Garden

Other interpretations suggest that dreams of gardens express a desire to be closer to nature or your natural self. Sometimes, dream gardens are symmetrical with a central point; this mandala symbol represents the inner wholeness of your true self and to dream of a garden that reproduces its form may indicate inner healing after a period of unease or even illness.

If your dream garden is beautiful, this suggests creativity and abundance in your life, whereas an overgrown neglected garden warns that you have neglected your personal growth. It is time to clear away the weeds and start nurturing your talents.

The garden is also the symbol of the feminine attributes and the qualities of wildness that need to be tamed in order to create order. Closed or walled gardens, in particular, have this significance and can represent virginity. Freud saw the garden as an image of the female genitals, with the dreamer perhaps facing the carnal temptations associated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

If your dream garden is square or circular in shape, this suggests unconscious wisdom and insight.

If there is a pool in the garden this refers to memories of childhood or hidden, unexpressed emotions.

If you are gardening in your dream, this indicates that you are in the act of creation; the dream may be referring to your psychological growth and increasing emotional maturity. To see a vegetable garden symbolizes increased prosperity will come your way through diligence and care; it also suggests stability and inner growth. To see a flower garden in your dream foretells of tranquility, comfort, true love and a happy home in your future. To see a sparse, weed-infested garden indicates that you have neglected your emotional and spiritual needs. A garden gate may represent a welcome invitation to a more natural environment for those detained awhile by city life. Walking through a garden gate may represent moving into a new phase of life; new opportunities await you. An open gate represents changes for the future; a closed gate means problems or obstacles ahead

A conservatory or hothouse full of exotic plants symbolizes the unconscious being kept under tight control. A fountain in the garden is a symbol of encouragement, renewed hope and a release of creativity. A well in the garden may stand for your most valued talents and inner resources, but if the well is dried up and you cannot draw water from it, this suggests frustration at being unable to find an outlet for your talents. To see a neat and wellkept yard reflects your ability to maintain and organize aspects of your outside life, such as work and your social activities. To see a messy and neglected yard denotes those aspects of your life that are out of your control.

See also Plants entry in NATURE AND THE SEASONS; TREES.

Dreaming Lens: Were you in a garden? Were you trying to get to a garden? Were you tending to the plants and soil, or enjoying the fruits of labor? Were you alone or with others? What sort of garden was it? Was it beautifully tended or full of weeds?

Personal Focus: A garden is a planned, deliberate construct that creates growth in a confined area. Whether the growth is for beauty or consumption, it represents the feminine principle of creativity and nurturing. The structure and boundaries of the garden are the expression of the masculine principle in action. In this way, gardens are a microcosm of the act of creation itself. The act of gardening is often reported to produce significant levels of serenity, relaxation, and pleasure for the enthusiast. In a dream, a garden may represent a need or desire to produce an atmosphere of peace, abundance, or nurturance in your life. The type of garden, the state it is in, and what you are doing in relation to it reflects what area is being expressed and your current ability to be effective in it.

Different types of gardens have different distinctions of meaning. A flower garden might represent a desire for beauty and grace for grace’s sake, or artistic creativity. A vegetable garden signifies a proactive consideration of self-nurturing and healthy living. An herb garden points to the need to enhance the flavor of your life and connect to more esoteric modes of expression. A rock garden points to structure and memories and beauty that need no attention. Public gardens relate more to issues connected with social structures and your outside life. A botanical reserve calls forth a desire to connect with a personal sense of beauty that is shared with others. A publicly shared garden may indicate primal desires to return to older ways of communal living.

If the garden is overgrown, it may be reflecting a lack of attentiveness to your needs for sustenance or creativity. Weeds are unwanted expressions that have the capacity to strangle that which is held dear. With any dream that contains a peaceful and serene setting, it is important to consider the possibility that there is something outside of the confines of the garden that needs your attention.

If one sees his garden dry in a dream, it means that his wife has commenced her menstrual period during which he is not permitted to have sexual intercourse with her. Ifhe sees someone else watering his garden in a dream, it means that such a person will betray him with his wife. Ifone sees himself entering an unknown garden with its trees unattended and its pasture unkempt in a dream, it means distress and worries.

A garden in a dream also represents a woman. Theyboth need water and they both bear fruits or children. In this case, if the garden is interpreted to represent a woman, then its trees and fruits represent her tribe, family and children.

An unknown garden in a dream also represents the Holy Qur’an.

A garden in a dream also represents a marketplace, a new bride’s house, a property, an animal domesticated for service, a shop, a business, a tavern, a bathhouse, generosity, an army made of slaves, cattle or personal assets. Ifone sees himself inside a garden in a dream, it means comfort and growth in his life.lfthe house to which this garden belongs is God’s house, then the man seeing it is in paradise. Ifhe is sick, it means that he will die from his illness and enter that paradise.

If the garden is unknown in the dream, it means martyrdom and particularly ifhe finds inside the garden a womancallinghim to herself, or to drink milk or honeyfrom the garden’s rivers and the same is true if the garden does not look like the ones he is accustomed to see in the world. Otherwise, If one sees himselflooking at a garden, and ifhe is unmarried, it means that he will meet a suitable woman and get married.

If he is married, it means that he will receive joy from his wife equal to that which he received from the garden in his dream.

If one finds within such a garden a group of associates or colleagues, the garden then represents a marketplace.

If one sees a servant or a worker of his urinating inside a well or a stream inside such a garden in the dream, it means that a relative will betray the interests of the family.

A garden whose owner is known in a dream represents a mosque, a park, people of knowledge, ignorant people, the generous ones or the stingy ones. It also represents a meeting place where the rich and the poor, the righteous and the insolent gather.

A garden in a dream also may indicate a religious center, a school, a center for scientific research and studies, a place of worship, etcetera.

If one enters a garden at the season of plucking its fruits in a dream, it means glad tidings, money and increase in one’s good deeds, marriage or children. On the other hand, if he enters a garden in the fall in a dream, it means defamation, indebtedness, divorce, or it could mean loss of a child. Seeing a deceased person in a garden means that he is in paradise.

A garden in a dream also represents a source of nourishment. Its fruits are colorful and their taste ranges from sweet to salty and from sour to bitter.

(Also see House garden, Qur’iin)