Dreaming about
a donkey

Donkeys have carried people's loads for thousands of years and get very little credit for it. They're called stubborn, used as an insult and given the dull jobs, which is why "donkey work" means the tedious part of anything. Dreaming about a donkey usually points to that feeling, of being overworked and taken for granted, or to a stubborn streak that may be more sensible than it looks.

What the donkey did and how you treated it decide the reading. A donkey patiently carrying a load is a different dream from one that plants its feet and refuses to move, and riding a donkey is different again. Whose donkey it was can matter as well, because a dream about your own beast of burden is often a dream about yourself.

What dreaming about a donkey means

Most readings of a donkey dream come from its two reputations, as a worker and as a mule-headed animal that won't be told.

Carrying everyone's load

If the donkey was loaded down, look at what you're carrying for other people. It might be the colleague whose work lands on your desk, the family member who calls only when they need something, or a household where you do the invisible jobs. The dream often comes when you've stopped noticing how much you do, and it puts the weight where you can see it.

Stubborn, or careful

A donkey that won't move is usually read as stubbornness. But donkeys tend to freeze and weigh up a danger instead of bolting from it like a horse, and some farmers keep them to guard sheep because they'll stand and fight a fox. If the donkey in your dream wouldn't budge, ask whether something is holding you back for a good reason. Your instinct may have spotted something your plans haven't.

Dreaming about riding a donkey

Riding a donkey is slow, a little undignified and very safe, and in a dream it's often about getting somewhere the humble way. It can come when you're starting small, taking a lower job or a cheaper route to something you want. If people laughed at you, the dream may be about pride. If you rode it calmly while others galloped past on horses, it can be about trusting your own pace.

Dreaming about a donkey carrying a heavy load

This is the burden dream in its plainest form, close cousin of the overloaded camel. A donkey staggering under bags and boxes is often you, and the details of the load are worth reading, since work files, a child's school bag or someone else's suitcase each point somewhere specific. If the donkey sat down and refused to go on, take that as permission to put something down before your body decides for you.

Dreaming about a donkey kicking you

Donkeys kick hard, and usually only when they've been pushed too far. A kick in a dream can be about someone patient who has finally snapped at you, or about your own temper after a long stretch of saying yes. If you'd been pushing or pulling the donkey just before, think about who in your life you might be driving too hard.

Dreaming about a talking donkey

A donkey that speaks is rare in dreams but hard to forget, and there's a famous one behind it. In the book of Numbers, Balaam's donkey sees an angel with a sword standing in the road, turns aside three times and gets beaten each time, until God opens her mouth and she asks Balaam why he's hitting her.^[1] Balaam can't see what the donkey sees. A talking donkey in your dream may be about advice from someone you don't take seriously, or about a part of you that has been trying to warn you.

Dreaming about a donkey according to Jung and Freud

A donkey does two things in dreams, carrying and refusing, and each man has something for one of them.

Jung: the persona with four legs

Jung's persona is the role you play in public.^[2] A donkey with other people's bags tied to it is that role with a body, the dependable one who always carries, and the dream shows what the mask costs. He never wrote about donkeys, so this fits his idea to one. It also puts the animal that plants its feet in a new light: if you pride yourself on being easygoing, the donkey that won't move may be the shadow, the side of you that you'd say you don't have.

Freud: the refusal you can't say

In Freud's account, the wish a dreamer can't voice openly is the one the dream puts in disguise.^[3] A donkey that kicks does what you haven't managed by day, refusing on behalf of a dreamer who has said yes for years, and nobody can blame the animal for it. The loaded one may carry a wish too, that someone would notice the weight. He would still ask what a donkey means to you first, so a seaside ride or a toy from childhood comes before any theory.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of a donkey in dreams

The donkey in the Bible

The Bible treats the donkey with more respect than everyday English does. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, in place of a war horse, fulfilling an older prophecy about a king who comes humbly.^[4] Christian tradition has long added a donkey to Mary's journey to Bethlehem, though the Gospels never mention one. If your donkey dream felt spiritual, humility and quiet service are the themes that tradition gives you.

The donkey in the Talmud

A donkey is on the Talmud's list of dream signs, and the rabbis read it as salvation, from Zechariah's picture of a king who comes humbly, riding on a donkey.^[5] It's the prophecy the Gospel scene above is built on, so the rabbis and the Gospels are reading the same picture.

Questions to ask about your donkey dream

The donkey often turns out to be someone you know, or you, so look at the relationship between you and it.

• Was the donkey yours, someone else's, or a stranger's?
• What was it carrying, and did it complain?
• Did it obey you, refuse, or turn on you?
• Who in your life does most of the unthanked work?

A donkey on a farm visit or in a nativity play earlier that week can be enough to explain the dream.^[6] Oniri asks about your week before it reads a dream, which is often where the donkey came from.