Orphaned / adopted / fostered Dream Meanings

If you dream of being an orphaned, adopted or fostered child, this usually suggests that your relationships with members of your family in waking life have created some sense of loss and rejection in you. Dreaming of having lost your parents or being rejected by your parents so you become an orphan, adopted or fostered child may denote that you feel you didn’t get their unconditional love and attention, and that you have to find your own way in the world without their support. Alternatively you may feel as if you are an outsider in the relationship to your family. Perhaps you have been excluded or perhaps you have little in common with them. Do you consider yourself rejected or at odds with the rest of your family? Whatever the reason, your dream may be suggesting to you that you need to create a surrogate family to get the support you need; this may be with your friends or your partner, and they will be able to help you feel loved, secure and accepted for who you are.

Another explanation of such dreams is that it is time for you to be more independent and self-reliant by moving away from your parents. When life forces you into permanently or temporarily losing your parents, either by death or by other circumstances such as foreign travel, you may experience dreams of being orphaned. The dream might not refer to your relationship with your family at all, but might be telling you that you are feeling abandoned, unloved, rejected and misunderstood by your partner, friends or colleagues in waking life.

If this is the case, the dream connects to feelings of belonging or not belonging in waking life.

If you are looking after an orphan in your dream, you are attempting to heal that part of you that feels unloved.