Guilt Dream Meanings

Dreams can often remind you of things about which you should or already feel guilty in real life; they remind you of mistakes you may have made or offences you have carried out against others or your true self.

If you wake from a dream and feel you have committed a crime and are worried you might be found out, this suggests you should feel guilty because you are concealing aspects of your true nature and not being true to yourself in waking life. Dreams in which you commit adultery or bigamy may be wish-fulfillment but they may also be an expression of guilt, even if you have only thoughts of being unfaithful in waking life. Dreams in which you are paying alimony may not refer to divorce but to the fact that you need to pay for some misconduct in waking life. Dreams in which you are a criminal or have committed a crime also refer to some misdeed in waking life and, if a penalty is exacted, this will be based on your feelings of guilt and how severely you feel you ought to be punished.

So, if you are sentenced to prison or execution in your dream or beaten up or find yourself actually facing the hangman, electric chair, lethal injection, firing squad or the guillotine, this suggests strong feelings of regret. Alternatively, it may also mean that you are going to change your life and make a new start. Fines in dreams tends to refer to minor misdemeanors but bear in mind that money in dreams can sometimes be related to emotion; if you are pursued by a bailiff or debt collector, for example, this may indicate that you owe something to someone, perhaps affection, in waking life.

If you dreamed you were shoplifting, your dreaming mind may be reminding you of a minor offence you have committed in waking life but if you are involved in serious theft your dreaming mind is warning you that there will be serious consequences for your actions if you are discovered.

If you dream that you are blackmailing someone or they are trying to blackmail you, consider whether you are trying to force the affection of someone in waking life by threatening to leave them or by bribing them?

If you appear in court in your dream, this is another sign of guilt for some action or offence you feel you have committed in waking life. Try to identify who was judging you.

If the judge was a famous person and the press are present or you are lynched by a mob, you may feel condemned, not by yourself or another person, but by everyone you know. Dreams in which you have an allergy or a reaction to something you have eaten or put on or worked with are also expressions of guilt. Dreams in which you are confessing to a priest or condemned from the pulpit by a preacher are also symbols of guilt in waking life; they suggest your desire to absolve yourself or rectify a situation.

If you dream of being forgiven, this will be very comforting.

Dreams in which someone who has died appears in tears or is hostile to you may be suggesting that you feel guilty about your behavior towards that person when they were alive. Your dreaming mind has conjured up this image to encourage you to think about that person in waking life and perhaps admit your faults or misdeeds towards them.

If your dream leads you into temptation, for example succumbing to the charms of an irresistible stranger if you are in a settled relationship, this may reflect unconscious, hidden desires; it may also be warning you that you will be easily tempted when opportunity presents itself.

Finally, bear in mind that when feelings of guilt are experienced in your dream, they may be telling of repressed anger towards you or another person in real life. Dreams of anger may equally be connected to experiences of guilt, so be alert and careful when you try to interpret them. Whatever you feel angry or guilty about in your dream, you may find that the only way to regain your peace of mind is to put things right or make amends or new resolutions in your waking life.

Expressions of guilt are common in dreams. The cause of the guilt- feelings may be indicated in the dream, or in a later one.

(1) Normal guilt-feelings are the psyche’s way of telling us we are not on the right road for personal happiness.

(2) Neurotic guilt-feelings are irrational. For instance, if the father of a five-year-old boy dies, the boy may feel responsible for the death; and the feeling of guilt and a desire to punish himself may linger on into adulthood, not at the conscious level but in the unconscious. (For Oedipus complex)

(3) Guilt-feelings may arise out of a conflict between inner impulses and conventional - social or religious - morality. Here we have two kinds of duty: duty to society and duty to ourselves, which is a duty to fulfil our ‘destiny5 - that is, the potential that is contained in the basic structure of our individual psyche.

Material aspects: When guilt arises in dreams it is usually because our instincts tell us that we have not been true to our own principles of truth and integrity. When we have done something that may result in us being judged, or committed some minor misdemeanour, in waking life we will experience guilt in dreams. You might also like to consult the entry for judge / judgement.

To dream that you feel guilty about something, relates to how you are handling your successes and failures in life. You may feel undeserving of your achievements, or on the other hand, you may feel that you have let others down. This dream can also symbolize repressed and negative feelings that you may have about yourself. Also see “Trial.”

Psychological / emotional perspective: The emotion of guilt is such that, rather than blame others, we will often take the feeling to a very profound level. This can disturb our dreams until we have had the courage to truly forgive ourselves.

Spiritual guilt is self-reproach for inadequacy or wrongdoing and arises out of an internal struggle between what we perceive to be right and wrong. In dreams the feeling can be more powerful than in everyday life.

A dream of others being guilty signifies untrustworthy friends; to be guilty or be aware of a personal sense of guilt indicates a need to make amends for some past injustice.

Feeling guilt in a dream is a direct experience, but what you are feeling guilty about may well be in symbols and need clarifying.

See emotions, mood.

1. Fear of punishment.

2. Lack of confidence in oneself.