Non-parents, do you ever have kids in your dreams?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Though I’m wavering some on the do I or do I not want kids issue now after years of being firmly in the not category, I still don’t dream about kids or babies too often. The rare times I do, even if they’re in my care, somehow my dreaming self knows that they’re not mine. I’ve only dreamed about being pregnant a couple of times, too.

But last night I was having a strange dream about needing to get from here to there by the most convoluted methods possible, and got into a SUV at one point. I was immediately annoyed because someone had gone and picked up my baby instead of leaving her at daycare or with her father (who was never identified in the dream). There she was in the backseat, a blonde, blue-eyed toddler my dreaming self actually admitted was mine!

When I woke up I was surprised that I’d dreamed of being a parent. And that the baby in the dream was a blonde girl rather than the dark-haired little boys I imagine these days that it might not be so bad to have. I’m rarely attracted to blond men, so where would a blonde daughter come from? Hmm.

Anyway, if you don’t have kids in real life, do you have them in your dreams? Does whether you dream about them or not jive with your hopes for real life?

2

Sometimes I end up with a baby, and I always feel dread. I’m always afraid that I’ll end up having a baby and NOT loving it. And that’s what happens in the dream. “Oh, great, a baby.” A ball and chain. But I have issues…

3

I’m twenty six and unmarried, but most of my friends are married and having their second kids by now. I dream about having a baby or being pregnant fairly often, but its kind of in a nonspecific way. I’m not sure that I could tell you what the baby looks like, and most of the time somewhere in the dream I start to realize it isn’t real.
My dream baby also has an unidentified father, which is kind of worrying since I’m in a longterm, committed relationship.

4

I once dreamed that I was beating the crap out of comedian Roman Danylo with a wire hat rack because he tried to steal my son. And all three of us were half-vampires or somesuch. Does that count?

(Yes, I had been watching my Angel DVDs a lot at the time.)

For the record, I normally think of fatherhood as something way in the future, if ever.

5

I’m in my early thirties, and dealing with infertility issues, so you’d think it would be on my mind a lot, but acually, it has been a very rare experience to dream about having children. Coincidentally, though, I think that last night was the first time I had dreamed about having a baby in the last few years, and it was a very involved dream about trying to get my new baby to breastfeed. Felt very real.

6

I am absolutely certain that I do not want children.

I can only really recall one time I had a dream where I had a child. It was a baby of about six months old and I knew I didn’t want it at all. Still, I knew that I had to take care of it and protect it.

I can’t remember all the details, but there was someone who was trying to hurt us and my biggest worry was to take care of the baby and get him to safety. It wasn’t a “oh my child!” thing, it was more like a responsibility to care for someone who was helpless. It was a horrific feeling, the thought of someone hurting him. I know in the end I gave him to my mother (who was thrilled) and he was safe. When I woke up it was like the biggest burden was lifted from me and I was back to my sweet carefree life.

7

Yes
It has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting kids.

8

Oddly enough, I just had one of these a few days ago. Since I’m in my mid-fifties with no prospects of reproducing in the foreseeable future, it was rather strange. I’ve never dreamed about having kids in the past, either.

9

I’m 54, childfree, never wanted kids, at this point can confidently state I’m never going to have any – and I can’t ever recall a dream involving any kids, my own or someone else’s.

10

The absolute spookiest dream I ever had: I was standing at the end of a mountain, looking out over the ocean. I noticed there was a little ledge in the mountain with a young girl (5 or 6) sitting a beach there. I walked down to her.

She said “You were supposed to be my mother.”
Me: Excuse me?
Her: You were supposed to be my mother. But you didn’t have kids.

I noticed an adult guy who looked exactly like my brother standing next to me.

Him: Yes, we were supposed to be your children. But I had to get born by someone else, and now she’s my daughter. We were supposed to be brother and sister. We were supposed to be your children.
I woke up shaking. It was surreal.

11

That gave me chills.

I love kids but don’t plan to have any. I have often dreamed about having them - but usually because I have to protect them from something.

12

::shudder::

I don’t want kids, but the scariest dream I ever had (besides the one where I lost my husband) was the one where I had a baby and someone stole it.

13

Oh, god, I’m the only one with baby nightmares!

I’m 28, been married 7 years. We don’t want kids. But I have nightmares–never, ever, good dreams.

In the nightmares, I’m usually very pregnant, like, I’m going to have the kid right now pregnant, and then when I have it it’s deformed in some way and I HATE it. I’ve had variations on that dream several times.

After I got an IUD about a year ago, I didn’t have any of the dreams for a while, until a couple of nights ago.

So Monday, I guess it was, I had a dream that hubby and I had a perfectly normal looking baby. We were all in my car, baby in a car seat in the back, and hubby and I were talking about how we knew something was wrong with it, and that we should kill it, even though the doctors said it was fine. So hubby goes into the store, leaving me and baby in the car, and I decide to poison it. So I kill the baby and strap the body back into the car seat. Hubby comes back from the store, and I start sobbing: “They’re going to catch me! Now I’m going to have murder on my rap sheet!” (I’ve never been arrested in my life, btw)

Not, oh no, I killed my baby, but, they’re going to catch me and put me in jail. I planned this badly. So hubby, who is just happy the evil deed has been done, helps me plan how we’re going to dispose of the body so I don’t get caught. But I’m inconsolable, because I’m sure I’m going to jail.

How fucking awful is that? It was the most disturbing dream I’ve ever had. I swear I’m not a bad person, I’m actually kind of nice, and I’d never hurt anyone, ever. Really freaked me out. Gah! It still freaks me out thinking about it now.

So I take this as confirmation that we’re making the right decision in not having kids.

14

This is weird. I just had a dream about having a baby last night, and I don’t remember ever having one before.

In my dream, I was 6 monghts pregnant. There was some problem, so the doctor performed a c-section, and then put the 3 months premature baby in some kind of vat, which somehow “fixed” all the problems of being so premature. She was a perfectly healthy baby, except that she was the size of a 6-month-old fetus. My husband and I took her to some kind of fancy dress ball and held her between us while we danced. Then a bunch of werewolves showed up, and we had to fight them with guns while trying to keep the baby safe.

Oh, and in high school I had a dream that my best friend had a baby. I was so horrified at the idea that my friend wouldn’t be able to finish high school or go to college because of this baby, I stole the baby and threw it off of a cliff. I was so shaken by the dream that I apologized to the (very perplexed) friend about it the next day.

15

I never wanted kids and I’ve never dreamed about having one. I’ve had some nightmares about losing kids that I babysat for and waking up in a full blown panic, though.

16

I don’t want kids. A couple of times I’ve dreamt that I was pregnant or just about to give birth. The dreams were nightmares to me. Usually they involve a family member helping me (not the dad) and me being very upset about my situation.

Sort of makes me feel like a bad person :frowning:

17

Like a few here (and quite a few of my child-free friends) my baby dreams were usually nightmares. I swear to god I once woke up yelling ‘I wanted an abortion!’

18

Just a few days ago, I dreamed that I told my thesis supervisor that I had to take time off because I was pregnant. I was in that state between sleeping and waking for a while, and I remember being horrified that I had said such a thing because in my dream, I hadn’t been sure, I just wondered because my period was a few days late. As I woke up I got more and more horrified because I was quite sure that I wasn’t, so why had I said such an inappropriate thing to the worst person imaginable? I mean, I can’t be pregnant, so what had got into me?

Finally I really woke up and realized that the only email I had sent was a perfectly sane and professional one three days before. I still checked my outbox, though.

19

I am child-free by choice and occasionally dream about being pregnant or having children. Most frequently when I have been around children or friends have had new babies.

20

32, married 8 years, together for 15, childless. I’ve only had one dream about being pregnant in which I felt nothing but worried and scared. Scared like, “I can’t have this child; I don’t want to have this child, what the hell am I going to do?” Which was rather odd; I was married, had a good job, SpouseO had a good job, our marriage is solid - why on earth should it terrify me so? At the time, I took it as another confirmation of our choice not to have kids.

I have had dreams about my nieces and saving them in various preposterous dream situations, but nothing about kids of my own, save that one pregnancy dream.