Dreams: What Do Inadequacy Dreams Mean?
First of all, what do we mean by inadequacy dreams? An inadequacy dream would be one in which you dream that you are either:
- too fat
- too thin
- too old
- too young
- too unattractive
- too sick
- too forgetful
- not smart enough
- not tall enough
- too tall
- overqualified
- under qualified
- and on and on and on!
Basically, any dream in which you disappoint yourself, scare yourself, or fail to meet your expectations is an inadequacy dream.
Here’s a recent inadequacy dream submitted for analysis: Dreaming About Forgetting
I am a 52 year old mother of 2 boys (one’s 12 and the other is 21). I had a dream a week ago that has stayed with me and is just very upsetting. I dreamed that I was holding a baby girl and that she was my baby. She was crying and had a fever. So I took her to what appeared to be a doctor’s office. The nurse working at the window asked me my name and I told her. She asked what was wrong with my baby and I told her that she had a fever, didn’t seem to feel well and was crying a lot. Then the nurse asked me my baby’s name and I couldn’t remember it.
I felt SO frustrated and scared in the dream (and when I woke up and ever since). I was trying so hard to remember the name and kept thinking, “How can you forget the name of your own baby?”
Most of the time dreams don’t stay with me. I usually remember them for a day or two but this one won’t leave my mind. I keep feeling how frustrated and scared I was.
Now I’m scared that this means I’m losing my memory or that I might have problems with Alzheimer’s or something. I’m just really in a bad place right now because of this dream. Please help me sort this out so I can get rid of this feeling. Thank you.
P.S. Oh, by the way, this is strange – but somehow I know that the baby’s name was Victoria. It came to me just as I was waking up from the dream.
First of all, relax and throw out any left over fears and anxieties! Very often dreaming about forgetting things is simply a sign that we need to slow down and start paying more attention to things. It’s possible that you recently forgot something or almost forgot something and the frustration of that incident carried over into your dream.
Forgetting things is a very common thing – it happens to people of all ages, young and old. It isn’t a sign of losing your memory or even of getting old – most of the time it’s simply a sign that you’re too busy or that you aren’t paying as much attention to details as possible. Sometimes, in our work and at home, we get kind of lazy and don’t pay as much attention to details. This leads to forgotten cellphones, keys, and sunglasses!
Most people just laugh at the situation – but a certain age group (between about 35 and 55) almost panics. We tend to think, “Dear, God, please don’t let me be losing my mind!!!” We don’t just hit the panic button, we jump on it.
Yet, if we pause and take a deep breath, we’ll remember that forgetting things happen at all ages. After all, what about the time we forgot our school lunch, the time we forgot the dates for the history exam (!!!), the time we forgot to take the right notebook to class – etc, etc, etc. If we would be reasonable, we’d realize that forgetting things isn’t anything new!
I do a lot of research and reading for another one of my websites, Out of Bounds. It’s all about mental fitness, sharpening your mind, improving your memory, and just staying sharp. I always recommend challenging the mind to keep it on it’s proverbial toes. Doing a lot of the recommended tips given on Out of Bounds will help you to not only stay sharp – it’ll give you confidence.
Right now, I’d say that a recent event (something small – like forgetting your keys…) has sort of smacked your confidence around – hence the dream. Unfortunately, the dream only compounded the problem!
Rest assured that I’m certain the frustrating feelings will subside right away.
Other Inadequacy Dreams
If you’ve had inadequacy dreams, realize that they stem from a particular insecurity. If you dream that you are overweight, for example, you either…
- Have been feeling like you need to lose weight.
- Have a deep-seeded fear of becoming overweight.
Another interpretation for this type of dream – if you’re certain that you have no insecurities whatsoever – is that you “emotionally feel” whatever inadequacy is portrayed in the dream. For example, if you dream you are incredibly ugly – yet don’t feel at all unattractive, you could have recently acted “ugly” and have guilt over your actions.
If you dream that you are overweight – yet you know you are a perfect size – you may feel like you’re “carrying too much weight” at the office, at school, or at home.
Finally, don’t ever let a mere dream shake your confidence or your swagger. Dream Prophesy is all about USING your dreams as self help and self improvement vessels. It’s the whole reason I put the website up in the first place! We can take our dreams and use them as springboards to improving our lives. If you dream of a particular inadequacy – put a little extra effort into chasing away the insecurities and watch your confidence soar!
What Does it Mean to Dream About Losing Things?
The majority of dream interpretation requests I get have to do with 1 of the following types of dreams:
- Dreams of dying
- Dreams of a lost loved one
- Snake dreams
- Dreams of falling
- Dreams of being lost
- Dreams of losing things
I thought we’d take a good look at one of these dreams today: Dreams of losing things. Many people want to know what it means to dream about losing things – some wonder if it’s a sign that they’ll be losing something (or someone) in their life. First of all let me say a resounding NO, these dreams do not tell the future or imply that you’ll lose anything or anyone in your waking life.
Dreams deal with what’s going on in our lives – or with what has gone on in our lives. Dreams are where we sort it all out.
When we dream of losing things, its almost always because we are (in our waking life) overwhelmed and are currently being pulled in too many different directions or are trying to do too many things. These dreams often have to do with us, personally, more than things we lose. They’re just symbols for the bigger picture.
It’s our brain’s way of telling us: Too many pots on the stove! Something’s going to happen if you don’t get it together. Dreaming of losing things often means we are “out of touch” or “out of control” in some area of our life.
Many times, life gets so hectic and twisted that we lose touch with who we actually are. We try to be so many things to so many people that we sort of lose who we truly are. We forget the things that truly matter (or at least should matter) in life. At the risk of wading into the deep end of the pool, dreaming of losing things often reflects that we’ve “lost a part of ourselves.”
If you dream that you have lost something, examine your heart and life the very next day, while the dream is still fresh in your mind. Have you lost touch with yourself lately? Are you too busy? Are parts of your life sort of spinning out of control?
As I point out in the article, Dream Prophesy: When Dreams Come True, dreams simply tell us that The stage is set for something to happen. Whether it does or not is almost entirely up to us.
Dreams About Death: What Your Dreams Mean
A recent dream request:
I keep having dreams in where death itself is after me everywhere i turn its there. & this really scares me. can you please help me figure out what these dreams mean?
Dreams about death are always troubling – very much so! It’s important to remember, however, that these dreams aren’t actually about death as much as they’re about change or transition. Death in dreams is also often a dream symbol for loss.
Often, people will dream about death during the following changes in their lives:
- change of schools (from grade school to middle school, from middle school to high school, from high school to college – or a change of schools as a result of moving)
- change of job
- a move
- divorce
- parents divorce
- a friend moving away
- change of teachers
- change of boss and/or co-workers
- loss of a pet
- loss of a friendship
- starting a new relationship
- ending an old relationship
As you can see, any sort of change sort of brings about a “loss” of sorts – a new job also means the loss of an old one. A new relationship often means the “loss” of an old one, etc. Death dreams generally just represent this change.
We often will dream about lost loved ones during times of change or transition as well. Basically, anything that symbolizes change to us will symbolize change to us in our dreams.
Please don’t ever be afraid of death dreams – they aren’t negative dreams. In fact, ancient dream guides often stated that to dream of death was a great sign that something wonderful was about to happen to you! These dreamologists believed that to dream of death meant that the dreamer was moving on to a new, exciting experience in their lives.
Nothing scary about that!
Dream Interpretation: Why It’s So Important and How to Approach Dream Interpretation
Our dreams can have a great impact on our lives and offer us wonderful insights into our minds. All we have to do is analyze them and find out exactly what it is they’re trying to tell us. Dreams can hold valuable secrets to our lives and the dream symbols can help sort through many problems and dilemmas in a way no self help book in the world could hope to.
I hope you’ll bookmark Dream Prophesy.com and subscribe to our e-mail alerts and/or rss feed so you can learn how you can interpret your own dreams and learn how they can help you get more from life.
Below are a few guidelines for interpreting and analyzing your dreams:
- Make the meanings of the dream symbols in your dream line up with your real life. If you are terrified of snakes, a snake dream will have a different meaning for you than it would someone who keeps snakes as pets and loves them the way the rest of us love our cats and dogs.
- Submit your dream to Dream Prophesy.com for your own personalized dream interpretation and dream analysis. Our contact form is on the site. Unless you mark your dream as private, we do share the dream with our readers. This way, many people are helped by your dream interpretation.
- Write down your dreams, as soon as you wake up. It doesn’t matter if it’s a regular dream or a nightmare. Even the most, seemingly, insignificant dream can hold a wealth of information and insight. Don’t worry about trying to analyze it at that exact moment – simply write down what you remember.
- Even more importantly, write down how you feel when you first wake up. The emotions you have at that moment are the emotions you were experiencing in the dream and are absolutely vital to the dream interpretation.
- Make sure you write down all of the symbols in your dream. These are things such as knives, brooms, cats, birds, snakes, planes, and even people you recall. Basically, anything or anyone you remember is a dream symbol.
At the end of a week, go back and examine your dream journal. If you see a series of troubling and upsetting dreams, you can rest assured that your mind is troubled about something. Your mind is begging for you to find a solution to the drama and the trauma so that it can find peace again.
If your dreams seem to be a series of fear and panic, you are experiencing a great deal of worry and concern in your life. There is at least one thing you are afraid of happening (or not happening). When the worry is resolved, your dream self will be less anxious!
Again, please use Dream Prophesy.com as a guide and resource as you begin to study and make sense of your dreams. If you have a particular dream or dream symbol that you want interpreted, use our search box to find articles and posts related to this subject. If you still have questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me or use the contact form.
Have a Problem to Solve? Sleep On It!
A few days ago, one of my daughters and I were talking about we’ll often solve a problem or get a great idea while we’re lying in bed – either close to sleep or having just woke up. I’ll often get a great idea for a post or the ingredients for a killer recipe when I’m either close to sleep or just coming out of its blissful state!
Researchers actually back up our experiences
Experts say that we have the ability to solve problems in our sleep because most memory consolidation occurs while your brain is in a resting state. Studies have even shown that students who review schoolwork right before bedtime have a much better chance of remembering the information for the next day’s test or assignment.
If you are preparing for a test or a presentation at work, and you want the information to be stored as long-term memory, your best bet is to study the material right before bedtime.
By the same token, if you have a certain dilemma in your life and you’re searching for a solution, give it a great deal of thought as you fall asleep. Your chances for waking up next to the solution are outstanding!
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