Childhood revisited Dream Meanings

It is during childhood that we learn many of the fundamental rules and responsibilities of life. It is also the time when we develop our personalities and become increasingly socialized. It makes sense, therefore, that dreams of revisiting a place or a scenario from your own childhood often focus on lessons that you learned, or failed to learn, and these lessons may be relevant to your current situation.

If you dreamed of a particularly happy childhood memory—for example, you are seven years old and your dad brings home your first bike, or you are five years old sitting happily on your mum’s lap sucking your thumb—the dream could either be pointing to your nostalgia for a time when life was full of fun, or it could be more concerned with your present feelings of insecurity. The dream is reminding you of a time when life was simple, and in so doing, it compensates you for your current feelings of confusion.

If you are facing a difficult decision, it could also have been highlighting your need to put yourself forward and take a risk by focusing on your new bike—something you wanted but also feared, as you weren’t wholly confident riding it yet.

Consider, too, whether your unconscious has cast archetypal figures in the role of your mother and father. Relation-figures in dreams of childhood can often represent archetypes rather than actual family members. Alternatively, if your unhappy childhood returns to haunt you in dreams (which may reoccur), your unconscious may be forcing you to relive those miserable times in an attempt to make you confront the source of your distress and deal with it, now that you have an adult understanding of the situation. Your unconscious is trying to help you come to terms with what happened to you, so you can put it behind you.