Dream Decoding: Stabbed in the Back
Welcome back to another edition of Dream Decoding, my column dedicated to decoding your dreams!
Today’s dream entry comes from a regular reader of the column. This is how our dreamer sets up sharing her dream:
James,
I’m getting ready to leave for Israel (my native country) for several weeks, along with my two children. My husband will be here in the States on his own. I had this dream, and it’s really bothering me.
I could really use your help to know what this dream is all about.
Thanks!
The Dream: Stabbed in the Back
(Card is from the Mystic Dreamer Tarot by Heidi Darras.)
Let’s examine her dream…
I’m at home, in my native Israel. I’m in my parents’ bedroom. My husband is there with me; we’re in bed together. My husband stabs me in the back with a knife. I’m trying to get our kids out of the house, away from my husband.
Decoding Stabbed in the Back
Dear Dreamer,
Given the set up to your dream, it’s revealing to you–through a visual metaphor of a popular expression–a fear you have connected to your husband. Being stabbed in the back is a clear symbol of betrayal; you’re worried that your husband will betray you.
That is decoding the dream on a surface level.
On a deeper level, the dream is revealing to you that you really don’t trust your husband in your marriage.
Where does this mistrust come from?
When looking at a dream, I take into account the location of the dream. Your dream takes place in a bedroom, which tells us the dream is about your intimate relationship with your husband.
Going further, it’s the bedroom of your parents in your native Israel. This tells us that you have picked up an influence about intimacy in a marriage from your parents. In addition, being from another country, it adds a cultural influence, as different cultures view marriage—and intimacy within a marriage—in different ways.
Going with that, I would ask you to consider what your parents’ marriage was like for you growing up, because you’ve somehow picked up a belief about it from them. Perhaps there was a sense of betrayal or mistrust between them that you picked up on.
If you feel that might not be true for you, then consider how you might be thinking or feeling that your parents have betrayed you in some way, and has affected your ability to trust them.
Whichever way you choose to look at it, keep this in mind: The back is an area of the body that is indicative of two things–the first, being issues of support and being supported; and the second, issues having to do with the past, because it says “something happened back there,” which is a statement that refers to the past. So, the emphasis on the past is repeated in two ways.
The fact that the dream is coming to you just as you are about to go away with your children, and without your husband—just as you’re trying to get out of the house with your kids in the dream, away from your husband—isn’t lost on me.
I’m sure you would tell me that this is an act of protection, that you’re protecting your children from a situation that would be harmful to them. Rule Number One of Dream Decoding, though, is that everything in the dream is an aspect of you. So you (as yourself) are trying (your words “I’m trying”) to protect you (as your children) from something that has been harmful to you (the dream taking place in Israel, which is your past and your history).
Here’s another point to consider: You are also your husband stabbing you in the back.
With this, the dream is revealing to you that in your relationship with yourself (husband and wife represents your masculine and feminine sides), you may not entirely trust yourself and at times you may betray yourself as a result of that distrust/mistrust.
No matter which way you choose to look at the dream, it’s encouraging you to acknowledge how carrying around this familial/cultural influence may possibly be harming you in your life and marriage right now.
If you don’t entirely trust your husband, how does that affect your ability to be intimate with him? I ask this because intimacy is more than sharing a bed (which is how your dream begins).
I hope this decoding has given you the help you were seeking.
In closing…
I would like to thank this dreamer for sharing a dream of such an intimate nature.
If you have a dream you’d like to submit to Dream Decoding, please e-mail your submissions to james@jameshimm with Dream Decoding and the title of the dream in the subject line.
Sweet dreams!
