Hand
Hands often hold the feeling of agency — what you reach for, what you've touched, whether you feel capable or constrained. When they appear injured, oversized, or bound, the dream may ask: where in waking life does your sense of power feel altered, and what does that shift reveal?
A live archive of what the world is dreaming tonight: which symbols are rising, the collective mood, and where the dreams are coming from. Free, always.
See what’s rising tonight →What the old dream-books say
These are the entries the historical dream-books record for hand, in their own words. They are period voices, not predictions, and they do not always agree with one another.
Gustavus Hindman Miller, 1901
If you see beautiful hands in your dream, you will enjoy great distinction, and rise rapidly in your calling; but ugly and malformed hands point to disappointments and poverty. To see blood on them, denotes estrangement and unjust censure from members of your family.
If you have an injured hand, some person will succeed to what you are striving most to obtain.
To see a detached hand, indicates a solitary life, that is, people will fail to understand your views and feelings. To burn your hands, you will overreach the bounds of reason in your struggles for wealth and fame, and lose thereby.
To see your hands covered with hair, denotes that you will not become a solid and leading factor in your circle.
To see your hands enlarged, denotes a quick advancement in your affairs. To see them smaller, the reverse is predicted.
To see your hands soiled, denotes that you will be envious and unjust to others.
To wash your hands, you will participate in some joyous festivity.
For a woman to admire her own hands, is proof that she will win and hold the sincere regard of the man she prizes above all others.
To admire the hands of others, she will be subjected to the whims of a jealous man. To have a man hold her hands, she will be enticed into illicit engagements. If she lets others kiss her hands, she will have gossips busy with her reputation. To handle fire without burning her hands, she will rise to high rank and commanding positions.
To dream that your hands are tied, denotes that you will be involved in difficulties. In loosening them, you will force others to submit to your dictations.
[86] See Fingers.
Fontaine, 1862
If you dream that your right hand is injured, or any thing is the matter with it, it shows that you will soon be called upon to assist a friend in distress; if it is your left hand, assistance will be solicited from you for an unfortunate stranger.