Dreaming that you are pregnant without being pregnant: what does it mean?

The world of dreams is one of the areas of the human mind that has generated the most interest. along the history. When this subject is joined with another as universal as pregnancy and motherhood, it is normal for a feeling of having questions to answer to arise.

Specifically, it is relatively common for many women to dream that they are pregnant without actually being pregnant. These experiences are capable of provoking a state of understandable restlessness taking into account the emotional charge that pregnancy has, so that the most common is that they try to understand what it means that.

So that... ¿what does it mean to dream that you are pregnant without being pregnant And why does this idea appear while you are sleeping? Let's see it at the same time that we are shelling out several concepts related to the operation of dreams.

• Related article: "Psychology of pregnancy: this is how the mind of the pregnant woman changes"

Dreams and their link with motherhood

First, let's examine what dreams are and how they appear. Dreams can be understood as hallucinations, since they are experiences that apparently They arrive captured through our senses despite the fact that none of this is happening outside of our body; everything happens behind closed doors, in the operations of our brain.

The key question is... why do we dream It is currently believed that dreams are the product of the process by which the nervious system it reconfigures itself while we sleep so that all its component parts can rest and prepare to face a new day of energy expenditure during the day.

We dream more frequently when going through REM sleep, in which our degree of consciousness is relatively high but at the same time we are disconnected from the outside world.

On the other hand, dreams are usually referred to experiences that are familiar to us in some sense, and for this reason pregnancy is an element whose appearance in them is not exactly uncommon.

The fact of being pregnant is something relatively easy to be included in practically any story devised by the brain during the dreaming stages, and this experience It can happen in a multitude of fictitious contexts: in a moment of calm at home, in a dangerous situation in which you feel that you have to protect both your life and that of your baby, etc

In any case, when considering what it means to dream that you are pregnant, it has absolutely no relation to whether you are really pregnant or not.

The body has other, much more direct ways of revealing that, and none of them depend on the world of what it is. dreamlike, but is reflected through hormonal changes and their physical manifestations in the body of the women. So if it's something that worries you, don't worry: having been pregnant in one of your dreams does not imply that soon you will have the news that you are going to be a mother.

The relationship between dreams and pregnancy is purely psychological, and not a clear biological link between them like the one between fertilization and the interruption of menstruation.

• You may be interested in: "10 curiosities about dreams revealed by science"

What does it mean to dream that I am pregnant without being pregnant?

Given the above, let's move on to the main thing: what it means to be pregnant without being pregnant. Since dreams embody ideas and ideas are ultimately something that we analyze by searching for concepts and symbols in them, there is no single solution to this enigma: There are several routes of interpretation of this kind of dreams..

However, in practice these possible interpretations are not infinite, and the most frequent psychological causes that explain why this experience has been lived are the following.

1. Concern about the leap into adulthood

A pregnancy does not have to be seen only as the beginning of motherhood. It can also imply the true beginning of life as an adult.

Not in vain many times we define the meaning of the word "mature" to our ability to take charge of responsibilities, and pregnancy is one of the clearest expressions of this; we try to make room in our lives for one more person who will depend on us.

Naturally, this involves radical changes in the lifestyle of women, and the anticipation of this new way of living is capable of generating stress even years before the true transition from adolescence to adulthood occurs.

2. desire to be a mother

This is possibly one of the meanings of dreaming that you are pregnant. Dreams are a kind of playground in which gives us room to fantasize, and for this reason it is normal that we tend to want to imagine pleasant situations when that is allowed.

3. Concern about physical change

Growing implies changing physically, and pregnancy is one of the experiences with the greatest capacity to change the body in a shorter period of time. Therefore, behind this kind of dreams linked to motherhood, there may be an interest (either optimistic or pessimistic). for the change that time leaves in the woman's body.

4. Dreaming that you are pregnant and you do not want to be: social pressure

Another of the frequent meanings is that there is fear and anxiety in the face of the social pressure that is exerted against many women to push them to become mothers regardless of their true motivations and wishes.

That's why, that fear can materialize in the nightmare for which the worst possible scenario has come to pass and she has become pregnant (even for many months, with a very swollen belly) despite not wanting to be like this.

Bibliographic references:

• Coutts, R. (2008). Dreams as modifiers and tests of mental schemas: an emotional selection hypothesis. Psychological Reports. 102 (2): 561–574.
• Hartman, E. (1995). Making connections in a safe place: Is dreaming psychotherapy?. Dreaming. 5 (4): 213–228.