Dreaming of a cypress : what can this symbol evoke?

A vertical that does not divide

An oak spreads, a willow droops, an apple tree divides into branches. The cypress rises in a single line, without spreading : it occupies very little ground and a great deal of height.

Dreams use this shape for what, in a life, goes in one direction only. An exclusive vocation, a mourning that organises everything, a fidelity that does not divide. It is neither good nor bad : it is a form that leaves no room beside it.

The question it poses is precise : what rises like that in you, and what does not grow because of it? Those who dream of cypresses often have one remarkably developed part of life and the rest fallow.

The tree that marks graves

It is planted in cemeteries for two precise reasons : its roots go straight down and do not disturb graves, and it stays green when everything else loses its leaves. It serves as a sign as much as a tree.

Dreams often use this dimension without death being the subject. The cypress there designates what stays green around a loss : a maintained memory, a presence that has not ceased, a place one returns to. It does not say mourning, it says its permanence.

What to remember is what stood at its foot. A grave, a house, a path, or nothing : what the tree marks gives its presence meaning.

What the tree marks changes the reading

• A lone, very tall cypress — a single, remarkably developed direction.
• An avenue of cypresses — a bordered path leaving no possible deviation.
• A green cypress among bare trees — what did not cease when everything else stopped.
• A cypress at the foot of a grave — a maintained memory, rather than a mourning in progress.
• Its very narrow shade — a form that does not protect, and never promised to.
• A cypress leaning in the wind — a vertical something has finally bent.

A psychological reading, not a ready-made box

Depth psychology takes an interest in forms that do not divide, because they designate a wholly oriented energy : it is a strength, and becomes a problem when nothing else grows. It notes that such figures often appear in those where one part of life occupies all the space. Other readings retain the cypress's funerary use and the permanence it installs around a loss.