Dreams About Being Pregnant: What They Really Mean

Pregnancy dreams are some of the most common dreams people have, and some of the most misread. Almost everyone assumes they mean you want kids.

Psychologist Carl Jung read them another way, and his reading is stranger and more useful. He thought the baby in the dream was you.

Why did Jung think the baby was you?

Jung called the baby in a dream the child archetype, and he wrote that it stands for your future. It is a version of you that hasn’t been lived yet.

He also wrote that the child prepares the way for a coming change in your personality. So a pregnancy dream shows that change already growing, before you’ve noticed it awake.

That’s why the dream picks a pregnancy. A pregnancy grows in the dark, it can’t be rushed, and one day it’s impossible to hide.

What if you’re not pregnant in real life?

Then the dream is about something else growing in you. It could be a plan, a relationship, a new role or a side of you that’s been waiting its turn.

A good test is to ask what you’ve started lately that you haven’t told many people about. That’s usually what you’re carrying.

How far along were you?

The stage of the pregnancy tells you how close the change is. Just finding out means it has barely started, and a full belly means it’s almost here.

And if you were in labor, the new thing wants out now. Look for the part of your life where a decision suddenly feels urgent.

Who was the father?

If the dream gave you a father, he shows you what planted the new thing. A teacher, an ex, a boss or a stranger each point to a different part of your life.

If there was no father at all, that’s a clue too. It means the change started with you, and you’re carrying it on your own.

How did you feel?

Your feeling is your vote on the change. Joy says you’re ready, and dread says part of you wants to keep your life exactly as it is.

The strangest version is the one where you forget you’re pregnant. That dream says the new thing is real and you’ve been ignoring it.

What if a man dreams he’s pregnant?

The same reading holds. A man pregnant in a dream is carrying a new version of himself, and the dream shows it the only way it knows how.

Men are often embarrassed by this dream, and Jung would tell them to pay attention instead. He wrote that a man brings his work into the world out of the feminine side of himself.

What if the baby was born?

A birth means the new self has arrived. Watch how you treat the baby, because that’s how you’re treating the change.

Holding it close is acceptance. Losing it, leaving it or handing it off says part of you is trying to give the new life away.

One Pregnancy Dream, Read Step by Step

A woman in her thirties dreams she’s eight months pregnant at her old job. Her former manager is the father, and she’s terrified the baby will come during a meeting.

Step one is the stage. Eight months means the new thing is almost here.

Step two is the father. That manager was the first person who told her she should start her own business.

Step three is her waking life. She has been building a side business at night for a year and hasn’t told anyone at work.

Step four is the feeling. The terror is about being found out before she’s ready to leave.

Jung called this compensation, a dream balancing a one-sided waking attitude. Awake, she keeps telling herself she’ll quit when the time is right, and the dream says the time is almost now.

The Bottom Line

The baby in your dream is the person you’re about to become, and every detail in the dream says something about that change. To find out what your pregnancy dream means for you, tell it to the DreamDancer app on the web or download it on iPhone, and it will ask you the questions that matter.

Sources

• C. G. Jung, The Psychology of the Child Archetype, in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Collected Works vol. 9i (Princeton University Press). The child as a symbol of the future and of coming change.
• C. G. Jung, The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Collected Works vol. 7. A man’s work brought forth from his inner feminine nature.
• C. G. Jung, General Aspects of Dream Psychology, in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Collected Works vol. 8. Compensation.