If you are holding your breath, this suggests fear and stress.
If you are panting or breathing fast, this suggests excitement and stimulation.
If you are underwater or not breathing at all, this reproduces the condition of the womb and indicates a need to escape from waking reality. To dream of breathing warm air denotes the possible onset of trouble, whilst breathing cold air foretells strength and courage.
If you are feeling stifled by stale air or oppressive humidity, this indicates an illadvised friendship that isn’t encouraging the dreamer to fulfill his or her potential. Or perhaps you feel stifled by your current circumstances in waking life.
Alternatively could you be feeling breathless with anticipation? If you dreamed of taking in great gulps of invigorating air, your dream may be urging you to clear the air—resolve a tense situation—in your waking life, or it may have been referring to a sense of freedom and lightness. [1]
If it is not these, the dream of breathing with difficulty signals a moment of fatigue in which you find yourself surrounded by adverse circumstances that drown you. On the contrary, if you dream that you breathe deeply and intensely, the dream reveals a state of well-being in a positive environment that stimulates the development of your personality and your projects. [2]
To be aware of someone else’s breathing indicates the need for empathy and understanding with that person.
2- Our own emotional state can very often have an effect on the rate at which we breathe which then becomes translated in dreams into, for instance, a panic attack.
To be breathing underwater is an instinctive return to the womblike state.
3- The Soul. Breath is the power of the Spirit and life giving power, without it we are nothing. [3]
If you are holding your breath, then your dream may be suggesting that your stubbornness is keeping you from accomplishing what you truly desire.
If you are breathing too hard or fast, then you are moving to fast and you might consider becoming more balanced so you can catch up with yourself. Pay attention to the feeling tone and quality of the breathing.
See also: lungs under body. [5]
If you are out of breath, you are out of balance, going too fast; slow down and reorganize. [7]
2. Feelings of great contentment; satisfaction with life and affairs.
3. Anxiety, apprehension (as in “to hold one’s breath”).
4. Symbol of life energy, the spirit. [8]
2. Spiritual life;
3. Offensive (bad breath);
4. Unclean spirit (bad breath);
5. God’s Spoken Word (rhema). Gen. 2:7; (3) Job 19:17; [10]
An exchange with the environment. [15]
2. Capacity to take in the spirit [16]
bad, having: feel closed into a space you did not choose.
children: wil be abandoned in sickness.
others: a special friend wishes to see you.
fast, a: reorganized, revitalized, and conscious acceleration of power.
out of, being: catch it before it is taken from you.
slow, steady, a: relaxation of whole system for energy to renew itself.
unable to breathe, being: remorse over past actions; balance speed with competence.
suffocated, being: accept the situation as is, but avoid claustrophobic conditions.
others: feel smothered by a confinement not your own. [17]