Cancer is a devastating disease that creates a lot of fear and confusion, not just for those diagnosed but also for their family members.
It’s a disease featuring the unchecked growth of a tumor or cancer cells in a part of the body. The effects of the tumor or tumors soak up a great deal of mental and physical energy. It forces people to face worries about the future and finding effective treatments. It can bring about distress and despair, especially when it takes away a beloved family member from us too soon.
Cancer is expensive, too, and not just financially. It takes a toll on the person with cancer as well as everyone who cares about them.
It’s no wonder why cancer is so feared, with its long-term complications from both the familiar to financial aspects of life, as well as sometimes an impending death.
A dream about cancer often reflects one or more of these and other deep-seated fears and emotions.
Dreams predicting health
Sometimes the cancer nightmare results because we worry we might have cancer.
Is the worry valid?
It depends.
Dreams are often a subconscious way of communicating with ourselves. This is especially true when it comes to health messages.
When the body’s performance declines in some way, the subconscious takes note and sends messages to the conscious mind in the form of dreams. These dreams can be interpreted as warnings of potential health issues or alerts about activities or behaviors triggering the physical decline. It can be lifesaving to pay attention to these health messages. They can provide insight into underlying issues that may not be immediately apparent to our conscious minds.
By engaging in healthy lifestyle habits and listening to the messages our subconscious sends us, we can take proactive steps to preserve our health and well-being.
Whether it’s breast cancer, throat cancer, stomach cancer, skin cancer, leukemia, or whatever in the dream, assess yourself for the symptoms you may have experienced and consider getting checked out.
Dreams communicate in a symbolic language requiring deeper interpretation to uncover the meaning. It is not quite like the check engine light on a car, which provides the driver with a clear indication of a problem to be fixed. Instead, dreams can be a source of creative and intuitive guidance, revelatory of complicated philosophies and feelings that are difficult to express in language. It is, therefore, essential to be mindful of dream content, as well as to take the time to reflect on and interpret its meaning to gain the most benefit from its symbolic language.
(See “How to unlock health messages in dreams.”)
What’s your perspective on cancer in your dream?
In understanding the meaning of cancer in your dream, first, understand your perspective on the disease. Everyone has one partially based on what they’ve come to understand about it and their personal experience. Is it in you? Is it in your friend or family member? Or is the intended meaning broader, like society or an organization?
Unquestionably, a lot of fear surrounds cancer. When it comes to health worries, I’ve noted that one of the most common prayer intentions people have is for themselves and their loved ones when they’ve gotten a cancer diagnosis. Yet prayers for something else relatively common like kidney disease are relatively rare. That’s even if some forms of cancer are relatively minor. Kidney disease can be life-altering, putting someone on dialysis three times a week for several hours at a time.
Next, what is the practical emphasis of cancer in the dream? Is it on how it’s overtaking everything or is it being checked somehow? Is it on some feature like its ugliness or some alien beauty? Is it on fears about the treatments? Pretend you’re telling someone about your dream: I had a dream that someone had cancer and ____. The emphasis is the part that will fill up the blank.
There isn’t anybody else who can tell you what cancer or another aspect of your dream means besides you because only you have had the experiences that led to the thoughts and beliefs you have about cancer or anything else.
Getting at underlying feelings about cancer
The devastating effects of cancer are devastating and heartbreaking. From the nausea that comes with radiation treatments to the loss of hair from chemotherapy and then to the hope and fear of the treatments, it can be hard to imagine what cancer survivors endure.
Then, to boot, cancer is also expensive. For many, the financial burden can be overwhelming. Cancer is a challenge for those affected and for their families. It is a challenge that requires strength, courage, and hope. We must continue to strive for better treatments and cures and never give up hope. We must keep in mind those affected by cancer and continue to support them emotionally and financially and face up to the nightmare as well as we can.
Dreams can provide a pathway or springboard into wisdom.
That, in turn, can provide impetus to make positive changes like quitting smoking, managing stress better, telling people you love them more often, or avoiding other destructive behaviors.
Further reading:
How to understand a dream about the death of a loved one
James Cobb RN, MSN, is an emergency department nurse and the founder of the Dream Recovery System. His goal is to provide his readers with simple, actionable ways to improve their health and maximize their quality of life.
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