As we all react to yet another act of senseless violence in our schools, the issue of guns in America once again rises to the top of our minds. There are so many different lenses through which we can understand these issues, and truly I think no perspective is more significant than another. But the symbolic weight of guns as they arise in our subconscious is something I have found myself pondering often, and now seemed as good of a time to dive into it as any.

Guns are very common in dreams, although since I mostly come across American dreams, I wonder if this is a form of cultural conditioning. As with all of my articles about dream symbols, the first and most important thing to consider if you have a dream about a gun is your own personal experiences with guns. If you or your loved ones have experienced gun violence of any kind, or if you own and/or regularly handle guns, your gun dreams will hold a very different symbolic weight than someone who has never had those experiences. It’s essential to a robust dream practice that you give consideration to these personal experiences, especially if they are difficult, since it can be instinctual to overlook hard memories as a form of protection.

Questions to consider if you have experience with gun violence include: how does your relationship to the gun in your dream compare to how you felt when the gun was present in your waking life? If the dream is referencing a specific memory that is traumatic, look for the differences between the memory and the dream, especially for any figures of support or guidance that may be present in the dream. Dreams bring us back to difficult memories with support so that you can integrate them and come back to wholeness. If these dreams are repeated, I invite you to consider it an opportunity to dive deeper into your experience and explore the potential for healing, growth, and transformation there. If you don’t have strong support systems in place for a process like this, though, work on building those structures first.

There are many people who have had very little to no experiences with guns and still experience them in their dreams. It makes sense, since as a symbol they hold a powerful weight. To carry a gun is to quite literally hold the power to end life in such a definitive, instantaneous way their mere existence incites a deep sense of power for those who wield one and fear for those who don’t.

The relationship between life, death, fear, and power is often at the core of dreams about guns, especially if they are particularly visceral and potent. If you have had a dream about a gun like this, the first step is to consider your relationship to the gun in the dream. Are you holding it yourself, or is someone holding it over you? What feelings are arising as you get closer to or farther away from the gun? Consider the idea that the gun represents a deep sense of empowerment–the power to live without fear of death. If someone is wielding a gun at you in the dream, who are they? What do you feel about them? Is this dynamic familiar to you in your life? Do you ever feel that other people have power over you or are threatening your ability to live your life fully? How do you react to this power dynamic in the dream, and how does that compare to the way you react in your life?

On the other hand, if you are the one holding the gun in the dream, how does that feel? Is it overwhelming? Empowering? Scary? It is a great task in life to come to terms with the degree of power—and thus responsibility—we have over our experience of life at any given moment. To start, it means coming to terms with our mortality, and all of the fear that comes with that eventual end which is the only certainty in life. Considering this, although we feel resentful and angry when others hold power over us or oppress us, ultimately there may be something comfortable to us about the dynamic—for it eliminates our need to grapple with the intensity of holding our own gun, and taking full responsibility for our own experience of life.

Sometimes, dreams about guns include gun violence–maybe you shoot someone, or someone shoots you, or you witness a shooting. In these dream moments, it can be very valuable to consider the what you felt when the gun was simply present, versus how you feel once the gun is used to harm or kill. It is one thing to understand that there is a potential for death and destruction at any moment, and quite another to enact or witness that death or destruction firsthand.

Ultimately, in dreams where the gun is used, we are being asked to contemplate the relationship between our feelings of anticipation, fear, or anxiety about the potential for death and violence and the feelings that come up for us when death or violence actually occurs. If we are having dreams about this, it means our deeper selves are calling us into this examination, and I encourage you to pursue it. Coming to terms with what this relationship means to you can have profound effects on the way you live your life.

Like so many symbols I write about, guns can represent so many different things to different people. I appreciate you spending some time with the reflections I’ve offered here–and I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts on the topic!

With all my love dear dreamers,
Kezia Vida