Incest

The act of incest in the dream may of course be a real-life one that you witnessed or were involved in.

If so, have you talked about it to a good friend or psychotherapist? If not, why not do so? Where there is symbolism, it will probably be as follows:

(1) For a man, a dream of incest with your daughter will usually express fear of the erotic element in your feelings towards your daughter in real life; but could be a straightforward expression of desire.

(2) For a man, in a dream of incest with your sister, the sister may be an anima figure, representing the feminine side of your nature.

If the positive aspect of the anima is represented - as a source of wisdom and all-embracing love - the unconscious is inviting you to accept and integrate these good things into your conscious life.

If the anima figure displays a negative - possessive and moody - aspect, the dream is telling you that love (in this case, proper respect for the feminine components of your psyche) can change a negative into a positive. (On anima, see Brother / Sister, sections (4)-(6))

(3) For a man, a dream of incest with your mother may express the desire you felt for her as a small boy. This desire, though repressed, may occasionally surface. Try to accept it as natural and innocent (on the Oedipus complex). Your mother may sometimes symbolize your anima.

See also (2) above, and (7) below.

(4) For a woman, if you dream of incest with your father, it may be an expression of your (repressed) childhood desire for your father. You need to see the innocence of such feelings.

(5) For a woman an act of incest with your brother may be telling you something about your animus, the masculine side of your nature.

If the animus figure is a positive one, it represents the source of all you need for wholeness, if only your feminine and masculine psychic components unite fully at the conscious level.

If the animus figure is a negative one - obstinate, opinionated - you have repressed and neglected your masculine qualities so that they express themselves in uncontrolled and threatening ways; and only love - full respect for them, and allowing them a proper place in your conscious life - can transform negative to positive.

(6) Again for a woman, a dreamed act of incest with your son, or incestuous desires, are probably expressing your anxiety concerning your - natural - sensuous pleasure in the sight and touch of him.

(7) A man’s dreamed or fantasized incest with mother may represent a death-wish, a desire to return into the womb. This means your mother has the properties of the Earth Mother in her negative, devouring aspect; and you really do need to make every effort to throw off an attachment to mother that is preventing the unfolding of your own individual self.

Alternatively, incest with mother in a dream could express a desire for new life: a descent, as it were, into the Earth Mother’s womb for rebirth.

Deep bonds with a Relative (often a symbol for parts of yourself), whom you see as your idol, or who is or should be a threatening example. As a dream symbol, incest has an extremely positive as well as a negative meaning. On one hand, incest dreams express a longing for a deep connectedness and bonding that is clamoring for expression on all levels (body, mind, and soul). In a dream where the brother or sister is seen as the lover who is similar and related, in that sense, the dream makes possible a complete union of the masculine and the feminine even within one’s own soul. On the other hand, this dream symbol may also represent the matter of love versus power.

It is important to note who is making love: sister / brother incest may indicate that control is exercised at the expense of the bonding aspect.

It is indeed the brother / sister incest act that expresses such a longing for complete devotion, while at the same time adding the attraction of the forbidden, which in our society makes anything sexual so exciting.

In the case of mother / son or father / daughter incest, the same dynamics may also come into play, hut there is the added aspect of the unequal power between parent and child. Such dreams always point to an immature sexuality on the part of the adult, who is afraid of a relationship between equals.

At the same time we should always remember with such a dream that a certain kind of masochism is involved—in the form of fear / pleasure—that resides in all of us. And we might want to be grateful when it finds expression in such dream images only! Last but not least, we also need to take into consideration the Oedipus and Electra complexes, where a child desires the parent of the opposite sex. Psychoanalytically, this stage of sexual development needs to be overcome in order to have satisfying sexual experiences with equals.

This is a complex issue in waking life, and there is a very big difference between the symbolic meaning behind incest as a universal concept and what a dream of incest indicates if you are someone who is an incest survivor.

If this is the case, then dreams of incest may be an important part of healing and processing a very difficult experience. However, if this is not the case, then the appearance of this discomforting behavior in a dream needs to be understood from a symbolic perspective and absolutely not in a literal fashion. Any sexual experience is a symbol of integration and the joining together of different elements of consciousness. In this way, it is a powerful and positive symbol even when the people participating are unlikely partners. In the case of incest, the people involved are family members. In this way, the character aspects that are being integrated have to do with family traits, values, and the actual characteristics of the people who appeared in the dream.