GRANDPARENT

The appearance of grandparents in dreams can highlight your attitude towards them, as well as representing the traditions and beliefs handed down to you by them or your feelings about old age and death. It is often said that parents do not know if they have done a good job raising their children until their children have children of their own. As grandparents are often seen by children to be more sympathetic figures than parents in dreams, they may stand for wisdom, intuition or the desire for an untroubled relationship with your father and mother. Your dream grandparent may have appeared to remind you of the happy times you shared in childhood. Apart from reflecting a yearning for the security of childhood, dreaming of either of your grandparents may suggest that you are in urgent need of their guidance and experience as you face life’s dilemmas and pitfalls.

If you don’t associate the grandparent with impartial wisdom, ask yourself whether he or she may have been an archetype in disguise, especially the priest or priestess, or wise old woman or wise old man. Whichever archetype seems to fit your grandparent, their advice will help set you on the right path; the very appearance of a family elder in a dream indicates that you should look to the past for inspiration and solutions to your current problems. The key may be an ancestral trait you have inherited or an actual event in your family’s history that has parallels with your waking situation.

To dream of a grandparent who has died will usually be reassuring, telling you that you have inherited some of their wisdom. For Jungians, the grandfather may symbolize the wise old man; he can appear in various forms such as king, wizard, prophet, teacher, guru or priest. The grandmother may likewise symbolize the great mother archetype, which may appear as a goddess, wise old woman, prophet or teacher. Jung called these figures ‘mana personalities’, from the Melanesian word for ‘the divine’. These are symbols of the power and the wisdom that lies in the deepest part of the psyche, and dreams that contain mana figures represent a time of great spiritual progress and opportunity in waking life.

Your real-life grandparent.

An authority or caretaker figure.

Unconditional love and support, wisdom, understanding, maturity, or something else you associate with a grandparent.

A spiritual authority figure or wise elder in your life.

See Family, Person You Know, Authority Figure

If you dream of being a grandparent, your prospects of family happiness are distinctly favorable.

To dream of one or more grandparents is a sign that you will succeed through the exercise of tact.