Dreaming about
bombs

A bomb is danger with a delay built in. It sits there, often hidden, until it goes off all at once, and that's usually what a dream about bombs is about. Dreaming about bombs tends to point to pressure that has been building, whether it's your own anger, a tense home, a secret or a crisis at work, and the fear that it's about to blow.

The details turn that into a reading. A bomb you're trying to defuse is a different dream from one that has already exploded, and a war full of bombs is different again, especially if you've lived through one. For some people a bomb dream is a memory, and that calls for a different kind of response.

What dreaming about bombs means

English can't even agree whether a bomb is good or bad. A British party that "went down a bomb" was a hit, while an American show that "bombed" flopped. In dreams the word is mostly about shocks and pressure, and the readings come from there.

Pressure about to blow

A ticking time bomb is something that will explode if nobody deals with it, like a temper, a debt, or resentment between two people who keep smiling at each other. If you knew where the bomb was and others didn't, the dream may be about pressure you're carrying alone. And if the bomb was on you, in your bag or strapped under your coat, ask what you're holding in.

A shock

To drop a bombshell is to deliver news that changes everything in a moment. Bomb dreams often come after a shock (a diagnosis, a breakup, a sudden layoff) or when you're bracing for one. The dream can replay the moment the floor dropped away, and it tends to fade as you take the news in.

Fear from the world outside

Dreams track what fills your waking hours, worries included,^[2] so a war in the headlines or a violent film before bed can turn into a bomb at night. One theory sees threat dreams as a night-time drill that leaves you better prepared by day.^[1] Either way, the dream shows how heavily the news is sitting on you, and nothing about what's coming.

Dreaming about a bomb exploding

An explosion is the moment of release, and how you felt afterward is the key. Terror and destruction all around suggest you fear a blowup you can't control, an argument or a collapse at work. Some people feel relief when the bomb finally goes off, which says the waiting was worse than the blast. If you walked out of the rubble, the dream may be about being tougher than the crisis you fear.

Dreaming about defusing a bomb

Defusing a bomb, with the classic choice between the red wire and the blue one, is trying to stop a crisis before it happens. It's a dream of responsibility, common if you're the one in a family or a team who calms everyone down. Succeeding suggests you feel able to handle it, while freezing over the wires is about a decision with high stakes and no time to think.

Dreaming about a ticking bomb

Hearing the tick and not finding the bomb is a deadline or a worry you can't locate, the feeling that something's wrong without knowing what. A visible timer counting down is more concrete, and it often lines up with a real date, an exam, a hearing, a payment due at the end of the month.

Dreaming about being bombed in a war

Air raids, sirens and shelters are the stuff of war dreams. If you've lived through war or bombing, these dreams can be memories coming back, and repeated ones that wreck your sleep are worth taking to a doctor or a therapist. Simple habits that cut down on nightmares can ease this kind of dream as well. For most people, though, being caught in a bombing is about feeling attacked from every side with nowhere safe to go.

Dreaming about planting a bomb

Planting a bomb yourself can be shocking, but it almost never means you want to hurt anyone. It's more often about anger you've held in, a wish to blow up a situation (quit, end it, say everything at once), and it tends to come when you feel you have no other way to be heard.

Dreaming about bombs according to Jung and Freud

A bomb is pressure with a fuse, and both men had a lot to say about pressure that goes unspoken.

Jung: the smile above the fuse

Jung's persona is the face we show other people, and his shadow is everything we leave out of it.^[3] Read that way, the bomb under the table of two people who keep smiling at each other is the shadow sitting right under the persona. Jung wrote nothing on bombs, so that reading is ours, and so is the question that follows: what would it cost to let a little of it show before the timer runs out?

Freud: the wish with a timer

Freud left no reading of bombs, so this is his idea of the wish in disguise, turned on one.^[4] It fits the dream of planting a bomb best, since that's a way to say everything at once with nobody able to stop you, about as plain a picture of a forbidden wish as a dream gets. Defusing it is the same wish with a guard standing over it, and the dreamer who feels relief when it finally goes off has told you which side of the wish was winning.

Other readings

Calvin Hall, an American psychologist who built a system for coding what happens in dreams, was collecting his students' dreams every day when the first atomic bomb exploded, and it appeared in none of them.^[5] That's worth remembering before you blame the headlines, because a bomb dream is more often about the pressure in your own week.

Questions to ask about your bomb dream

Bomb dreams are about pressure, so ask where yours is building.

• Where was the bomb, and who knew it was there?
• Did it go off, and what did it destroy?
• Did you try to stop it, run, or freeze?
• What in your life feels like it could blow up?
• Have you seen war or violence on the news or on screen lately?

Before Oniri gives you a reading, it asks about the dream and your week, and that's usually where the fuse turns out to be.