태몽 Taemong

Conception dreams

When my mother was pregnant with me, she dreamt of three Korean peppers - two green and one red. A family friend interpreted the dream to mean that my mother would birth two daughters and one son. Lo and behold, I am the eldest daughter followed by my sister and a younger brother.

Photo by Torbjørn Helgesen on Unsplash

A little over a year later, pregnant with my sister, she dreamt of an iridescent furry creature sitting underneath a large tree. She worked throughout her entire pregnancy, up until the very moment she went into labor, so, she doesn’t recall the interpretation of the dream. Today, she receives it as a blessing for the birth of her spirited second daughter (my sister is very spirited, indeed).

During her pregnancy with our not-so-baby-anymore baby brother, she dreamt of a large bowl of oversized gleaming chestnuts. After a difficult birth, a healthy baby boy was born with the heaviest birth weight among her three children.

태몽 (taemong), or conception dreams, are a part of my Korean culture, as ordinary as K-dramas and kimchi. Rooted in ancient animism, 태몽 offers insights about the birth through symbols - from gender, to temperament of the child, and even the child’s quality of life.

The symbols are often foods, like the peppers that appeared in my mother’s dream, and other vegetables and fruits; animals, both real and fantastical, such as the favored line-up of the powerful or fortuitous phoenix, dragon, tiger, turtle, or pig; and parts of the natural world, like the sun, mountain, and river.

태몽 can be deciphered informally, likened to my mother’s social routine of sharing about her dreams with the women in her life or intuiting insights by one’s self. Sometimes, a more formal approach, such as seeking the support of a 점쟁이 (jumjeng-ee) or fortune teller, is sought out. My mother tells me that 태몽 is not reserved for the pregnant; they can be received by family members, in laws, and even close friends on behalf of the childbearer. 대박!! This aligns with our previous post about dreams we’ve dreamt for others!

Dreams, in general, are regarded more in Korean culture - and many other cultures, particularly those rooted in ancient practices - than here in the United States. Dreams are of such significance that there’s even a custom of buying and selling dreams!

As I deepen my relationship to dreams — a consciousness-expanding consciousness accompanying me through the dense and limiting material world — it doesn’t surprise me that dreams can foretell births. A conception dream is a conception, by it’s very nature, after all.

If you are able to, considering asking the person who birthed you or the persons who were very close to the person who birthed you if they recall any dreams that stand out during the pregnancy. What do they and you sense from the dream(s)?

If you yourself were/are pregnant, what dreams stand out to you during the pregnancy? What do you sense from the dream(s)?