Hips

What does it mean to dream about hips?

Hips often point to strength, support, and the body's center of movement, and in many readings to sexuality, fertility, and the bearing of weight.

Browse all symbols

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 read the hips as a zone tied to sexuality and to the body's generative center. Trouble or fixation there can mark wishes and anxieties around desire and fertility.

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

Jung

Jung would see the hips as the body's seat of bearing and balance, an image of the grounded, instinctual self. They may mark how the dreamer carries the weight and movement of their own life.

Jungian concept (our summary).

Modern

Continuity ties the hips to waking concerns about the body, strength, and sometimes sexuality or self-image. They often surface when a person has been thinking about their physical wellbeing or attractiveness.

Continuity hypothesis (our summary).

Mythological

The broad hips were an emblem of fertility in the oldest carved figures, a sign of life-giving abundance. A wound to the thigh or hip marks a wounded king in more than one tradition, a hurt at the very source of his vigour.

Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Frazer; Bulfinch).

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.

Scroll to Top