Dreams Can Teach You How To Love Yourself Better
Hope all of you are having a dreamy summer! As you may already know, your dreams can play an integral role in understanding who you are, how you are feeling about aspects of your life and self, or even what emotions you’re suppressing. Dreams can even teach you how to love yourself better. When interpreting dreams, we first analyze the dream’s symbols to draw conclusions about the overarching theme and its overall meaning. This week, we are so excited to be celebrating summertime with a dream about trusting yourself, learning how to love yourself and embracing your uniqueness as you mature in life.
Check out the dream submission below before reading about its meaning!
The Unknown Waters Of Me
“I have a recurring dream when I’m standing in the ocean rib deep. The water is crystal clear, and I am facing away from the beach. I look over my left shoulder back at the beach and I notice a big starfish swimming under the water toward me.
“I try to move away from it—but I don’t freak out and run. I just calmly hop away from it because I know it’s headed for me and I know it’s going to stick on my low back. But every time, it follows me, finally catches up to me, and sure enough, uses its little sucker things to stick itself onto my low back. The starfish is the exact, perfect size of my low back (it takes up my whole low back) and I notice that it’s a reddish brown color.
“In the dream, I don’t want to peel it off because I don't want to touch its really rough skin. I ask other people to help me, but no one else will get it off because they don’t want to touch it either. So I just don’t do anything about it. I get into the shower and look at it on my lower back, but I’m still unwilling to touch it. Then I wake up.”
Submitted by Evans S.
Dream Symbols
Beach
In dreams, water is typically symbolic of internalized emotions + feelings and how we respond to life. Clear water is a positive sign that purification will enter our lives— ultimately benefiting our feelings and emotional responses. The vastness of the ocean can represent an openness to unknown ideas or challenges and it can signify that we have limitless opportunities in life. Beaches can symbolize the need to confront negativity or face uncertainty. This will ultimately allow us to discover who we are.
Starfish
The starfish is a symbol that reminds us of our uniqueness, brilliance + intuition. Because starfish are able to regrow limbs, they are also representative of self renewal. This dream symbol reminds us to do things our own way and encourages us to trust our instincts, as we travel through troubled waters.
Roughness
Dreaming about rough texture is representative of surface-level impressions. Rough skin is a symbol that the dreamer has been through difficult times in their life. The dreamer may feel like they are “rough around the edges” because of their past experiences or that they are now viewed by others as unapproachable. Our dreams can show us that certain aspects of ourselves are due to the tough situations we’ve faced in the past.
Lower Back
Backs can be symbols for many things, including our strengths, burdens, attitude and where we feel we stand in the world. Backs can also represent the past—what is “behind” us, but still influences us in the present. This symbol can also represent feeling inferior to others or held back by something in our past.
Stickiness
This symbol has various meanings—one being that the dreamer feels “stuck” in waking life. Stickiness can also represent longevity and can be symbolic of a past feeling, belief or memory that is causing stress or issues in the present. Stickiness in a dream can also be representative of an unideal or “sticky” situation in waking life. One way to decipher this symbol’s meaning is to consider what exactly is sticking to us in our dreams.
Shower
Showers are a subconscious sign of self-renewal and of “washing away” past problems. This symbol reminds us to cleanse ourselves of stress and to take better care of ourselves, in order to move forward in life.
Dream Meaning
This dream shows that Evans is a unique and influential person, who should trust her instincts and listen to her emotions in challenging and difficult times of her life. Because the dream is set at the beach and the water is crystal clear, it can be assumed that the dream relates directly to the dreamer’s feelings and emotions. The recurrence of this dream makes it clear that certain aspects of the dreamer’s life are undealt with and now contributing to underlying stress or anxiety that must be addressed in order to move forward.
We believe the dreamer’s subconscious is showing her new aspects of herself to teach her to rely on her emotions and intuition, instead of doubting herself and her uniqueness. The ocean also shows us that the dreamer is open to the unknown things in her life. The opportunities ahead of the dreamer are limitless—which is why she should rely on her own ideas and unique vision as she navigates through challenging + unfamiliar waters.
Though the dream has many positive connotations, it is important to note the starfish sticking onto the dreamer’s lower back. The brown starfish symbolizes Evans renewing herself, trusting her individuality and going back to her roots to identify suppressed emotions and ultimately discover her true self. Its rough skin shows us that the dreamer has experienced difficult and/or painful situations in her life, which leave her feeling like she is “rough around the edges” or viewed by others as unapproachable or undesirable. However, it’s important for the dreamer to understand that her uniqueness, inspiration + intuition are due to the tough situations she’s been through during her life. Accepting them will allow the dreamer to understand that her toughest times have made her into the person she is today.
The significance of the dreamer’s back could represent that she feels overwhelmed or burdened by something in her life. After receiving no help from those around her, Evans gets into the shower, which symbolizes “washing away” the feelings of being ignored or invalidated by those around her and could relate to people who make her feel this way in waking life. Dreaming of not being listened to can mean that she feels devalued or fears neglect by those she thought she could rely on in life. It could also mean that she is becoming aware of her refusal to acknowledge a bad habit or coping mechanism in her life. However, the shower shows us that the dreamer is capable of relying on herself, as she embraces her uniqueness and works through the self-renewal process to become an influential leader in her personal or professional life.
Summertime Dream Theme
Dreams that are set in the summer are associated with fertility, personal growth, energy and maturity. Seasons in our dreams represent new phases in life and summer can show us that we’re entering or accepting adulthood with a revitalized outlook. Summertime is representative of fruitfulness and harvesting the rewards of creativity and the success of hard work. Summer dreams are a positive omen and reminder to look to your future with enthusiasm.
In this dream, the theme of summertime is prevalent as it reinforces the notion that the dreamer should embrace her full potential as she enters into the next phase of her life, which could be filled with uncertainties and potential challenges, as well as great harvest and success. She is mature enough now to embrace her uniqueness, accept her past and grow—she should keep her hopes alive as she expands her realm of understanding. The summertime theme is representative of the dreamer’s self-growth and ability to move into a season of life filled with creative vision, hard work and fruitful success.
We hope this dream submission helps you embrace all the unique and special aspects of yourself, so that you can grow and enter into a season of spiritual, creative + financial harvest. As Justin Bieber made famous in 2015, learning how to love yourself is key to a successful life.