In waking life, the toilet is where you go to release what is no longer healthy or sustaining for you. Dreaming about needing the toilet indicates that there is some situation in your life that has become unhealthy but you aren’t sure how to let go of it. This often involves your personal needs and how easily you find it to express them to other people. Searching for a toilet shows you are looking for some way to tell someone what you really need.

This can feel strange for you, however, and the need for privacy shows you would like to deal with this situation behind closed doors, so that you don’t appear needy. Having to stand in a queue for the toilet indicates that you are putting the needs of others before your own, even though you are desperate to express them.

You are anxious it will turn into a messy situation if you try and voice your needs. This cramps your self-expression because you feel you have little choice and no room to manoeuvre. You are also worried that it might end up becoming very emotional with floods of tears or that your requests for help may be blocked.

Trying not to get your feet wet indicates that you are over-cautious about stepping into emotional situations because you are unsure what the outcome might be. Sometimes you just want to come clean and wash your hands of the whole affair but there seems to be no way for you to do this.

In waking life, you often hope your needs will be met if you look after other people’s needs but they often seem to just end up dumping their problems on you. The best way to resolve this situation is to put your needs before the needs of others by using the word ‘No’ now and again.

This enables you to set firm personal boundaries, which allow you to look after your needs. Although this may seem selfish, it is much easier to look after other people’s needs when you are comfortable that you can attend to your needs.

Our first experience of controlling our needs happens at a very young age when we learn to regulate our basic bodily activities in toilet training. This is often our first exposure to social obligations taking precedence over our physical needs and functions.

During this training, we realize that inappropriate expression of our needs can become very messy and also can make us feel quite ashamed. Even though we learn to control our physical needs as children, we often find it challenging to manage our emotional needs as adults as they can evoke the same feelings of vulnerability and embarrassment.