Shoes
Shoes often carry the weight of how we move through the world — our condition, our confidence, the fit between self and circumstance. A torn shoe may speak to exhaustion or carelessness; gleaming new ones to readiness for change, though the dream might also ask whether the path ahead truly fits.
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See what’s rising tonight →What the old dream-books say
These are the entries the historical dream-books record for shoes, in their own words. They are period voices, not predictions, and they do not always agree with one another.
Gustavus Hindman Miller, 1901
To dream of seeing your shoes ragged and soiled, denotes that you will make enemies by your unfeeling criticisms.
To have them blacked in your dreams, foretells improvement in your affairs, and some important event will cause you satisfaction.
New shoes, augur changes which will prove beneficial. If they pinch your feet, you will be uncomfortably exposed to the practical joking of the fun-loving companions of your sex.
To find them untied, denotes losses, quarrels and ill-health.
To lose them, is a sign of desertion and divorces.
To dream that your shoes have been stolen during the night, but you have two pairs of hose, denotes you will have a loss, but will gain in some other pursuit.
For a young woman to dream that her shoes are admired while on her feet, warns her to be cautious in allowing newly introduced people, and men of any kind, to approach her in a familiar way.
Fontaine, 1862
If you dream that one of your shoes has a hole in it, it foretells that your sweetheart will offend you by favoring a supposed rival: if a girl dreams this, her lover will be jealous of her: for a young man to dream that he has lost a shoe-string, is a sign that he will be kissed by a lady with whom he had no previous acquaintance.
Anonymous, 1894
Shoes.—To dream you have a new pair of shoes denotes much success in life and triumph over your enemies; in love, a speedy marriage and infidelity. In the married state, an increase of children. To dream your shoes are worn out and bad, shows decay in circumstances and loss of friends; in love, it foretells the infidelity of your lover, who will marry another.