Dreams are so fascinating and they come in so many different shapes and sizes. Everyone has their very own way of producing these mind played dramas within their own mind and I have an excellent time hearing from all of you when you feel the need to share your dreams with us.
Perhaps you are looking for an interpretation from the minds eye of someone else, I try my best to help with this when someone is seeking advice on their dreams, so feel free to take advantage of the comments for this purpose.
So, to cut to the chase let me introduce this next post in the dream series… We are going to cover dreams that involve what are known as Bad Deeds! Yep that’s right, we all have a little bad side to us whether it’s in real life or if we choose to let this side of us slip out while dreaming.
To be more specific I’m talking about Interpreting Dreams of Crime and Violent Acts. These are most certainly some of the more disturbing of dreams, but let’s face it…these types of dreams do sometimes occur. So what do they mean, and what are we trying to tell ourselves. Without further adieu, let’s get straight to the good stuff.
What do Dreams about Crime and Acts of Violence Mean?
Most experts will tell you that anytime you dream of committing a crime or act of violence this is normally a reflection of your inner feelings acting out. For instance a negative type action in your dream will usually symbolize the darker side of your human nature, you may also choose to call this your shadow side.
This shadow side is basically a culmination of all the things you have been repressing or denying, this is often times the side of you that you do not wish to believe is there. But as I stated earlier, it’s there whether you like it or not, it’s just human nature. But it’s most certainly better to let this side of you show itself while dreaming than in the waking life, wouldn’t you agree?
When you dream of these darker sided things, it is your minds way of telling you to release and to bring these things to the open part of your mind, this way the repression may subside and it won’t effect you as much in your daily living.
Dreams that involve violence may also reveal feelings about yourself or others around you that you have contact with in waking life. As always it’s very important to pay close attention to the little details concerning the violent acts if you are to apply it to your life which will help you better understand and interpret these dreams.
But there is good hope for these types of dreams, they are very seldom predictive of things that may happen in real life, so there’s not much worry that you will commit these offenses while awake.
But there is one exception, recurring dreams of committing the act of rape may suggest extreme violent tendencies and these feelings could possibly carry over in your waking life. If you are having recurring dream like this, then I suggest strongly you seek some professional help before it’s too late.
Anyway, with all that said and done, let’s go over some specific dream scenarios and discuss what they may mean.
Common Interpretations for Dreams of Crime
Committing Acts of Deception While Dreaming
If while dreaming you find yourself lying or cheating, or even if you hear someone else doing this, it may be an indication of guilty feelings or maybe you feel you’ve not been honest in the waking life. This may also be an indicator that you feel someone else has been this way towards you. Recurring instances of this type of dream may suggest you have been living a lie in real life and it’s time to be honest with yourself.
This type of message may also be delivered to you in the form of a dream involving stealing, forgery, fraud and even blackmail. On the other hand, if you aren’t really the one committing the awful acts, but you witness someone else doing these things, then it could be because you are feeling guilt for witness something wrong in the waking life and you’ve chosen to ignore it.
If any of these scenarios are being inflicted upon you by someone else in a dream, then ask yourself one simple question, “Who has done me wrong in waking life”. As this may be a sign someone has intentionally done you wrong in real life and you may not of noticed.
Dreaming of Being Punished for a Crime
You may also find yourself dreaming of the punishment phase of a certain wrong doing. Of course waking from a dream like this normally leaves you feeling quite relieved that you weren’t in fact involved in the crime or the punishment. But that doesn’t mean you will not experience anxiety left over from such a feeling.
If this is the case, it’s quite important to try and identify any feelings that you had during this dream, this will help greatly with the interpretation. Try to remember if you had feelings of guilt or anger, and maybe you felt the punishment was unjust or undeserved. Feeling guilty may be symbolic of something that causes your piece of mind to be disturbed.
But what if you were actually caught committing a crime in your dream, and then you find yourself awaiting the punishment, what would this mean? This is certainly your minds way of telling you that your dreaming mind disapproves of such actions and if you don’t change your ways, then your wrong doings will be discovered in the waking life.
If the person in charge of the punishment is someone you know, then you probably have remorse for something you’ve done wrong to this person in life. But if the punisher is not someone you know, it could simply mean you are feeling guilty for being disrespectful towards an authority figure.
Lynch mobs normally represent society as a whole, and being attacked by one is symbolic of committing a crime against the masses, such as littering, or playing your music too loud in residential neighborhoods. Here are a few other scenarios with a short explanation:
Being Whipped: A feeling that life has dealt you harsh blows.
Being Arrested: Represents a need for restraint in the waking life.
Forensic Team Present: Your minds way of telling you to take a look at your motives.
Stealing in Your Dreams
Stealing, burglary or anything of the sort is a suggestion of feeling envious of someone else, meaning you want something they have. The most important factors of this type of dream would be WHO are you stealing from and WHAT are you taking. This will greatly help with the interpretation.
Dream Interpretations for Violence
Accidents are often times associated with violence while dreaming and if you are having this type of dream you may want to read my post Meanings for Having Accidents in Your Dreams for a better understanding of these.
Dreams that involve some sort of ambush or abduction may represent your desperate attempts in the waking life to ward off humiliation of some sort. Particularly if you are being abducted or ambushed in your dream then try thinking of someone you feel is trying to control you in life.
If you are dreaming and you begin attacking someone, this normally suggests a hidden hostility towards someone that you know in real life. If this is the case then try to remember what caused the incident, because this could be your dreaming minds way of dealing with pent up frustrations and this was your way of release.
Being the victim of a violent act while dreaming is quite possibly your way of punishing yourself for something you’ve done while awake. If the person committing violence against you is someone you know in real life, then maybe there’s something you’ve done to that person and you’re feeling guilty.
It may also be symbolism for being aware of how you treat others in life. If you are being treated violently by others in your dream it may be the minds way of telling you to be careful not to upset others in life.
Being in Front of a Firing Squad: May represent feelings of victimization.
An Animal Attacker: This could represent an internal conflict with yourself rather than an outside attacker.
So that is a lot of information on dream interpretations involving acts of violence and crime. I know this post is rather long, but I tried to cut some of these explanations quite short in an effort to keep it as short as possible. But as many of you already know, dream interpretation is not a simple thing, in fact most explanations may be quite complex and have several different meanings depending on the scenario and the person. So I challenge you to remember in keeping your dream journal on your nightstand and write down as much as you can when you first wake up.
All the best wishes to you all and I hope all of your dreams are good ones.
Hi Robert,
Thank you for taking time to interpret everyone’s dreams. If you have time, I’d like to know your thoughts on a dream I had last night. Usually my dreams seem to make sense, but this one was extremely violent, and I didn’t watch anything violent or anything for that matter. I apologize, my comment is long. In my dream I went in and out of being an observer and being part of the dream. In the beginning, there was a man in a bathroom stall, I had told my brother, that he was in there stuffing his briefs with cocaine, then when the man opened the stall door, my brother hit him, he fell to the floor and we starting wrapping his body in cloth. The next part I remember as an observer, inside an old house there was another man gagged and tied to a chair, while a different man had intentions to kill him, I watched another man came into the room, killed the other man not tied to the chair and proceeded to rape him. Then I remember, a bunch of college age kids trying to escape from the same house, there was a woman who was hunting down the kids, the daughter helped the kids escape, and as the kids were running the woman shot them several times, as observer I watched this. Just after this I become one the students, and I thought, I’d rather jump in the water than get shot again, and woman shot me again in the calf. I remember falling into the water. What I remember next, I was in a shallow clear sandy pond, hiding under a bridge, a blonde man swam up next to me, we were hiding from the woman with the gun. At some point we swam to a dam structure, it was dark, but there were a lot of people around, we were still running from the woman with a gun, the details are a bit fuzzy, we got a hold of a van, there was a parking garage. The last thing I remember was riding down a hill on a bike by myself, running from the woman. What is going on?
hi robert…..i hav strange dreams me getting raped evrytime but til tudy i was able tu not fal in their hands….i run for my life or some one will com and help me….i also dream like some one trying to shoot me or stab me but never i got hurt i keep runnin n running n i cant run on my legs faster i use my hands also to run n i will run faster…..n somtimes i dream lik i am married n i have a baby and in dream i will be wondring wen did i get married n who is my husband n i end up not findin him but ill b taking care of my baby n crying :-/ 🙁 i actualy hate all these dreams….suggest me somthing pls 🙁
I had a dream last night that I was on a bus, and witness to an act of violence. two men on the bus disagreed on a social opinion and one man (seemed to me like the dictator) chased the other man down the road ( vaguely, most of us would have agreed to this man’s opinion), caught him and killed him by using a drill in his head. I saw this from the bus as everyone else in the bus and the bus moved on. I am traveling with my fiance who is sitting on another seat in the bus. as soon as the bus stops, I feel like I want to get off as soon as possible – so me and my fiance get off. we try to find a taxi to take us home. I am very scared and just want to reach home. when we call the taxi – the taxi driver has a friend who wants to ride along with us home. I tell him that if his friend comes along, we won’t take this taxi – the taxi driver does not relent and goes away. either before or after this dream, I also witnessed an explosion in a large vehicle or an air plane but I am just a witness without being caught up in it, I don’t even see it directly – mostly through the side of my eyes.
I used to have a lot of violent dreams before where I was a witness of violent acts. but I had this dream after a long time. I have had a pretty normal child hood.
Hey, Robert. Great stuff ya got here. I dunno if you’d be willing to, but you may be able to tackle this dream I had. In this dream, I dreamt some friends of mine(people I’ve never met in real life) and I stole a tank.. were inside of a tank? We had just pulled it off of a boat and onto shore. As soon as we pulled it up, there was an explosion that, the tank exploded to be precise. When that happened, my friends all got into vehicles and ran off. Feeling pursued, I found a mailman vehicle with a bunch of kids who had just got out and stole the vehicle. I began to drive, at fast speeds, driving past other vehicles and crashing inti some, but not enough to stop me completely. Eventually, I stopped near some homes and entered a yard and went into hiding. The owner of the home found me and let me come in. When I came in, I saw the mailman and all the kids he was with started circling around me. The man who had brought me in gave the mailman a 2×4 with a ton of nail in them. The mailman started to swing and I began to dodge his swings. I found this 2×4 that was attached to something and pulled it off and noticed it had nails and started to swing back. He and I hit each other quite a bit, till the home owner brought it to a stop. The man let me go and gave me some things and told me he had let me go due to the fact I fought back. I left through his backyard and hopped a huge fence he had to get out. Weird thing is, I could feel the strain in my body from the beating I took from the altercation. This is the part that really freaked me out, I was walking down this side walk, which looked as if it were part of a park. It came to an end and I saw this man, who said he had gone there to meet someone. I wished him luck on finding them and that if I saw anyone, I’d lead them to him. I kept walking a saw this woman, beautiful woman. She.. felt familiar. Like, I could feel her presence, her ora.. I spoke to her and found out she had been looking for someone. I told her where he was. I figured it was the dude I met earlier. Her and I were face to face, then I blinked and she was a good, four feet away from me. I blinked again and she was old and in a wheel chair. Oh and prior to all the park scene, I also remember stopping to rest at a bench and feeling like I didn’t want to be there. Like, I felt really sad for everything I had seen.. I dunno. It’s weird and I hope you don’t think I’m making a mockery of your blog or anything.
Hi Robert ,I really enjoyed the information u have here but I still can’t find an answer to my strange dreams am getting recently.I have been dreaming that some stranger is trying to kill me and every time it is a different way and different ppl , for example one of my dreams was me witnessing a crime then the criminal chases me to kill me , another dream was some guys trying to rape me and i runaway scared and looking for help.yesterday i also dreamed of someone trying to kill me and my best friend then he shoot us and i look for help but then a woman comes with gas and matches to burn us and i wakeup before i die. like I always see someone is trying to kill me or harm me but I wake up before anything happens.this is strange and it’s freaking me out i really don’t sleep before midnight for 2 weeks and what got me even more scared is that my bf also dreamed of someone trying to harm me in a party so then he warned me not to go and before i make up my mind I and my sister made a car accident then obviously i choose not to go to the party and when i linked this to his dreM of someone trying to harm me i actually feel the accident was a sign that i should not go to the party!!! this is so wired when u and someone else see you gtn hurt then something in real life happens as a sign i just don’t know wt might happen next ! and at some point i feel scared of everybody and i even try to avoid hanging out with friends. I hope you can help me finding an answer to all these weird things I’ve been dreaming lately and thank you.
hy… Robert.. I have a dream. my dream is very short. a wanna be a house where i can leave alone. and peaceful area. and i also think my gf is like to my wise.
That’s a great dream whether you’re asleep or not Nazmul. Thank you for sharing and I hope you are able to realize your dream soon!
I also think that dreams are associated with the subconscious. Because sometimes when I’m on someone miss, he certainly my dream. But dreams of violence? … Do some see the bad and even violent dreams?
Absolutely Nadya, dreams of violence are quite common. I tend to believe this may be because of the increase of violence in our everyday lives. You can see it everywhere, TV, News and real life. In my opinion the violence is only getting worse as the days go by.
Hopefully one day we can just all learn to get along. Although I’m afraid this may be a far fetched hope.
I sometimes have dreams about cutting somebody else’ head off and sometimes I dream of beating somebody’s head until it deforms.. Sometimes I also dream of whipping someone in half I usually feel anxious in my dream but what’s really weird is it feels so liberating after the act in my dream…
Having violent dreams is a semi common occurrence for me. I’ve been through a fair bit of therapy so I realize the general root of it is the amount of emotions and thoughts I repress. *chuckle* I’m too nice for my own darn good.
Still, lately there’s been a sharp increase in that kind of dreams’ frequency, without any real change that I’ve noticed in my day to day behavior. Do you think I should be concerned, as if my habitual repression may be coming to a head, like an angry, explosive episode?
Robert, what should we do if we have violent dreams? I like them… But I don’t want to