Dreaming about
eyes

Your eyes are closed for the whole of a dream, and yet they're busy. In REM sleep (the stage that gives us most of our vivid dreams) they dart back and forth under the lids as if they were following the action. So it's no surprise that eyes turn up in dreams in strange ways, eyes you can't open, eyes that bleed, eyes on every wall. Dreaming about eyes is usually about awareness, meaning something you're seeing clearly for the first time, something you'd rather not look at, or the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

Two things decide the reading, whose eyes they were and what happened to them. Your own eyes failing you is a different dream from a stranger's eyes fixed on you, and a pair of black eyes in a mirror is a third thing again. And some eye dreams have a simple physical cause, so rule that out first.

What dreaming about eyes means

We use sight for understanding all the time without noticing, as in "I see what you mean", "seeing eye to eye", "turning a blind eye". Dreams take those phrases literally.

Seeing clearly, or not wanting to

Clear, open eyes in a dream often come with a moment of understanding, when you've finally seen through someone or worked out what you want. But closed, covered or hurt eyes are the opposite, a part of you that would rather not look. Is there something in your relationship, your health or your money that you know is there and keep not checking? "Turning a blind eye" is what the dream is picturing.

Being watched

Eyes that watch you, from a crowd or a dark window or a wall covered in them, are about feeling observed and judged. It's a common dream when you've started a new job, put yourself online, or done something you're worried people will find out about. Ask whose opinion you're bracing for. It's often one person, even when the dream shows a hundred eyes.

Connection

Looking into someone's eyes is one of the most intimate things people do. A dream where you held someone's gaze, or couldn't, is often about closeness with that person, how open you are with them and how much you let them see. But if you couldn't meet their eyes, look for guilt or shyness around them (or a secret you're keeping from them).

Dreaming about not being able to open your eyes

This is one of the most frustrating dreams people have, trying to see and finding your eyelids too heavy to lift. Part of it is physical. During dream sleep your eyes really are shut and your body is held still, and the dream can pick that up. If it happens just as you're waking, and you can't move either, it may be sleep paralysis, which is harmless and passes within a minute or two (here's how to cut it short). As a symbol, it's usually about struggling to face something you can sense but can't look at directly.

Dreaming about your eyes bleeding

Bleeding eyes are about pain connected to what you've seen. Something you witnessed (a scene, a message on someone's phone, a photo) may have hurt more than you've let yourself feel. It can also be crying you haven't done, tears turned into blood because the grief is that strong. If someone else's eyes were bleeding, ask whether you think they've seen something painful, or caused it.

Dreaming about losing an eye

An eye falling out or being lost is a frightening image, and it's usually about losing perspective. One eye can see but can't judge distance well, so the dream may be about seeing only one side of a situation, your own, and missing the depth. It can also be about losing your sense of direction after a big change, a breakup or a job loss. If you put the eye back, you're getting your bearings again.

Dreaming about going blind

Losing your sight in a dream is about losing your way, or being kept in the dark. It's common during times of uncertainty, when you can't see what's coming next, and when you feel someone is hiding something from you. If you were blind and someone led you, look at who you're relying on right now. And if you were calm, you may be learning to trust your other senses, your gut most of all.

Dreaming about eyes watching you

Eyes in the dark, eyes on walls, eyes that follow you are about being watched, by others or by your own conscience. What color were they? Red or glowing eyes tend to feel hostile, a threat or anger aimed at you. Completely black eyes feel empty, like someone you can't read, or a side of you that has gone quiet. And if the eyes belonged to a person you know, the dream is often about how much you care what they think.

Dreaming about something in your eye

A speck in your eye that you can't get out is a small irritation that blurs everything. It often points to a minor problem that's spoiling your view of a bigger thing, a comment that colored a whole evening, a habit of a partner's that you can't stop noticing. Jesus's saying about the mote and the beam fits here too. Before taking the speck out of your brother's eye, he says, take the beam out of your own.^[2] The dream may be asking which one you're looking at.

Dreaming about eyes according to Jung and Freud

There's no eye reading from either man to point to, but being watched, and wanting to be, runs through both.

Jung: the mask under inspection

Jung's persona is the mask a person shows the world.^[3] A wall of eyes is that mask under inspection, the face you've arranged for other people and the dread that it will slip. Where the page above asks whose opinion you're bracing for, his idea asks which version of yourself you've been wearing for them. And your own eyes gone black in a mirror fit his shadow, the disowned side, which turns up as a stranger, here one wearing your face.^[3]

Freud: the look and the wish

Among Freud's typical dreams is standing naked among strangers who don't care, a dream of being looked at,^[4] and he held that any dream is a wish in disguise. Applied his way, a wall of eyes may hide a wish to be seen that you'd never admit awake, let through dressed as dread. An eye that bleeds or won't open would send him back to the day before, to something you saw and wished you hadn't.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of eyes in dreams

Two old ideas about eyes still shape how people read these dreams.

The eye in the Bible

"The light of the body is the eye," Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, and if your eye is clear, your whole body is full of light, while a dark eye leaves everything in darkness.^[1] In a spiritual reading, an eye dream is about how you're looking at the world, generously or darkly, and what that does to the rest of your life.

The evil eye

Around the Mediterranean, the Middle East and South Asia, many people believe an envious look can cause harm, and blue glass eye charms hang in homes, cars and shops to turn it away. Dreaming of the evil eye, or of a charm breaking, usually points to worry about envy, someone else's toward you or yours toward them. The belief is about how much other people's feelings can weigh on us, and the dream is often about the same thing.

Questions to ask about your eye dream

Eye dreams are vivid but easy to misread, so a few plain questions help sort them out.

• Were these your eyes or someone else's?
• Could you see clearly, or were your eyes closed, hurt or gone?
• Were you being watched, and by whom?
• What have you been avoiding looking at lately?
• Did you wake up unable to move, or with sore, dry eyes?

Describe whose eyes they were when you give Oniri the dream, because eyes you couldn't open and eyes that wouldn't stop looking at you lead to very different readings.