Breaking into my house dream meaning

Shutterstock

Intruder dreams. They are absolutely what we would classify as nightmares: a person breaking into your home, your safe space, thereby taking away your sense of security, safety, and privacy in the one place in the world those things are supposed to be guaranteed. *Shivers* If you've had dreams like this, you are very far from alone; according to a survey conducted by Amerisleep, nearly 16 percent of Americans have had recurring dreams of someone breaking into their homes. And while this may be a common theme, the meaning behind these dreams is often less literal than a fear of someone actually breaking in.

While some experts feel the dream may represent feelings of the dreamer's sense of security being jeopardized by something or someone in his or her waking life (via Dream Astro Meanings). Others feel the symbolism in these dreams may actually be more complex and have more to do with our inner worlds than our outer worlds.

The intruder may represent hidden parts of ourselves

Shutterstock

Psychiatrist Richard J. Corelli wrote for Stanford University that the intruder figure in a dream "is often an inner psychological figure who may represent some shameful or unwanted part of ourself who is breaking into our consciousness ... It is about to break into our awareness, and then we will have to confront this unwanted aspect of ourself." Corelli elaborated that "the purpose of this figure seems to be to reflect all the worst aspects of our character so that we may become more fully conscious of those traits and accept these unwanted but vitally necessary parts of ourself." And while these traits may be unknown or denied by us in our waking states, they are often aspects of our personalities that are "quite evident" to those who live with us or know us deeply, he says. But because we have not yet come to acknowledge and integrate them, these aspects of ourselves "appear alien and scary to us in our dreams."

And while you may want to forget about these dreams the moment you wake from them. Corelli feels it may be beneficial to remember them. "The intruder in the dream represents some part of ourself that we have kept outside our awareness for too long and now needs to be let in," he explained.

A dream of someone breaking into your home is a mirror of yourself or, at least, a dark side of yourself that is beating down the door of your consciousness. This is according to Richard J. Corelli, M.D. at Stanford University. 

It doesn’t necessarily have to be some dark aspect of your inner nature, though home break-ins are rarely “good” dreams. Of course, that’s not the only interpretation out there, just the most sensical one. 

The frustrating thing about dream interpretations is every website you click on has an entirely new definition of what it means. Psychiatrists are generally the more noteworthy authorities on the subject matter, however, rather than unknown authors on some obscure website. 

But at the same time, remember that dream interpretation is subjective, unscientific, and highly personal. The below information is some possible symbolic interpretations people have had – but there’s no evidence that your dream determines your future and no one can say exactly what the dream means. The ultimate interpretation is up to you!

Dreams of Someone Breaking into your House: Possible Interpretations

1. Hidden Parts of Ourselves

Dreams of someone breaking into your house often mean that you have darker sides of yourself that you are avoiding.

Everyone has a dark side and fortunately, most of us are able to keep that hidden part of ourselves under some semblance of control.

But dreams are very different things and we don’t control, at least not consciously, what goes on in them and what we see about our own nature. 

The typical advice is to accept and embrace that side of yourself. That doesn’t mean that you should dress all in black and go break into your neighbor’s house in the middle of the night.

What it does mean, is that you should acknowledge that the hidden part of yourself is you. 

It’s not much different than accepting and embracing your failures. After all, it’s failure that teaches you how to succeed.

It’s the acknowledgment that you aren’t any more or less perfect than anyone else and if you lived in an entirely different circumstance, you might be surprised at what you are capable of. 

It’s also important to remember (ironically, as it happens), that your dreams about an intruder in your home may not be the entirety of your dream. It’s easy to think that you remember an entire dream, from beginning to end.

That might not be the case. It could be nothing more than a single fragment of a larger whole. 

2. You have Unreleased Aggression

Whether the person breaking into your home is known to you or not, it’s likely that you dream of them with a mask on. So regardless, the person is “unknown.”

According to Neuroscientist, Patrick McNamara, “In short, male strangers occur very often in dreams and they invariably signal physical aggression.”

Patrick McNamara is clear about one thing—most strangers in our dreams are male and most of them are aggressive in nature. However, it’s not the unknown male’s aggression that you are truly dreaming about. 

It’s actually your own internalized aggression symbolically reproduced in your dream and arriving in the form of a stranger, breaking into your house.

It indicates that your more aggressive side, something that you have probably repressed, is trying to get back in, becoming the dominant trait of your personality. 

If we go back to the advice from Richard J. Corelli, it’s in your best interest to embrace this side of yourself and control it. It doesn’t mean that you should allow yourself to be aggressive. It only means that you should accept this darker side of your personality. 

3. You’re Repressing Part of your Personality

A dream about someone trying to or succeeding in breaking into your home will often turn into that same person chasing you. As dreams go, the identity of that person may change several times, or they might remain unknown. 

Once again, these instances are aspects of your inner personality breaking free in your subconscious and most vulnerable moments. 

If you are running from the intruder, it could be the dual meaning of a repressed aspect of your personality that you are so adamant about not addressing, that you run from it as well.

Unconscious intelligence expert, Michael R. Olsen, is on the same wavelength as Richard Corelli. He believes that these are aspects of yourself. However, there’s a twist in that the aspect in question might not be a bad one. 

It could be that you have an innate talent that you are frightened of trying to champion in real life. You could be a phenomenal artist that refuses to make art because you are afraid of rejection and failure. 

You could be a budding novelist. You might have even written a book and it’s sitting inside of a hard drive or a thumb drive right now, silent and unpublished because you fear that no publisher will give it the time of day. 

4. Accept Yourself and Your Mistakes

Self-inflicted personality repression is never a good thing. And that’s not to say that you should act on your darker impulses—not by any means.

What it does mean is that you should be more open and accepting about the darker sides of your personality. 

You can accept the fact that you have acted selfish in the past, are selfish now, and need to do something to better that aspect in the future. 

You can accept that you have treated someone cruelly and work yourself around to apologizing to that person and working on the aspect of yourself that caused you to do it in the first place. 

Conclusion

According to neuroscientists, we dream anywhere between two and five times per night and we’re lucky if we remember any of them. Dreaming about an intruder in your home may be nothing more than a single glimpse of a larger dream that is itself one dream among many. 

So interpretations of dreams are difficult without individual context. It’s easy to make a blanket statement about a dream interpretation while knowing nothing about the individual that dreamed it.   So there are a lot of interpretations out there and it’s a good idea to try and draw elements of your own personality from these to determine what is probably the most accurate scenario.

Hi! I’m Jessica and I’m a Gemini. My spirit animal is the mighty barn owl. It brings me wisdom when I need it most and guides me through the darkness. Thanks for reading this article!