Dreaming about
your childhood

Most of us left our childhood home years ago, but very few of us stop going back to it at night. The house, the street, the school, the smell of a grandparent's kitchen: childhood is one of the commonest settings in adult dreams, and it rarely means you want to be a child again. Dreaming about your childhood usually means something now echoes something then, a feeling, a relationship or a situation you first met when you were small.

So the useful question is what links the two. What was going on in your life at the age the dream took you back to, and what's going on now that feels a bit like it?

What dreaming about your childhood means

Childhood dreams range from cosy to painful, and three readings cover most of them.

Something now that feels like then

The most common reason the mind goes back is a match. A new boss who reminds you of a strict teacher, a fight with your partner that sounds like your parents' arguments, a move that brings back the move you made at eight. Dreams follow what's on your mind during the day, and they often borrow the oldest version of a feeling they can find.^[1]

Wanting comfort

When life is heavy, childhood can stand for a time when someone else carried the load. Dreams of being tucked in, of summer holidays, of a parent making dinner often come during illness, exhaustion or grief. They're a kind of rest. If you wake up from one sad that it's over, that sadness says a lot about how tired you are.

A new start in you

A dream where you're a child again, curious and free, can be about something new starting in you, a creative project, a change of direction, a part of yourself you're getting back. It's the hopeful end of childhood dreams, and it tends to feel light.

Dreaming about your childhood home

This is the version people search most. The home you grew up in taught you what family and safety feel like, so a dream set there is usually about those things as they stand today. The state of the house matters. A home exactly as it was suggests a memory you're holding on to. A home in ruins, sold or full of strangers, often comes when the family itself is changing, through a divorce, a parent's illness or the house really being sold. Finding new rooms in it can mean discovering something new about where you come from.

Dreaming about a childhood friend

A friend you haven't seen in decades turning up as if no time has passed usually stands for who you were at the time, or for a quality they had that you miss. A fearless friend can show up when you need courage, a gentle one when life has got harsh. Sometimes it's simpler, and the dream is just picking up a photo you saw, a name you heard or an anniversary.

Dreaming about your childhood bedroom

Your old bedroom is the most private corner of childhood, and dreams set there are often about the inner self you had before the world got its hands on you. Posters on the wall, the old bed, the view from the window: what you notice usually points to what you're missing. If you're an adult sleeping in your old room in the dream, it can be about feeling you've gone backwards, after moving home, a breakup or a job loss.

Dreaming about your childhood school

Going back to your old school, sitting at a desk that's too small, is close to exam dreams. It often comes with being judged or tested at work or in a relationship, and with the feeling of being small among people who decide things for you. If the dream was happy, it can be about wanting to learn again.

Dreaming about your childhood according to Jung and Freud

Jung on the child and the house you came from

Jung described the child archetype as an image of what is coming, a potential not yet grown or a new beginning.^[2] So a dream where you're small again doesn't have to be about the past at all. His own house dream points the other way, down. In 1909 he dreamed of a house whose lower floors went back through history, and he took it as a picture of the psyche, the oldest layers at the bottom.^[3] Applied to your childhood home, that makes it the lowest floor of the map, what you were given before you chose anything.

Freud on the day just gone, and the wish

Freud held that a dream borrows part of its images from the day just gone.^[4] A childhood scene may be an old room pressed into service by a smell, a song or a photo someone sent, and that's the first thing he'd check. Then comes the wish. A dream that puts you in your grandparents' garden, called in for dinner, grants the plainest wish there is, to be looked after, and it can do so when the real reason is a very adult tiredness. He left no ruling on childhood homes, so this is his method applied.

Questions to ask about your childhood dream

Work out where and when the dream took you, then bring it back to now.

• How old were you in the dream?
• Where were you: home, school, a grandparent's house?
• Who was there, and who was missing?
• What was happening in your life at that age?
• What's happening now that feels a bit like it?

The same house can hold very different years, which is why Oniri asks how old you were and what was going on back then.