Handbags and Purses: The Secret Language of Dreams and Symbols.

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash

Some symbols appear once in a dream and are never seen again. Others seem to hang around.

A client I’ll call Jessica had been in therapy for about twelve months when we noticed that handbags and purses began appearing repeatedly in her dreams.

Jessica originally came to therapy after the end of a long-term relationship. The breakup had cost her more than the relationship itself. Much of her social life had revolved around her partner, John, and when they separated, many of those friendships disappeared as well.

John had also been coercively controlling. As the therapy progressed, Jessica began to see how much she had adapted herself to him: what she did, who she saw, what she felt able to say, and, in less obvious ways, who she had become.

She was slowly regaining her footing.

Meanwhile, her dreams seemed to have become rather interested in handbags.

What Do We Carry in a Handbag or Purse?

Handbags are very personal things.

Think about what is in yours. Money, bank cards, keys, a phone, perhaps photographs, makeup, medication, receipts, scraps of paper, and assorted things you have forgotten were even there.

A purse is smaller but, in some ways, even more personal. It usually contains our money and the cards that identify us and give us access to it.

So when a handbag or purse appears in a dream, I might wonder about identity, independence, privacy, personal resources, and value. Not because a handbag always means these things — dream symbols don't work that way — but because these are some of the associations the object naturally carries.

And there is the question of privacy.

If someone picked up your handbag and began looking through it without asking, you probably wouldn't like it.

It is yours.

Someone Looking Inside

Jessica's first dream was exactly that. Someone was looking inside her handbag without her permission.

Given what had been happening in her life, it was difficult not to be struck by the image.

Here was a woman coming out of a relationship in which her boundaries had been repeatedly crossed, dreaming of someone going through something private that was hers.

It seemed to say something Jessica herself was only just beginning to articulate:

You don't have the right to do that.

Then the Handbag Disappeared

Later, Jessica began dreaming that she had lost her handbag or purse.

She would suddenly realise it was missing and become anxious.

This also seemed to align with what was happening outside the dream.

Leaving John had meant much more than leaving John. A whole structure had gone with him. Their social life had largely been his. Jessica had spent years orienting herself around the relationship and now had to work out what belonged to her.

Who were her friends?

What did she actually enjoy?

What did she want?

And could she trust herself to make those decisions?

Leaving a controlling relationship does not necessarily mean we immediately get ourselves back. Sometimes we have to discover who that self is.

Stolen

Then the dreams changed again.

This time the handbag wasn't lost.

It was stolen.

And Jessica was desperately trying to find it.

That felt different.

Losing something suggests that we have mislaid it. Having something stolen introduces somebody else into the picture. Something that was ours has been taken.

Jessica had spent a long time accommodating herself to another person. Her confidence in her own perceptions had been gradually eroded, and her world had become smaller.

So I began to wonder with her whether the dreams might be saying something about what she felt she had lost in the relationship — and perhaps what she now needed to reclaim.

Not just, Where is my handbag? But, Where am I?

A New Purse

Then this week Jessica brought another dream.

She had a new purse, and it was full of money.

I loved this dream. Not because I think it means she is about to become rich.

Money in dreams can be about money, of course, but it can also make us think about worth and resources. We use financial language psychologically all the time. We spend energy. We invest in people. We feel depleted. We say we have nothing left to give.

But what caught my attention most was not the money.

It was the fact that the purse was new.

She hadn't found the old one.

Nobody had returned the stolen purse.

She had a new one, and that seems important.

Jessica's therapy has not really been about restoring her to the person she was before John. That earlier Jessica had her own history, vulnerabilities, and ways of adapting to other people. Some of those adaptations had probably helped her stay in the relationship for as long as she did.

Over the past year, something else has been emerging.

She is making more of her own decisions. She is developing friendships of her own. She is clearer about what she likes and doesn't like, and what she will and won't put up with. Increasingly, although tentatively, she trusts her own judgement.

And then comes the dream of a new purse.  Not an empty one either.  A purse full of money.

When the Dream Changes

This is one of the things I love about recurring dreams.

If we look at each dream separately, we can get caught up in trying to decide what a particular symbol “means”. But when the same image keeps returning, it can be much more interesting to watch what happens to it.

First, someone looks inside Jessica's handbag without permission.

Then she loses it.

Then it is stolen, and she searches frantically for it.

And now she has a new purse, and there is something valuable inside it.

Of course, I can't know for certain what these dreams mean. Neither can Jessica. Dreams aren't equations to be solved.

But sometimes a sequence of dreams seems to chart a movement occurring elsewhere in the person.

Jessica came into therapy having lost a relationship, much of her social world and, to some degree, her confidence in who she was without John.

A year later, she dreams of carrying something new, something that belongs to her and something of value.

I think that's rather lovely.  And I'm particularly glad she didn't find the old purse.

A note on confidentiality: As always, identifying details have been changed to protect confidentiality. “Jessica” and “John” are not their real names, and some personal details have been altered or omitted. The dreams themselves are shared with permission.