What does it mean to dream about being in prison (dream interpretation / analysis – prison)
Dreaming that you are in prison is often a sign that somehow, somewhere in your life, you are trapped, or limited in doing what you want to do, or being who you are. Either through your own actions or thinking (inner interpretation), or through someone (a real person or your surroundings) preventing you from this (outer interpretation).
When you are the one locking yourself up in prison, you need to be searching for how your own limiting beliefs, thoughts about yourself or others, or your actual behaviour, currently are preventing you from e.g. being who you really are. This might be thoughts like; a person like me doesn’t wear clothes like that, or doesn’t attend yoga classes – or whatever it might be that you really want to – but prevent yourself from doing, just because it doesn’t match the idea you have of who you are supposed to be.
–
When trying to understand your dreams it is important to know that your dreams are… your dreams. As such, you are the best person to figure out the true meaning of your dreams.
However, it is important to learn how to generally approach your dreams. Dream dictionaries like this one are only a supplement, and if you want to fully utilize the potential of your dreams, you should start at a different place.
My online course “Unlock your DREAMlife” gives you a great foundation for understanding (and recalling) your dreams.
–
OR – is it someone – or something – outside yourself, that right now hinders your personal development, or in other ways prevents you from being who you are, and doing what you really want? It could be your job, a friend, or even your partner locking you up in prison. But before you fall into the trap of quickly (i.e. a bit too fast) blaming your surroundings, then be honest to yourself; could it be your own limiting beliefs that prevents you from breaking out of prison, and being yourself, also in the presence of others?
In many relationships in turns out, that projection is very active. This could be blaming the other for your own faults, or assigning highly attractive traits or skills that you yourself have to the other, without realising that these traits or skills are your own. So in this relation you might see your partner, friend or maybe colleague as enormeously creative, humorous etc. – while these are all your own traits, traits that you currently don’t live or fully use.
Also examine the dream very closely; how do you feel in the dream, or what exactly are you doing in the dream? If you sit inside a prison playing guitar (or painting, or being a geek about something), feeling enormeosly sad, this might be an illustration of how a very important musical (/creative), or “geeky” side of yourself is currently trapped inside you, typically because you don’t let this side come out. The dream would tell that you need to let this side out of prison, or you will forever feel that somehow you are not fully being who you are.
This type of dreams typically occur in periods where we feel sad, but not knowing why. Consciously we might be saying to ourselves that we have “everything”, but in spite of this, we are inexplicably sad. If for one or the other reason we keep important sides of ourselves hidden, we will almost guaranteed walk around feeling sad.
If you dream that some one else is in prison, and that you are the prison ward, this might be illustrating how you right now are preventing this (real) person from being who he or she is (outer interpretation), or that whatever this person represents within you (i.e. a side of yoursef) is currently “imprisoned” (inner interpretation).
Dream dictionaries are a very helpful tool when interpreting dreams. However, generally learning how to approach your dreams, will give you a better foundation for understanding them. My online course “Unlock your DREAMlife” teaches you how to much better utilize – recall and understand – your dreams.
Also read: Why I no longer interpret dreams for free
Michael Rohde Olsen
Return to the index of dream themes and symbols:
Dream interpretation A-Z ↵
P.s. – Dream interpretation / dream analysis is not always an easy thing, and when you dream of being imprisoned, this almost by guarantee means something else for you than it means for someone else who also dreams of being imprisoned. A given interpretation of a dream is only correct insofar that the person who had the dream feels truly struck by that interpretation.
I hope somebody reply. I Don’t remember too much detail but I had a dream where I went to jail (idk the reason why) and instead of a cell it was me and a few girls locked in one big room with a tv and beds side by side (it would make u think that you’re in a homeless shelter) but one day during “visits” a friend of mine that I barely talk to showed up and hugged me but when he did I just busted out crying and he left and then that’s when my mom and some of my family came to visit. Fast forward somehow I got my cellphone in my dream (mind you i’m still in jail) and I was on snapchat debating if I should text my “boyfriend” (He’s my ex in real life but in my dream we were together) and I seemed scared to text him and it had seemed like he had blocked me or didn’t feel like texting me at all ….i wish i can remember more details about my dream but it’s crazy because my sister told me that she had a dream last week bout MY EX going to jail….
Hey I need help in interpreting this dream.
I dreamt about my self in prison but even my elder sister was there too. But she was able to go outside and talk to her phone the other door was open and I felt like I can be able to ascape but I did not escape because I was scares an busy crying so much it felt real, Because I knew that i am not guilty but my sister was okay outside speaking to her phone as if she was long locked and she is used to this environment.
Please help me interprete it because this felt real and I am scared because I am really afraid of prisons.
I was trying to escape a prison. It was at night and I was being visited by a friend/lover. She was helping me gather my things. We needed to get out rather quickly. I think we were taking too long and she said we needed to go now. A box of mine still had some stuff laid out and I didnt want to leave evidence behind so I stayed to gather the pieces which were also of sentimental value to me. I looked around and realized she was gone. She had left to save herself. The escape was up to me now.
I was almost out. I needed to get to the garage where my car was. But when I went through the next step of the process, I ended up in a large administrative building. Like an office for the prison. I saw a receptionist and walked past her. She was on the phone. I smiled and waved as I walked past and she looked at me confused and waved back. She then said “I’m sorry I have to call you back I just had someone ignore me”. She then shouted and asked me who I was looking for. I wanted to keep walking to the other end but I already knew it led to a dead end. I ended up walking back and I assume that I was returned to the prison after that.
Possible interpretation is that I feel trapped and I am stuck in the past. I hold on to the shame of my previous self and it stops me or slows me down from moving forward and becoming who I truly want to become.
Pls I need meaning to my dream. Yesterday I dreamt that a conspiracy of someone’s death was made for me which landed me in prison. Today again I dreamt seeing myself in a prison and in another dream seeing my younger brother in a prison.
I had these 2 dreams in a space of 3-4 days.
Firstly, I had a dream that I was invited to the police station, I was later asked to be detained till the police chief is available, I started asking questions that why let someone explain to me why I should be detained… No one cares to explain before I wake up from the sleep.
Secondly I just found myself in a woman’s car, she was asking for the description and road to the newly built prison in my town, I told her to make a U turn at a roundabout, then I pointed to him the way to the prison and I alighted from the car. I later saw a friend of who we grew up together in the town, I asked him so there’s a maximum correction center in out town now and he said yes, it was newly built by the government, he did also try to make more descriptions, those working there etc and I woke up back to life.
Fixed typos, added details: I dreamed I was first staying with a friend in a really poor part of town. The area was so poor, it looked like people had been getting creative with housing for a long time. Like, reinforced tents and plastic barrell type houses with tent poles and tarps sort of thing. One house was a plastic green pumpkin Cinderella carriage with tiny small pumpkins on either end with blankets showing through the thin plastic as if they were used as bedrooms with one big pumpkin in the middle like a sitting room. Then this lady I knew who used to be a Wiccan but had turned into a Christian when I knew her showed up and we went for a run, to go back across town to an event center thing. Something was going on over there, like a charity free food giveaway. So we got there, and she was supposed to meet me, but it had turned into being used as a prison. And all the people who went there for the charity food handout event were imprisoned. I was taken to a women’s unit inside that was divided off. The other women were really mean, like they had been there awhile and established a pecking order. The bathrooms were disgusting, like little brown stone caves you had to have 3 people at once in, to share, to use the bathroom to get it to “flush” so you had to find buddies to use the bathroom with, and there was barely enough head room to sit up crosslegged on these little poop holes in the stone walls this place was carved out of. So some women in one wouldn’t let me in because it meant they would have to leave and couldn’t stay in there long to talk or hang out because once they were done they’d have to leave I guess. Some showers were group showers, but some showers were like little shallow hotel closets, made of orange Formica a foot deep built onto the brown stone walls. You couldn’t move or turn around once you were in, if you even fit. Then, they took us all to an assembly hall and we sat on chairs, like someone was going to speak to all of us. When we entered the hall, there were men inmates already in there, too. Some of them had been lifers, and some had crazy colored hair like kpop gangbangers or clowns, this one guy did. Then with everyone in chairs in the whole assembly hall – it turned into like a giant set of rollercoaster cars we were all sitting in, with our chairs divided into groups of rows that became each of the cars. The rollercoaster took off and gave us a tour of the whole, large facility and the rec yard area with grass, which reminded me a little of a Jr high I went to.
This whole thing was so creepy. The prison was so dark inside, like no natural light and no lights on, like a cave.
I just had a dream that I’m with my mom and some other people I don’t know at the salon. Then we were at a different place and law enforcement came in and said my name before coming to arrest me. I panicked but remained calm. They asked me questions and said that I did something wrong even though I didn’t do nothing bad at all. Then I was taken into a room and they came back with a booklet that said F with some other stuff I didn’t comprehend and soon I opened the book and saw a packet with a pink clothing inside that said “put it on” and I got frustrated and went to another room to get changed before they took me to prison/ or jail. I dunno but it did scared me and I moved around and tried waking up. Once I woke up, I was shaken and checked what time was it and I woke up around 8am.
I dreamt I was getting arrested by my high school teacher who was now a police officer in my dream. I got arrested and was told I’m serving a life sentence. I begged and I pleaded with them as tears streamed down my face, I thought they’d have sympathy for me since they knew me from school and not arrest me and we could sort something out. She told me that I should pack a few things I and be ready to head out to prison in 30 mins, in that 30 mins I only thought of escaping and running away even told my mom. As I get ready to run 15mins in the time I was given, I get a video call from the officer getting dressed as if they had just been in a quicky with someone, I slowly watched them get dressed but then I snapped back to running away and being an escape convict thinking about how my life in prison would be woke me up.
My dream was about being I the house I grew up in .I met a nerdy man who asked me if I remembered him and when I said no he said do you remember me now and his body split and he turned into a giant goat man with horns that curled in a sort of circle round and round. I jumped out the window and used the gutter to slow my fall .When I landed I began to run down the middle of the road to get away. The goat man just burst through the house and when he landed in the road it cracked the road and it separated in big cracks. I realized that I was dreaming so I ran in front of an approaching car to try to wake up .but the car stopped right before impact. People came out to see what happened and when I turned around the goat man was tired back into the nerdy guy and was staring at me through the crowd and smiling . For some reason I ran back to my house and the nerdy guy turned and followed me..I ran to the back of my house thru
the alley and tried to open the back gate but the latch was broke. .It approached me and raised it’s hand/good to strike .I said you can’t hurt me your just a dream. The goat man looked puzzled at what I had said almost in disbelief .It then painted at me and asked You think I’m a dream ? It started shaking it head around and stated beating it’s cheat with both hands and and then pointed back at me in rage and screamed Do I look like a dream I woke up!
I dreamt of my grandad whom I dearly love in prison with our Dog and I went to fight for him to be released then I managed to get the dog out but him they said hell be released after 2 month
What can that mean
My grandpa \ dad had just got out of prison and i owned this semi with bad brakes but he still wanted to drive. So Him my grandma and I Went driving, and on thi s drive something terrible happened as he was driving a road block of some sort appeared but he couldnt stop in time and hit this child who died he didnt stop and we were being chased by the police then as we were pulling over i told him to switch me seats. I went straight to prison my time in there was insane i had no friends but i knew almost everyone in there, this guy who i call the hitman kept trying to stab me but everytime i fought him off,then one day iwas walking back to my cell and it was locked and inside I seen my only friend dying , i rember before that I was in a visit with my grandma and the person who was running the prison or the person who was keeping me imprisoned were there and I kept crying out on how I was innocent then that “Warden” took a phone flipped it over on the table and said Go on what were you gonna say so I thought hes trying to make me look like a rat so I said nothing got up and started walking away when the hitman tried to get me but i fought him off with some help from an old friend LM who went to middle school with me but thats who when i went to my cell and that happened. Theres alot more vivid memories of this dream that I remember but icant unlock if that makes any sense, this dream felt so intense and real I started to write about it in a journal.