I had a dream, in the dream a man was telling me to trim my hair on a full moon and bury it in my yard. This is the only thing I remember about the dream. I looked it up online and apparently it’s associated with an old wives tales about fuller hair. Should I do as instructed? Is their other meanings for burying hair on a full moon besides hair growth? I’ve never even heard of this before. Totally weird. Thanks for any information.
I’ll start off talking a little bit about dreams in general, before moving on to any potential associated folklore. One thing to keep in mind when it comes to dream interpretation, is that no matter what the dream dictionaries or symbolism books say, at the very heart of it all is… what do those specific things mean to you?
While there are many generally accepted meanings to certain things, we have to remember that context and our own personal experiences, are key to understanding them. So while one person may dream of being at the beach, and think it is the most beautiful dream in the world – to someone who has an absolute fear of drowning, dreaming of being at the beach might very well be a nightmare to them.
So there are a few questions to ask yourself going into this…
- “What does your hair symbolize to you?”
- “What would losing your hair, or having to cut it mean to you?”
- “Was it something that was mentioned in passing – like a suggestion, or was it a command?”
- “Did you cut it in the dream, and if so, how did it make you feel?”
In general dreaming of getting a haircut, indicates a need for change, or a desire for change. In this case, where someone else was telling you to do so, it may mean that there is an outside influence in your life that is attempting to change you, potentially in a way that could undermine you. That you are being told to bury it could also indicate that they want to ensure that all traces of that part of you are gone… sort of “out of sight, out of mind”.
So, on the one hand (unless you really have areas in your life that need to be changed), it’s not necessarily a positive dream. However, it again depends almost entirely on how you feel about the situation, rather than how an “outsider” views it.
As to potential related folklore, there are a few things that come to mind, though most have to do with the hair being the seat of one’s power, or in some cases, an extension of the soul. Tried to find some concrete references (which is why it took me so long to get back to you) and other than the really well known things – like Samson, not much in the way of credible sources. There is a chapter in James Frazer’s The Golden Bough which may be relevant, so I’ve included an excerpt of that here as well (you can read the full chapter though the link above)…
“…To preserve the cut hair and nails from injury and from the dangerous uses to which they may be put by sorcerers, it is necessary to deposit them in some safe place. The shorn locks of a Maori chief were gathered with much care and placed in an adjoining cemetery. The Tahitians buried the cuttings of their hair at the temples. In the streets of Soku a modern traveller observed cairns of large stones piled against walls with tufts of human hair inserted in the crevices. On asking the meaning of this, he was told that when any native of the place polled his hair he carefully gathered up the clippings and deposited them in one of these cairns, all of which were sacred to the fetish and therefore inviolable. These cairns of sacred stones, he further learned, were simply a precaution against witchcraft, for if a man were not thus careful in disposing of his hair, some of it might fall into the hands of his enemies, who would, by means of it, be able to cast spells over him and so compass his destruction…”
As to the idea that hair being cut on a full moon will make it grow faster, or longer again (as you said) seems to just be an old wive’s tale. Everyone says it, but there really doesn’t seem to be any sort of original reference as to where the idea came from. To be sure, the moon has an effect on the tides, pulling on them stronger when there is a full moon, so I think it’s a matter of assigning a similar concept to one’s hair. For some general myths and folklore related to hair, you can check the following as well.
Hopefully, some of this was helpful to you. It wasn’t as much as I had wanted to post on the subject, but the lack of resources put a bit of a damper on that. As to whether or not you should cut it – that is going to really depend on the answers that you give to the questions that were posed back at the beginning. If you are in a position of needing to make a change, then cutting it may be a good idea. If you are feeling pressured to make a change that you feel is unnecessary, then it may be worth it to just say no.
The Informed Pagan 