This is not a bad thing – the elongated design can look great stretching from the back of your neck along the line of your spine. As with the wrist, if it’s a long design, it may need to extend downwards towards the top of your back.

Back of the neck – though seemingly a small space, the back of your neck is relatively flat – which makes it a great placement for a circular tattoo, as the design won’t be distorted by wrapping the edges.

If your design is elongated – for example, due to long feathers at the bottom of the dreamcatcher – it may need to partly extend onto your forearm.

Wrist – wrist tattoos are both elegant and easy to display.

If you’re looking to have a smaller dreamcatcher tattoo done though, consider these placements: Larger tattoos will look great on the back, stomach, arms, chest, thighs – just about anywhere with enough space to contain them. The only places where it might be impossible to fit it are the extremely small areas, like the side of your finger. As mentioned above, these are meant to act as a path for good dreams, leading from the dreamcatcher to the sleeping person’s mind.ĭepending on the complexity of your chosen dreamcatcher design, it’s possible to have it tattooed on most areas of the body. Feather – One or more feathers usually hang from the bottom of the hoop.Another proposed meaning of the beads is that they are good dreams that didn’t enter the sleeping person’s mind and instead became sacred charms on the surface of the dreamcatcher. There is no single answer as to what the beads are meant to represent, but the most popular view is that a bead is a spider in the ‘web’ of the dreamcatcher. Bead – Some dreamcatchers incorporate one or more beads.Web – The pattern woven inside the hoop is a representation of a spider’s web – referring to the legend of the Spider Woman and the notion of the spider as a symbol of protection.In the case of multiple hoops, a common choice is one large hoop and three smaller ones ‘hanging’ from its bottom. Depending on the design, a single dreamcatcher can have one hoop or multiple ones. Though the hoops of traditional, authentic Native American dreamcatchers tend to be quite small, in a tattoo they come in every size. Hoop – in its circular shape, the hoop represents the circle of life, as well as the Sun and the Moon traveling across the sky.Within the structure of a dreamcatcher, each individual component plays an important symbolic or metaphorical role and adds further depth to the meaning. The dreamcatcher would be hung above a person’s bed or in the doorway to the bedroom, ideally in a spot where the morning sun will hit it.Īs the person sleeps, the bad dreams pass through the dreamcatcher, while the good ones are ‘caught’ in the web and slide down the feathers and into the person’s mind.Īs a tattoo, the dreamcatcher retains its original function – most people understand it to be a symbol of protection, a talisman meant to guard against bad thoughts or bad experiences.ĭreamcatcher tattoos are supposed to filter out negativity – the ‘nightmares’ – and leave only positive thoughts – ‘good dreams’. Native Americans believe that at night, the air is filled with dreams. What dreamcatchers were actually made to protect from were bad dreams – as the name suggests. Recommended: Check out our ultimate guide to Buddha-themed tattoos next. Following her example, mothers and grandmothers began to make dreamcatchers as maternal keepsakes for their children.ĭreamcatchers, then, were a kind of talisman meant to provide protection. When the tribe grew and its members began to spread further and further across the land, the legend claims that the Spider Woman became unable to protect every individual – there were too many of them, too far away.Īs a tool or token of her protection, she created the first dreamcatcher. Though from an outsider’s perspective this might make little sense – spiders hardly invoke positive thoughts in most modern cultures – for the Ojibwa people, spiders were associated with protection and safety. The Ojibwa legends spoke of a mystical character known as ‘Spider Woman’, who was a spiritual protector for the tribe – particularly the children.

The Ojibwa word for ‘dreamcatcher’ asabikeshiinh, literally means ‘spider’. They take the form of hoops with a light woven pattern inside, and often feathers or other adornments attached to the bottom.Īlthough dreamcatchers are usually associated with the Native American culture as a whole, they actually originated from the Ojibwa Chippewa tribe of Canada and the United States. Dreamcatcher tattoos not only look amazing but also have a deep and fascinating history and background.Īs with many other common symbols and tattoo designs, it’s good to get to know the meaning behind the art before having it inked.ĭreamcatchers come from the Native American culture.

Dreams and nightmares tattoo