Dreaming about
gold

Most people wake from a gold dream hoping it was about money, and sometimes it is. More often, dreaming about gold is about value in a wider sense. It's about something precious you've found or want, whether in your work, your relationships or yourself, and about what you're willing to do to get it or keep it.

The story the gold was part of tells you which. Finding gold, being robbed of it and discovering that it's fake are very different dreams, and gold jewelry from your mother isn't the same as coins dug out of the ground. How you felt, greedy or grateful, anxious or proud, is the clue that ties the dream to your life.

What dreaming about gold means

Gold doesn't rust or tarnish, which is why it has been money, wedding rings, crowns and medals for thousands of years. English uses it for anything of lasting value, from a "heart of gold" to a "golden opportunity" to being "as good as gold". Each of those meanings can turn up in a dream.

Something valuable in yourself

A gold dream often comes when you've found something worth having in yourself (a skill you didn't know you had, a strength that showed up in a crisis). Sometimes it's simply the sense that you're worth more than you thought. If the gold was hidden in your house, your body or your bag, ask what about you has been undervalued, including by you.

Money and security

Our dreams tend to pick up whatever fills our waking hours and worries,^[1] and money is high on that list for most of us. A gold dream during a tight month, a pay negotiation or a big purchase is often exactly what it looks like, your hopes and fears about money, given a shinier form. But that doesn't make the dream shallow, since it shows you how much the question is on your mind.

Temptation and greed

King Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold, and then found he couldn't eat, because his food turned to metal in his mouth. Gold in a dream can carry that warning. If the gold made you anxious, cost you something or came with strings attached, think about where wanting more (more money, more status, more praise) has started to cost you what you already had.

Something meant to last

Because gold keeps its shine, it's the metal of commitment, from wedding rings to the golden anniversary after half a century of marriage. A dream of gold can be about a bond you hope will last, or one you're afraid is wearing thin. In those dreams the people around the gold matter more than the gold.

Dreaming about finding gold

Finding gold is the happiest gold dream and one of the most searched. It usually goes with discovery, a new chance, an idea that could work or a person who turned out to be worth knowing. The way you found it matters, though. Stumbling on gold by luck points to an opportunity that has just appeared, while panning or digging for it points to effort finally paying off. And if you found it but couldn't carry it away, ask what's stopping you from taking the chance.

Dreaming about gold jewelry

Gold jewelry carries more than wealth, because it's usually given, worn and passed down. A gold ring tends to be about commitment, a gold chain about a bond (or about feeling tied down, depending on how it sat on your neck). Earrings and bracelets lean more towards how you present yourself. Was the piece yours? Inherited gold jewelry is often about family, what was handed to you, whether that's money, values or old expectations. If you lost a piece of gold jewelry in the dream, think about a relationship or a family link that feels at risk.

Dreaming about gold coins

Gold coins feel old-fashioned, like pirate treasure or a grandparent's savings tin, so they often point to value from the past. That could be an inheritance, an old skill you could use again, or memories worth more than you realized. Then again, a pile of coins can also be about money in the plainest sense, and counting them over and over tends to go with worry about whether you have enough.

Dreaming about digging for buried gold

Burying gold in a dream is about hiding something valuable, and digging it up is about bringing it back. Did you bury it yourself? Then ask what you've kept out of sight (a talent you never used, feelings you didn't show, a plan you shelved). And if you were digging for treasure someone else had hidden, the dream may be about a search in your waking life, for the right job or the truth about something in your family.

Dreaming about gold being stolen

Having your gold stolen is a dream about losing something you value, and about feeling powerless to stop it. It often comes when you feel taken advantage of, a colleague claiming credit for your work, a partner who takes more than they give, a deal that left you short. Did you see who took it? If so, that's often the person, or the part of your life, the dream is pointing at.

Dreaming about stealing gold

Stealing gold is usually about wanting what someone else has, their success, their relationship, their ease with money, and feeling you can't get it fairly. It's an uncomfortable dream, and people often wake up guilty, but it doesn't mean you'd steal anything. It's more often envy given a plot, and envy is useful once you notice it, because it points at what you want for yourself.

Dreaming about fake gold

Fool's gold, the mineral pyrite, fooled many prospectors who thought they'd struck it rich. "All that glisters is not gold", Shakespeare wrote, and even Olympic gold medals are mostly silver under a gold coating. Gold that turns out fake, flakes off or turns to lead in a dream is about disappointment. Think of an offer, a person or a hope of your own that didn't hold up when you looked closely. It can also be a gentle nudge to check something before you commit to it.

Dreaming about gold according to Jung and Freud

Gold gives both men's ideas something to work on, and the paragraphs below try them out on it.

Jung: gold and the Self

Jung's name for wholeness is the Self, and in dreams it tends to show up as circles and mandalas.^[7] Gold coins, rings and medals are round, and they're also the things we call precious. Read through that idea, a coin turning up in a garden or a riverbed is a dream of finding a piece of your own wholeness lying where you didn't look, which fits the first reading above, the value you haven't credited in yourself. Gold jewelry is also what you wear to be seen, which makes it a candidate for the persona, his word for the mask you show the world (made of clothes, uniforms and roles), so gold that flakes or turns out fake can be a persona that doesn't hold.

Freud: gold as a wish

Freud's starting point was that a dream stages a wish as if it were already met,^[8] and a box of gold coins dug up in the garden is about the plainest wish a dream can grant: you open the lid and what you were short of is there. He also looked at the day before, because he thought dreams reuse the leftovers of yesterday, so a tight month, a salary talk or a jeweler's window is the first place to look. Then he'd ask whose gold it was in your mind (a grandparent's, a mother's gift, a bank's), since he let the dreamer's own associations outrank any list of meanings.

Other readings

Artemidorus, a 2nd-century Greek who held that nearly every reading changes with who the dreamer is, judged gold by its amount and by the dreamer's rank.^[2] It wasn't bad in itself, as some of his rivals said, so long as there wasn't too much of it and it didn't outrun the dreamer's station. He read silver coins as dealings over serious matters and gold ones as more serious still, and a rich treasure as grief and worry, since you dig the earth for it as you do for a burial. His readings were all forecasts, but a dream of a big win, like the lottery, isn't one, and there's a post on why dreams can't see what's coming.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of gold in dreams

Gold runs through the Bible as an idol, a test and a gift, and one hadith has the Prophet Muhammad dreaming of it.

Gold in the Bible

The Bible's gold runs in two directions. The Israelites melt down their earrings to make the golden calf,^[3] the classic picture of wealth turned into an idol. But Job, in the middle of his suffering, says that once he has been tested he will "come forth as gold".^[4] And the wise men bring gold to the infant Jesus, a gift Christian tradition reads as fit for a king.^[5]

Gold in Sahih al-Bukhari

The hadith, the recorded sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, have a gold dream of their own. In Sahih al-Bukhari, which Sunni Muslims rank as their most trusted collection, the Prophet dreams of two gold bracelets on his hands that trouble him, and when he is told to blow on them they fly away.^[6] He read them as two liars who would appear. If your dream had a spiritual feel, which of these was it closest to, an idol, a test, a gift or a warning?

Questions to ask about your gold dream

Gold means something slightly different to everyone, so the questions below matter more than any list of meanings.

• Were you finding, wearing, losing, stealing or giving the gold?
• Was it coins, jewelry, a bar, a nugget, something else?
• Did it belong to someone, or come from someone you know?
• Was it real, and did that matter to you in the dream?
• What do you value most right now, and does it feel safe?

Before reading a dream, Oniri asks what's been happening for you and how the dream felt, so a gold ring from your mother won't be read like a stolen gold bar.