Dreaming about
dragons

Dragons turn up in the myths of almost every part of the world, and they mean nearly opposite things depending on where you look. In European stories the dragon burns villages and sleeps on stolen gold until a hero kills it, while in China it brings the rain, stands for the emperor, and is the luckiest zodiac sign to many families. So dreaming about dragons usually points to power: a big fear or an angry person you feel at the mercy of, a challenge you'll have to face, or a strength of your own you haven't learned to use.

What happened between you and the dragon tells you which. Running from a dragon, fighting one and flying on its back are three different dreams, and it helps to know which dragons you grew up with, since someone raised on fairy tales and someone raised on Chinese New Year parades won't meet the same creature.

What dreaming about dragons means

A dragon is a snake made huge, with wings, claws and fire added (we gave it all the things we fear most). That mix of the oldest animal fear with impossible power gives most of its meanings.

A temper you're on the receiving end of

Dragons breathe fire, and English calls a fierce, frightening person "a dragon", often a boss or a relative everyone tiptoes around. If the dragon in your dream raged, scorched things or roared at you, look for an angry person in your life whose moods decide everyone's day. It can also be your own anger, especially if you've been keeping it in and it's started leaking out in sharp remarks.

A challenge you have to face

In the old stories someone always has to fight the dragon, from Saint George to Beowulf to Sigurd, who killed the dragon Fafnir in Norse legend. "Slaying your dragons" means facing the thing you fear most. A dragon dream often comes before a test of that kind, like a hard conversation, a court case, an operation, or a move you've put off for years. But it isn't a prediction of how things will go, only a picture of how big they feel.

Something you're guarding

European dragons hoard gold they can't spend, and they kill anyone who touches it. A dragon on a pile of treasure can be about something you hold on to too tightly, like money, a person, a secret, or a role you won't share. Or the dragon is someone else, guarding something you want, and the dream asks how you plan to get past them.

Your own power

In modern stories people ride dragons, raise them and fly them into battle. A dragon on your side, or one you rode, is often about strength you've stopped being afraid of, like ambition, anger turned into drive, or a talent that frightened you because it was so big. If the dragon obeyed you, you're growing into that power.

Dreaming about fighting or killing a dragon

This is the hero's dream, and it's usually a good sign about you. Fighting a dragon means you're facing something you've avoided, and killing it means you feel you can beat it. If the fight was long and you were losing, the challenge is real and you know it, and if you won easily, the fear may have been bigger than the problem all along. Notice what you fought with, a sword, your bare hands or your voice.

Dreaming about a dragon attacking you

A dragon attack is pressure or anger coming at you from someone who holds more power, like a parent, a boss or a partner with a temper. Fire is the detail to look at. Being burned is being hurt by someone's words or rage, and seeing your house burn is about damage to your home life or your security. Did you hide, run or stand your ground? That's often what you do when you're awake, too.

Dreaming about riding a dragon

Flying on a dragon is one of the most exciting dreams people describe, close to the feeling of flying on your own but with far more power under you. It usually points to a big force in your life that you've learned to work with, your own drive, a demanding job, a relationship with a strong person. If you felt in control, you're handling it, but if you were clinging on for dear life, the power may be running you.

Dreaming about a dragon guarding treasure

Gold in a dragon's cave is something precious that's very hard to reach, guarded by a fear. It can be a goal behind a frightening first step, or love behind someone's defenses. What was the gold, for you, and what was the dragon? And could the dragon be the very fear that keeps you from trying?

Dreaming about a Chinese dragon

Chinese dragons have no wings and fly anyway, long and snake-like, ruling over rain, rivers and seas. For centuries the dragon was the emperor's emblem, and dragon dances still open the New Year. A Chinese dragon in your dream is usually a good-feeling one, about luck, strength and power used well, and if it brought rain, look at what's been dry in your life.

Dreaming about Komodo dragons

The Komodo dragon is real, the largest lizard alive, found on a few Indonesian islands and able to bring down a deer with its bite. In a dream it's a real-world threat rather than a mythical one, a danger that looks slow and lazy until it isn't, or a person like that, harmless and patient and then not. Like the snakes and crocodiles of other dreams, it's the cold, ancient kind of fear.

Dreaming about dragons according to Jung and Freud

The snake is where both men had most to say, and a dragon is a snake with wings, claws and fire.

Jung: the serpent made enormous

For Jung the serpent was a symbol of instinct and the unconscious, at once dangerous and healing.^[1] Dragons aren't among the images his lists single out, so this is his serpent scaled up, the same instinctive power too big now to ignore. Lay the old myths beside it and they agree on how the story goes, since the hero who faces the dragon leaves with the gold. Your fight is then about coming to terms with that power, and the treasure is what it gives back.

Freud: the temper at home

Freud put snakes on his list of male symbols,^[4] and he read kings and emperors in dreams as the dreamer's parents. The dragon was an emperor's emblem in China, so applied his way an angry dragon is a parent, or someone who stands in for one. That fits the commonest reading above, the boss or relative whose temper decides the day. Which of them it is, he'd have left to your own associations.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of dragons in dreams

The dragon in the Bible

Revelation has a war break out in heaven, and "the great dragon", "that old serpent, called the Devil", is thrown down to earth with his angels.^[2] In Psalm 91 the faithful are promised that they will trample the lion and the dragon under their feet.^[3] A dragon dream read through scripture is about evil or temptation, and about not being powerless against it.

A black dragon in a Chinese dream book

The Chinese dream books found at Dunhuang, copied between the ninth and eleventh centuries, pair each image with an outcome. One entry lists seeing a black dragon as great riches for the family.^[5] It is the book's prediction, not a reading of your dream, and it sits well with the lucky dragon of the Chinese tradition above.

Questions to ask about your dragon dream

Dragons look the same in every film, but they never mean quite the same thing in two dreams, so start with these.

• Did you fight the dragon, run from it, or ride it?
• What color was it, and did it breathe fire?
• Was it guarding something, and what?
• Who in your life has a temper that scares people?
• What challenge have you been putting off that feels dragon-sized?

Put your answers in when you tell Oniri the dream, since a dragon you rode and a dragon that burned your house down are read from opposite ends.