iVillage

Adoption themes in dreams often occur at significant points of transition or crisis in life. Being adopted in your dream can mean either that you have no human connections at the moment or that you require additional connections to remain a viable person. Dreams of this nature may occur during geographic moves, job transitions or uncertainties, or prior to marriage. Crucial questions exist concerning who adopts you, what the relationship is like with them after adoption, and whether you feel glad, ambivalent, or uneasy about being adopted. A pre-marital dream may include something like this one (reported by a 24-year-old groom-to-be):

I'm sitting at a card table with people I don't know playing a game I don't understand. They are trying to teach me, but don't speak English. I get up to leave, but they take me home and treat me as their son.

The dreamer may see himself as ambivalent about fitting into family rituals, but feeling enough acceptance from his new extended family to overcome his concerns.

Adopting another

Obviously, the gender of the dreamer has much to say about this dream. Clinical evidence shows that men and women share equal responsibility for infertility disorders.

However, women tend to internalize more anxiety about child-rearing and may feel a need to adopt to resolve that archetypal task of life. Discerning the current status of the self in the life cycle and external circumstances of the woman would be important.

Does infertility run in your family tree?

Are you currently planning to become pregnant, but are concerned that you may not? For both genders, adoption may revolve around a very benevolent view of the self as provider. More and more people find their motivation in an ethic of making a difference in just one life. As such, the quest for justice is shifting from the hero(ine) in the white hat who saves the town to the good person who helps one person less fortunate.

For men who adopt others with ambivalence, there can be questions of virility or competence at stake. Who you adopt, and why, could be important to uncovering the meaning of this dream.

Is there a significant bonding or separation occurring in your life that may be creating some unease below the surface of your emotions?