Dream about leaving a baby

Hi,


I'm currently in my early stages of pregnancy and due to various reasons I have decided to abort the baby. This decision is very upsetting for me and know it is one I will regret.

I had a dream last night that my family and I went abroad. My cousin had brought her newborn (none of my cousins actually have a newborn) and she doesn't want it. She left the baby in the hotel room whilst everyone was out and talked me into going on a trip with her. We ended up in a different country and I began to feel really bad about leaving the baby. I begged my cousin to come back to the hotel and she wouldn't because she said she wanted to be free from the baby. I instantly became very attached to the baby and wanted to be with it. I was calling my parents to apologise for leaving the baby, I was very upset and panicked and couldn't wait to get back to our original destination so I could begin to look after the baby which I now thought of as my own. When I woke up I was in such distress that I never made it back to the baby (as I woke up) and haven't stopped thinking about it all day. Is it telling me to make peace with my decision or simply that this is how I'm going to feel after the abortion?

Hi,

It’s great that you’re trying to listen to even an upsetting dream as part of working at finding out how to deal with this very personal and difficult situation that you find yourself in.

However, it’s probably best to mention that as far as I can determine, while those in this particular part of the forum are very well-meaning in their attempts to provide a dream interpretation, none of them appears to be a licensed professional who has graduated a course in psychology/dream analysis which would be equivalent to a PhD. level. This includes myself.

Also, especially in such heart-rending circumstances, it’s usually best to look at a series of dreams which the person has had in order to provide a more accurate interpretation.

In addition, it’s usually best to have an overall context for the dream and this includes a broad level of background information about the dreamer.

So it’s only possible to give you a few general ideas about what your dream might mean instead of trying to provide a definite interpretation.

Just to also start off by saying that one reliable way to approach the meaning of a dream is that it’s trying to show the objective situation of the dreamer and to provide a few clues about how best to keep the dreamer’s overall psychological attitude balanced and effective in moving forward.

In this view, dreams are fulfilling a psychological “balancing” function equivalent to that of the body which tries to ensure that such things as temperature, sugar in the blood, thirst etc. etc. are kept within certain healthy levels.

The language of dreams is one based on analogies and metaphors, so for example, it’s possible that in your dream, the idea of taking a trip abroad relates psychologically to trying to “distance” yourself at least in part from the difficult situation you find yourself in. And later in the dream, you at first go even further away into a “psychological area” that’s far away from your cousin’s newborn.

Your family in the dream could symbolize a kind of mix of your own “inner family” consisting of various attitudes and beliefs etc. etc. along with your outer family and its various outlooks and habits etc.

Your cousin in the dream might possibly represent the specific outer cousin in some particular way.

For instance, you could try letting spontaneous ideas come to mind about any character traits that stand out about the real woman to see if by chance you might sometimes act in a similar way to how she does. Doing so might provide a valuable clue about the meaning of the dream.

At the very least, the dream shows her as acting in an unusual way in that she doesn’t want her newborn.

Since none of your cousins actually has a newborn, this fact might be shifting the overall drift of the dream away from the idea of a physical baby to the idea of an inner psychological baby.

This probably sounds confusing, but the image of a woman’s baby or child in a dream often symbolizes her own self growing towards becoming a unique person over time and the fulfillment of as many of her potentials as possible.

Also, in outer life, a hotel is a “collective” place where “anybody” can stay as long as they can “pay for it” and this is where you and your family are staying along with the newborn.

This is in contrast, say, to one’s apartment or house which is more “individual” in some way, so the dream seems to be adding to the idea that what’s really at stake in your difficult situation is the “survival” of your own unique personhood (i.e. the newborn is left alone in the hotel and needs “rescuing”).

The dream shows you as becoming attached to your indifferent cousin’s baby and desperately trying to take custody of it.

The question is, of course, whether the newborn in the dream symbolizes in some way your current pregnancy.

The reality is that being loyal to your own unique self may or may not involve bringing the baby to term.

The problem might possibly be the regret involved that you know you will feel in the decision to abort.

There may also be feelings of guilt that could develop and a sense that you at least symbolically “let a growing part of you down” which could be difficult to handle.

Any such situation could dampen and slow your self-development as a person over time if not dealt with by, say, some sensitive ongoing counselling after the termination.

The way the dream ended with you not having reached the baby and then waking in distress might be the dream’s way of saying something like “You should reflect more fully on your current situation”.

So unfortunately as mentioned, this way of looking at your dream doesn’t provide any really definite answer about its meaning but I hope these ideas can be helpful in some way.

Please feel free to ask any questions or to make any comments about this particular way of looking at your very upsetting dream.

Wow, this is certainly a very powerful dream that seems to clearly represent your situation. Coincidentally, I was watching a documentary called “Rebel Pope” last night on the National Geographic channel. It is a story about the early life of Pope Francis and it had a scene that reminds me of your situation. Early in his career, a young Jorge Bergoglio continued to study medicine primarily to please his mother, even though his real passion was religion. When he posed this dilemma to a professor, she told him, “You can follow your “head” or you can follow your “heart,”” so a determined Jorge chose the seminary over the pleadings of his mother. Ultimately, she was very proud of him and attended his ordination.

In a similar fashion, you have a decision to make. Your logical mind, “head” in this analogy, is represented by your cousin in the dream. It reasons that it would be much easier to walk away from this responsibility, probably for a host of factors to include, career, finances, dealing with the baby’s father and both families, etc, etc. Your emotional mind, “heart” is a very powerful motherly instinct directing you to keep the child, which, on the surface appears like the more difficult decision, but the one you will probably make. I hold this “opinion” because you chose your cousin (someone a little further removed than yourself) to be the one representing your logical mind, and you chose yourself as the person trying to rescue the child out of love and desperation.

Additionally, let me tell you another short story that might help in your decision. My son, an electrical engineer, and his girlfriend were both heroin addicts. She was about 7 months clean and he still using when she became pregnant. When he called to tell us, we congratulated him, but I had many obvious concerns. After all, how could two people trying to keep themselves alive possible try and bring another life into the world? Also, would this new child be born healthy? Now, a year after the arrival of our new granddaughter, I am embarrassed at these earlier sentiments. Not only has she brought immense joy into ours lives, but she is directly responsible for a remarkable transformation in her parents, who are now leading normal lives together after 10 years of addiction. She has been an absolute miracle, and we could never imagine life without her, so please don’t underestimate how wonderful and incredible a decision to keep life can be for “everyone” concerned. I may be wrong about your decision, but either way I’m sure you will survive. Good luck with this difficult choice. :)