This is an intriguing symbol, and not one I’ve encountered very much. So I’ll start with a theoretical piece about eating in dreams in general, which has resonated for me. Since we don’t need to eat in the dream world, when we do eat, the act has symbolic significance. I’ve learned a lot about this idea from Jeremy Taylor, who discusses eating in dreams on his blog at Psychology Today. I have an “aha” from his suggestion that eating in dreams can symbolize fully taking something in, integrating it into myself so that it is no longer something separate. Like so many things in life, that can have apparently paradoxical meanings. It can be a good sign that I’ve fully integrated some learning or experience, and it could indicate that I’ve taken in beliefs about myself that may or may not be true.
When I imagined cannibalism for myself, I thought about how our first nourishment in this world comes directly from the mother’s body. In the womb, we take in nutrients through her blood. We may have continued to eat from her body after birth, by drinking her milk, though that’s not literally true for every baby, since formulas were and still are used to substitute or supplement breast milk. But in utero, we were all, in a sense, cannibalistic. So the image for me represents those introjects, or beliefs about myself that came from outside of myself, that I received from my mother. Her fears, her joys, her attitude about being pregnant…all of these were emotions I experienced while in her body. Whatever these emotions imprinted on me might still be at the foundation of some belief I have about myself. The graphic horror of the dream image gets my attention in a big way, so this is something I need to know about myself.
The devouring mother is also an archetypal symbol—the Great Mother both gives birth and devours her children. So there’s a resonance for me with cannibalism in the dream, that I am experiencing something in my life that feels like the energy of the devouring mother. It’s an inexorable and inevitable process to grow and change and affect those around us in our lives, and the changes that take place sometimes are difficult to process, and may feel as repulsive as cannibalism. Challenges in life like the loss of a loved one, the shifting relationship to one’s family, the loss of a job, or a physical challenge, may be represented by the cannibalism in the dream. If I eat something, I have to process it; to take what nourishment I can from it and let go of the rest. That process can be difficult, even repugnant from my ego’s point of view, as it will inevitably change the way I understand myself, and the world. And so the dream may choose something I find repugnant in waking life to show me the hard work I’ve been doing.
4 thoughts on “Cannibalism as a Dream Symbol”
Thanks 🙂
I appreciate your cerebral explanation.
This is a deep and well appreciated definition. In my dream someone told me to eat the person as a cure for covid. I couldn’t bare the thought of eating the face,so…. I wrapped them up in fabric, ripped of the head and ate their entirety. I drank their blood too. I did it fast because i was disgusted. The person was someone i didn’t know.
Thank you for sharing this dream. When I imagine it for myself, I can’t avoid the association with totally taking in someone else’s experience during the pandemic, and the suggestion that this full integration is the cure for the illness. In my version, I’m not ready to “face” this situation in its entirety (can’t bear the thought of eating the face), but I am ready to integrate this all if I can overcome my disgust. Blood suggests family lines and patterns of thought or behavior. I am drinking the blood, so I am fully incorporating something about my family.