bridge

Dreaming Lens: Were you on the bridge? Were you considering crossing or were you already on the other side? Did the bridge seem safe to cross? What was the bridge connecting? What was it going over? What type of bridge was it? How big was it? Was it from a location you know from life?

Personal Focus: A bridge is essentially that which makes a connection between two separate entities. It can offer a solution to the problem of getting across an obstacle of some kind. Since it takes you from one place to another, it also carries the meaning of a transition in life. Man-made constructions that require a high level of sophisticated engineering to create, they express the complicated ways in which we often approach solving problems in life. They also represent the ability to expand into new territory previously unavailable for exploration. The primary meaning, however, relates to the connections we make in life, hence the warning in the phrase don’t burn your bridges.

Since many bridges are suspended over water, an emotional issue is often the underlying conflict being expressed by this symbol. The intensity of the water below will indicate the level of emotions being stirred up. Some bridges, however, are used to traverse difficult terrain over land. In a dream, this might point to some construct or obstacle in your life that you’d rather avoid by somehow rising above it. If there is a conflict in your life that you can easily identify, a bridge in a dream may be symbolic of bringing together opposite sides of an issue. The integrity of the construction of a bridge could illuminate how effectively you are approaching the situation.

Freud lists four meanings of the bridge symbol:

(1) It may represent the male sexual organ, which ‘bridges the gap’ between male and female sexual partners.

(2) It may also symbolize birth - that is, the crossing from ‘the other world’ to this, or from womb to independent existence.

(3) It may represent (something that leads to) death - that is, a return to the womb, or to ‘the other world’, ‘the other side’.

(4) It may symbolize any sort of transition in the dreamer’s life. Freud gives the example of a woman who wants to be a man, and consequendy dreams of bridges that don’t quite reach the other side of the river. However, the symbolized change may be something that can be achieved more easily, but still possibly requiring will and determination; for example, a change of lifestyle, or a passing from middle years into old age.

To Freud’s list we may add the following:

(5) The bridge is a means of crossing a river, and even perhaps crossing from one country to another - foreign, new, strange - country. It may therefore svmbolize a critical juncture in the dreamer’s life, a situation that calls for a definitive decision, a decision which may be of such a radical kind that it could well be described figuratively as entering a new country.

(6) If the bridge you are crossing seems in danger of collapsing, this may reflect your anxiety about a transition in your life: for example, about whether you are going to be able to go through with a change from living on your own to living with a partner (or the reverse); from one job to another; from one set of values to another.

A bridge in a dream also represents a pious worshiper who patiently bears the harm people may inflict on him. It can also mean the path to fulfill one’s needs, having a high ranking connection with the governor, or it could represent one’s wife, father or mother. Each bridge in a dream represents its own type.

A bridge connecting two streets in a dream may lead to the ruler or to someone in his cabinet, particularly if it is built from stones and covered with baked bricks.

If it is a small bridge, then it can represent the secretary, door attendant ofa governor, a superior, or it can be interpreted as apimp.lfa bridge which is built from stone is transformed in one’s dream to look as if it were made of dirt, it means changing of one’s status and vice-versa.

If one sees himself transformed into a bridge in a dream, it means that he will be elected for a leadership post, and people will need him, his prestige and what he can offer.

(Also see Arched bridge, Bridge of the Day of Judgement, Contract, Knot, Transformation)