Dreaming about
balloons

A balloon is a little air held in by a very thin skin, which is why it's so cheerful and so easy to lose. Children cry when one floats away, and adults flinch when one pops. So dreaming about balloons usually points to a light, happy feeling (a celebration, a hope, a sense of freedom) and, almost always, to how fragile that feeling is.

The dream splits on what happened to the balloon. One you held tight at a party, one that slipped your fingers and one that burst in your face are three different dreams, even though the balloon looks the same. A hot air balloon is its own kind of dream too, about rising above things. What's going on in your week usually tells you which balloon you had.

What dreaming about balloons means

Nobody buys balloons for an ordinary Tuesday. They exist for occasions, they rise on their own and they never last more than a few days, and the readings below follow from those three facts.

A celebration, or the wish for one

Balloons come out for birthdays, weddings, new babies and grand openings, so a balloon dream often comes when there's something to celebrate, or when you wish there were. Were the balloons for you? Then ask whether something in your life deserves more fuss than it's getting. But balloons tied to someone else's door can carry mixed feelings, like pleasure at a friend's engagement with a small pang underneath it.

Lightness and relief

A balloon full of helium wants to go up, and a dream of balloons rising can feel like a weight being lifted. It often comes after something heavy is over, an exam, a court case or a long wait for news. The feeling in the dream is the clue. Light and giddy means relief, while dizzy or afraid can mean things are moving up and away faster than you'd like.

Something that won't last

Even a perfect balloon is soft and wrinkled in a few days (helium leaks out through the rubber itself). Dreams use that to talk about good things that are temporary, a holiday, a new crush or a burst of confidence. If you were anxious about your balloons in the dream, guarding them or counting them, you may be worried that a happy time is about to end.

Dreaming about a hot air balloon

The first hot air balloon to carry living passengers went up at Versailles in 1783, with a sheep, a duck and a rooster in the basket. The first people flew free two months later, over Paris, and the dream has kept some of that daring. Floating over the land in a hot air balloon is about perspective, rising high enough to see your life from above. It's often a calm and lovely dream, but a hot air balloon can't be steered, only raised or lowered, so the dream can also be about going wherever circumstances take you. If the burner failed or the basket tipped, ask what in your life feels high up and not quite safe.

Dreaming about balloons popping

A popping balloon is a small shock, loud and sudden and over in a second. In a dream it often stands for a hope or a good mood that ended abruptly, like a plan that fell through or a comment that punctured your confidence. English has the same picture in "burst your bubble", and bubbles work much the same way in dreams. If you popped the balloons yourself, the dream may be about deflating something on purpose, perhaps an idea of yourself or someone's inflated ego.

Dreaming about a balloon floating away

Letting go of a balloon, or watching it slip from your hand, is one of the saddest small moments of childhood, and the dream often carries that grief. It tends to come when something good is drifting out of reach, a friendship, a chance or a stage of life you can't get back. Did you let go on purpose? Then the dream is more about release, setting something free that you'd been holding too tightly.

Dreaming about a red balloon

A red balloon is the one color that comes with a story attached, or rather two stories pulling opposite ways. In The Red Balloon, a 1956 French short film, a balloon follows a small boy around Paris like a loyal friend. In Stephen King's It, a red balloon is what a killer clown uses to lure children. So the dream can be about a joy or a love that keeps following you, or a fear dressed up as something harmless, the kind of thing clowns stand for in dreams. Which one it felt like is the reading.

Dreaming about being carried by balloons

Being lifted off the ground by a bunch of balloons is half a dream about flying and half a cartoon (it's the whole plot of Pixar's Up, with a house). It's usually about escape, wanting to rise out of a situation without having to climb. If it felt wonderful, the dream may be about freedom you're starting to feel. And if you were scared of going too high, you may be afraid of what happens when the lift runs out.

Dreaming about blowing up balloons

Blowing up balloons is the work behind the party, and it takes a lot of breath. And dreaming you're doing it often points to the effort you put into making other people happy, whether that's organizing a birthday or keeping the mood up at home. If the balloons kept bursting as you blew, think about a job where your effort keeps coming to nothing. Blowing up just one, very large, can be about building something up, perhaps more than it can take.

Dreaming about balloons according to Jung and Freud

Balloons aren't on anyone's symbol list, so what follows applies each man's ideas to them and says so.

Jung on balloons and the child archetype

Jung called the child archetype a picture of what is coming, a potential, a new beginning.^[1] Balloons are what we tie to a birth, a birthday and the first day of something. Read through that idea (our application), a balloon dream can be about a beginning in you that hasn't grown up yet, which is why a popping or a drifting balloon hurts so much: it's the fear that the new thing is too fragile to last. If the balloons were for someone else's birthday or baby, ask whose beginning it was.

Freud on the day before and the wish to lift off

Freud would start from the day before. Balloons are easy day residue, since they come with parties, shop windows and a child's hand, and he held that a dream borrows its images from the previous day.^[2] The wish comes second. He counted flying among the typical dreams, and nearly half of the 1,181 students in one survey said they'd had one,^[3] so a balloon that rises on its own or carries you up can be read as the same wish with a vehicle, to get off the ground without climbing. A balloon that pops or slips away asks what that wish ran into. Your own associations come first in his method, and balloons carry strong ones: a party, a child, the moment one got away.

Questions to ask about your balloon dream

A balloon is only ever as interesting as what happened to it, and these questions help you pin that down.

• Were the balloons rising, popping, drifting away or carrying you?
• Was there a party, and who was it for?
• What color were they, and did that color mean anything to you?
• How did you feel when they went, sad, relieved or frightened?
• What good thing in your life feels fragile right now?

Oniri asks about the occasion and the feeling before it reads your dream, so a balloon at your child's birthday and a balloon drifting over a hospital get very different readings.