In dreams, vegetables can symbolize the most basic human emotions. There may also be an allusion to your diet; in waking life you may not be getting enough fiber, cereals and vegetables. Bear in mind, too, that your own personal associations and preferences concerning specific vegetables will influence your interpretation; for example, if you were forced to eat spinach as a child, you may associate it with punishment. If, however, you have taken personal associations into consideration and they still can’t help you interpret your dream, it may be that your unconscious was drawing from a wider source of symbolism.
For example, if you dreamed of a long, rigid vegetable such as a leek, carrot or cucumber, this could be a phallic symbol referring to intimacy issues in waking life. Also consider the words associated with vegetables such as ’cool as a cucumber’, ’mushrooming’, ’dangling a carrot’, ’peas in a pod’ and ’hot potato’. Because many vegetables grow in the soil, they also have numerous associations with death and rebirth, often being considered as a powerful symbol of spiritual growth. In the broadest sense, vegetables are a connection to your family and community, and represent the goodness you can take from earth.
Vegetables force you down to the depths of your unconscious.
Eating vegetables signifies the taking in of fundamental spiritual nourishment, and in this sense, cooking vegetables can be seen as an alchemical process.
If the vegetables in your dream are overcooked, this could suggest that you are concentrating too long and too hard on a particular problem, or ’overcooking’ a relationship by allowing it to become claustrophobic. On the other hand, cooked or prepared vegetables could refer to ideas which are developing or simply offering themselves to you, ready for growth and nurture. Growing vegetables indicates fertility and renewal. Rotting vegetables are a symbol of death and endings but they are also the precursor to renewal and growth. Seeing rows of neatly planted vegetables in a dream could mean the loss of freewill or the imposition of too rigid a sense of order in your life. Wild vegetables, by the same token, symbolize disorganization. Frozen vegetables show a state of suspended emotional animation, whilst processed vegetables have had some, or all, of their nutrients removed and suggest the dominance of style over substance in waking life.
The color of the vegetable will also be significant. A common dream image presents a variety of vegetables in great abundance for the dreamer to feast on suggesting a desire to enjoy the goodness of nature. However, such dreams may also reflect concerns about your lack of money or abundance. As with fruits, don’t forget that the color, shape, number and condition of the vegetables in your dream will all be significant.
See also: COLORS; NUMBERS; SHAPES.
If a vegetable, or group of vegetables, featured strongly in your dream and you’d like to know more about the symbolism of vegetables, it might be worth doing some research on the historical, cultural, religious and medicinal significance of specific vegetables to enrich your interpretation. The list on pages 646-48 of specific vegetables and their meanings in dreams is by no means comprehensive. [1]