Dreaming of a hollow : what can this symbol evoke?

An absence with a shape

The void has no outline ; the abyss has no bottom. A hollow can be measured : its edges are visible, one knows what it would take to fill it. That is what distinguishes it from all other absences.

Dreams use this figure for an absence whose shape is exactly known. Someone's place in a house, the hour of a vanished habit, the function a departed person held : nothing is there, and one knows precisely what.

The question it poses is less painful than it looks : does this hollow wait to be filled, or to be acknowledged? Some absences call for nothing but being named.

The reverse of the mountain

A hollow and a relief are the same gesture seen from both sides : matter removed from one place is found elsewhere. A valley exists only between two heights, and an imprint is the exact shape of what made it.

Dreams often use that reciprocity. What you lack has the shape of what you had : the hollow of an absence draws precisely what the presence was. This is why absences do not resemble one another — each keeps the silhouette of what produced it.

What to remember is what the shape recalls to you. Many dreamers recognise the hollow before recognising what filled it, and it is that recognition which counts.

What the hollow shows changes the reading

• A hollow whose shape one recognises — an absence you know exactly the nature of.
• A hollow one tries to fill with something else — a replacement that does not fit, and shows it.
• An imprint in soil or snow — proof of a passage, and the shape of what has gone.
• A hollow in the hand — the position of one waiting to receive, or who has just let go.
• A valley between two heights — the hollow that is not a flaw but the condition of relief.
• A hollow filling by itself — an absence that ceases without one having done anything, which also happens.

A psychological reading, not a ready-made box

Depth psychology distinguishes indeterminate absences from those with a shape : the latter are more bearable, because they can be named and known. It notes that the passage from one to the other often constitutes progress, even when it hurts. Other readings retain the reciprocity of hollow and relief, recalling that no form exists without its reverse.