Dreaming that you are in prison is always a indication that you are stuck or constrained in doing what you want to do or being who you are in any way, somewhere in your life. either by your own behaviour or thoughts (inner interpretation) or by others (a particular person or your surroundings) stopping you (outer interpretation).
when you are the one who is imprisoning yourself, you need to be searching for how your own limiting beliefs, thoughts about yourself or others, or your actual behaviour, currently are preventing you from e.g. being who you really are. This might be thoughts like; a person like me doesn’t wear clothes like that, or doesn’t attend yoga classes – or whatever it might be that you really want to – but prevent yourself from doing, just because it doesn’t match the idea you have of who you are supposed to be.
or is it someone – or someone – outside of yourself that is currently impeding your personal growth?, or in other ways prevents you from being who you are, and doing what you really want? it could be your boss, a friend, or even your girlfriend who is incarcerating you. but, before you slip into the pit of questioning your circumstances too easily (i.e. too soon), be frank with yourself: could it be your own restrictive values that hinder you from breaking free and expressing yourself in public?
In many relationships in turns out, that projection is very active. this may include criticizing the other for your own flaws or ascribing to the other particularly desirable characteristics or talents that you possess without realizing they are your own. but, in this relationship, you may see your girlfriend, mate, or perhaps colleague as incredibly imaginative, funny, and so on – despite the fact that these are all your own characteristics, qualities that you don’t actually live or truly use.
examine the dream in detail as well; how do you feel in it, and what exactly are you doing in it? if you’re alone in a jail cell, playing guitar (or drawing, or becoming a nerd about something), and you’re feeling very depressed, it may be a sign that a really powerful artistic (/creative), or “geeky” part of yourself is actually stuck within you, mostly because you won’t let it out. the dream would suggest that you need to free this part of yourself, or else you will still feel like you aren’t truly yourself.
this sort of dream is common during times when we are depressed but don’t know why. we- consciously tell ourselves that we have “everything,” but we remain inexplicably unhappy about this. If for one or the other reason we keep important sides of ourselves hidden, we will almost guaranteed walk around feeling sad.
whether you have a feeling that someone else is incarcerated, and that you are the prison ward, this might be illustrating how you right now are preventing this (real) person from being who he or she is (outer interpretation), or that whatever this person represents within you (i.e. a side of yoursef) is currently “imprisoned” (inner interpretation).
P.s. – dream perception / dream analysis isn’t always straightforward, because if you dream of being incarcerated, it almost certainly means something different for you than it does for someone else who has the same dream. a dream perception is only right if the person who had the dream is deeply moved by it.