Dreams about mother: Jung, traditions and semiotics

This is not a dream dictionary. Each perspective below names where it comes from; traditions are shown side by side, not merged into one meaning.

Start with yourself

Was this your own mother as you know her, or someone in her place? What did she do or say?

Jung · The mother archetype

Jung first reads a dreamed mother on the “objective level” — your real mother and your relationship. Only then on the “subjective level”: the mother archetype, which he described as both nourishing and devouring.

In this dream, was she holding you, holding on to you, or letting you go?

C. G. Jung, “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype”, Collected Works 9i

Traditions, side by side

Early dream research & psychology Dream research

Family members, friends and strangers populate most dreams. Freud read many such dreams as wishes in disguise; contemporary researchers emphasise continuity with waking relationships and concerns.

Freud, Dream Psychology (1920)

Myth & scripture (several traditions) Myth & scripture

Dreams in epic and scripture are often addressed to someone — a wife waiting for a husband, a son receiving a vision for his family — and are told aloud to be understood.

Odyssey XIX; Genesis 37

Chinese letters & thought Literature

Confucius lamented that he no longer dreamed of the Duke of Zhou; in Chinese letters, dreaming of someone is a measure of how much they are on one’s mind.

Analects 7.5

Semiotics: how an image comes to mean

Following C. S. Peirce, an image can work as a sign in three ways:

Icon — by resemblance
Does the mother look like one you have actually seen? Could it simply be a copy of a memory?
Index — by connection
Could the mother point to an actual cause — a bodily sensation, a sound in the room, something that happened that day?
Symbol — by convention
Does the mother mean what it means by convention — an idiom, a saying, a family phrase? Would it still mean that in another language or culture?

C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers 2.247–249 (icon, index, symbol)
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (1921), “Definitions: Symbol” — a sign stands for something known, a symbol for something not yet fully known
Ellis (1911), ch. II, on verbal links between dream images

Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.

Recorded dreams with mother

A white elephant with a lotus Kapilavastu (Nepal–India) · traditional (c. 6th c. BCE)
I gave birth to a lion Athens, Greece · c. 495 BCE
The sun god spoke to Karna in a dream Hastinapura (setting) · c. 4th c. BCE–4th c. CE (epic)
Embracing her crowned son Elis, Greece · c. 4th c. BCE
His dead mother came to life again Euesperides (Benghazi), Libya · 372 BCE
Meeting a god by the great marsh Pei (Xuzhou), China · c. 257 BCE (as told)
The mother who was the earth Gades (Cádiz), Spain · 68 BCE
Her body stretched to the stars Rome, Italy · 63 BCE
Arise, and flee into Egypt Bethlehem → Egypt · c. 1st century (narrative)
Isis forbids the mother to obey Phaestus, Crete · c. 8 CE (poem)
The rudder was forced from him Rome, Italy · c. 59–68 CE
The moon, then the sun, entered my bosom Wu (Zhejiang), China · c. 175–182
Where she was, there was I also Thagaste, North Africa · c. 373
A melon in winter, still in his hand Northern Wei China · c. 500 (Northern Wei)
A flame descending into her womb Takshaśilā (Taxila) · c. 1070 (compiled)
Gold under the pillow every morning Chinchinī, on the sea coast (story) · c. 1070 (compiled)
My mother lacked a pair of gloves London, England · 29 June 1667
Why is the babe weeping? Russia · 1880 (novel)
Chased round the stove by the devil Mission school, Wabash, Indiana · c. 1884–87
She was not really dead England · before 1911
A mother praying for a father who never returns Tokyo, Japan · 1908