What Does Dreaming of a Hand Mean?
What does dreaming of a hand mean in traditional interpretation?
According to traditional interpretation and Ibn Sirin, the hand is read as power, strength, gain, livelihood, and a point of support. The lengthening of the hand may point to victory, influence, and abundant wealth; the right hand may point to earnings and livelihood, and the left hand to loved ones.
What does dreaming of a hand mean psychologically?
In modern psychology, the hand represents one's capacity to touch the world, take action, and express oneself; in Jungian terms it may point to creative power and the sense of agency, and in Freudian terms to drives connected with desire and control.
By Context
What does the right hand mean in a dream?
It may point to one's work, earnings, and source of livelihood; a strong-looking hand may indicate that things are going well.
What does the left hand mean in a dream?
It may point to one's spouse, mother, sister, or a close relative or loved one.
What does a hand being cut off mean in a dream?
Traditionally it can be interpreted as an increase in sins and the need for repentance, as separation, or as hardship in livelihood; if cut painlessly, it may be interpreted as falling in love with someone.
What does shaking hands mean in a dream?
It may point to forming a beneficial bond, to trade, to a falling-out turning into reconciliation, and to peaceful days.
What does a henna-dyed hand mean in a dream?
In the Ibn Sirin tradition, it may at times be interpreted as a deception, and at times as household goods leaving one's possession.
Where these readings come from
Every symbol in this dictionary carries two readings side by side, and neither replaces the other. The traditional interpretation comes from the classical literature of Ibn Sirin and al-Nabulsi, where a dream is taken as a sign of what is to come and a symbol's meaning is largely fixed. The psychological view follows Jung and Freud: there a dream speaks not about the future but about the dreamer, and a symbol stands for something the person has repressed or cannot yet name. That is why the same symbol can read differently, even oppositely, under the two headings. The context section follows from the same idea: one symbol reads differently depending on who saw it and what happened in the dream.