Guest Author - Lisa Shea

Death is a very common dream symbol - to dream about dying, or about dead people. What does it mean if you dream about a guillotine?

In general, dreaming about death often means you are dreaming about a scary change that is coming in your life - one you do not feel you are prepared for. You have no idea what will happen after this change and you fear it might be bad. Death is a symbol in your mind for this change that you cannot prevent.

Guillotines are specific devices that were actually invented to be humane. Before the guillotine, death could be very messy, with firing squads that missed, hangings that went awry and so on. With a guillotine, the accused person was finally guaranteed a quick, clean death by beheading.

For most of us, the image of the guillotine is firmly connected with the French revolution, where the unwashed masses of France rose up against the cultured, powdered elite. So if your dream involves the guillotine, think about the people in your life that are affecting you. Are some of them acting as if they are "above you" and better than you are? Are others of them the regular, normal people who are not as pretentious? It could be that the change that you are worried about involves these two forces working against each other, with you caught in the middle.

See if you can find a way to work on this issue so that it is less threatening to you. The more control you have over a change, the less you will fear it.