attention to the wisdom they were sharing with us.  Or maybe this advice came at a time when we were too busy coping with a difficult situation to be able to sit back and absorb the wise words being spoken to us.  But we still heard, and our subconscious remembered.  And now that we are older, and have more quite time, or maybe the message is just that more relevant, that our dreaming mind will remind us of that special knowledge that was shared with us all those years ago.

We can also look at the feelings an embrace dream gives us.  Is it one of peace, forgiveness, love, connection, intimacy, acceptance, calmness, wisdom, fulfillment, joy, nurturing, protection and so on..?  Only you will know what this particular “holding close” dream means, but often it can be extremely cathartic, maybe a closure on a relationship, a saying goodbye to someone we never had the chance to, a saying thanks to someone we wish we had appreciated more, or a realisation of how important someone was to us. 

Such an encounter can be profoundly moving.  We may dream of people who have passed away, of loved ones not seen for many years or valued teachers long lost from our lives.  The embrace dream reminds us that valuable lessons will never be forgotten, that those who guide and teach and love us will always live on in our hearts, and that in our dreams, we can always reach and feel the profound connection to those who are most important and life changing in our existence. But more than that, embrace dreams remind us that to learn a lesson we must change something inside us, and that the greatest growth comes from learning to love and accept who we really are.