Abortion

What does it mean to dream about abortion?

A dream of abortion often reflects feelings about a difficult choice, an ending, or something set aside, and carries no judgment.

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Four ways to read it

Each reading below comes from a named tradition and a cited source, so you can see where it came from and decide what fits your dream.

Freud

Freud would look at the dream as the mind handling a hard decision or a wish to undo or release something. He would read it as feeling given form rather than a comment on right and wrong. The question is what the dreamer associates with the ending.

After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.

Jung

Jung might see an ended pregnancy as a plan, a path, or a possibility the dreamer has chosen to let go. The image can mark grief, relief, or both at once over something not brought to term. He would hold it without blame and ask what was being released.

Jungian concept (our summary).

Modern

Under the continuity view, such dreams tend to follow real choices, regrets, relief, or the sense of closing a chapter. The mind continues by night what it has been weighing by day. The dreamer's own feeling is the surest guide to its meaning.

Continuity hypothesis (our summary).

Mythological

Across traditions, the closing of a path was marked by rites that allowed for both sorrow and release. Stories of choices not taken and futures set aside recur in many cultures. They acknowledged that an ending can be a kind of passage too.

Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Frazer; Brewer).

This is a starting point to think with, not a verdict. Your own associations matter most.

If distressing nightmares keep returning, it can help to talk them over with a doctor or therapist.

Interpretations are adapted in our own words from public-domain sources, including G. H. Miller, Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted (1901), Freud (Brill translation, 1913), and Artemidorus, with cross-cultural context from Bulfinch and others. Jungian and modern-cognitive entries are original summaries of those ideas. See the bibliography for full sources.

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