Dreaming about
your brother

Few people know you the way a brother does, and few relationships carry as much history in so little space. Dreaming about your brother usually reflects that history: who got more attention, who protected whom, and how you compare yourselves now that you're grown. What he did in the dream and how you felt about it show which part of the relationship is on your mind.

He doesn't always stand for himself, though. A brother can also be a picture of a side of you (the side that shares his temper, say, or his luck). And a brother you don't have in real life is almost always that. The week you've had and where things stand between you two decide which reading fits.

What dreaming about your brother means

Brothers are close enough to share a childhood but different enough to be compared at every family dinner, and most brother dreams lean on one of three things.

Rivalry and comparison

Siblings compete for the same parents, the same room and the same spotlight. If you were racing your brother, arguing over something small, or watching him get praised while you stood to one side, the dream is likely about comparison. Has he just bought a house, had a child or landed a job you'd have liked? Even when you're truly happy for him, a dream can show the small sting underneath.

Loyalty and protection

Older brothers are often cast as protectors (whether they wanted the job or not) and younger ones as the ones who need looking after, and those roles can stick for decades. A dream where your brother shields you, or where you have to save him, is usually about those roles. It may come when the roles have flipped and a younger brother is suddenly the one with his life in order.

A side of you

When the brother in the dream acts nothing like your real one, he's probably a part of you, so ask what qualities he had. He might be bolder, angrier, freer or more lost than you let yourself be, and that's the trait to notice.

Dreaming about your brother dying

Of all brother dreams, this is the one people look up first, usually with their heart still racing, and it doesn't mean he's in danger. More often it points to distance (he's moved away, you've stopped talking, he's married into a new family) or to a worry you already had about his health, his drinking or his choices.

If the dream came with real grief, Freud's harder reading of it is further down the page.

Dreaming about your brother who has died

If your brother has died, dreaming of him is part of grieving him, and these dreams can be some of the most vivid you ever have. A dead person appearing alive is common enough that 54.1% of students in one large survey said they'd had that dream.^[2] Some people wake comforted and others shaken, and both are normal. What he said or did is worth writing down, since it often reflects something you still want to say to him or hear from him.

Dreaming about fighting with your brother

A fight with your brother in a dream is often a fight you never finished as kids, though the reason for it may be new. But it can be set in your childhood home, over something absurd like a toy or the remote, and still be about something current. It might be an inheritance, care for an aging parent, or how differently you've turned out. If you couldn't land a single blow, look at where you feel powerless with him today. Fighting dreams in general are covered on the page about fighting.

Dreaming about your brother in trouble

Your brother is lost, arrested, drowning or calling for help, and you can't reach him. These dreams usually come from worry and responsibility, especially if you're the older sibling. The oldest version of the question is Cain's "Am I my brother's keeper?", asked right after he has killed Abel.^[4] The dream may be asking how much of your brother's life you think is yours to fix.

Dreaming about a brother you don't have

An only child or someone with sisters may dream of a brother who feels completely real. This is one of the clearest cases of a dream character standing for part of yourself, and the Jung section below says which part.

Dreaming about your brother as a child

Seeing your adult brother as the boy he was usually takes you back to the family as it used to be. It can come when something has stirred up childhood memories, like a visit home or an old photo, and it can show how you still see him, since many of us never update the picture of a younger brother, even when he's forty and has children of his own.

Dreaming about your brother according to Jung and Freud

A brother is a real person with a long history and also a figure a dream can borrow for something else, and each man's ideas lean on one of those.

Freud: the old rivalry

Freud wrote at length about dreams of a loved one's death, one of his typical dreams.^[1] When the one who dies is a brother or sister and the dream comes with real grief, he looked back to childhood, to an old wish to have the parents to yourself. That wish, in his view, belongs to the child you were and not to the adult who dreams it. You don't have to agree with him to find the question useful, which is whether any rivalry is left between you that you'd rather not admit.

Jung on the brother you don't have

An only child or someone with sisters may dream of a brother who feels completely real, and it's one of the clearest cases of a dream character standing for part of yourself. Jung described the shadow, the parts of yourself you'd prefer to disown, and noted that it tends to appear as a figure of your own sex.^[3] For a man, an unknown brother fits that closely. For a woman, a dream brother is more often a picture of the qualities she associates with men, like drive, nerve and bluntness, which Jung called the animus. And a brother you do have can play the same part when he acts out of character, as the bold or reckless one you're careful not to be.

Other readings

Artemidorus, a 2nd-century Greek diviner and the author of the earliest Greek dream book we still have, counted brothers among your enemies, since they share out what you'd otherwise have had alone.^[6] Ernest Hartmann, an American sleep researcher who directed a sleep disorders center near Boston, wrote down a darker case. One man survived the fire that killed his brother, and in his dream the roles were reversed: he was still inside the burning house while the others, his brother among them, got out. Hartmann called it survivor guilt.^[7]

The biblical and spiritual meaning of your brother in dreams

The Bible's best-known brothers are almost all rivals, which is why biblical readings of brother dreams so often turn to conflict.

Brothers in the Bible

Cain kills Abel out of jealousy over whose offering God preferred, and Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright. Joseph, the great dreamer of Genesis, dreams that his brothers' sheaves of wheat bow down to his, tells them, and is hated for it.^[5] If your dream had you competing for a parent's blessing, or for a place in the family, those stories sit behind it.

Questions to ask about your brother dream

Every family has its own history, and we all carry our own version of it, which is what decides the meaning here. Go back to the dream with a few questions.

• Was he the brother you know today, or the boy he used to be?
• Were you on the same side, or against each other?
• Who needed help, him or you?
• What has changed in his life, or between you, recently?
• What does he have, or do, that you secretly envy or fear?

Tell Oniri what your brother is like and how things are between you, and it reads the dream with that in mind, since no two families share the same brother.