Dreaming about
your father

Your father is often the first authority you ever knew, the person whose rules, moods and approval shaped what you thought of as right. So dreaming about your father usually reflects two things at once: your real relationship with him, and your relationship with authority, approval and judgment in general. A father who praises you, one who turns away and one who's frail in a hospital bed are three different dreams.

What changes the reading most is how he behaved and what's happening in your life. Dreams about fathers spike around big decisions, new jobs, becoming a parent yourself and his getting older. Whether he's alive, close or far away also matters, and so does the version of him that shows up (the dad of your childhood, or the man he is now).

What dreaming about your father means

A father in a dream rarely stands for one simple thing, because few relationships carry as many roles. Most father dreams lean on one of these four, and some on all of them.

Authority and approval

Fathers are many people's first picture of authority, and a dream father often stands in for anyone who judges your work or your choices. That could be a boss, a teacher, a partner's parent, or your own inner critic (which often sounds suspiciously like him). If he was disappointed in you in the dream, ask whose disappointment you're really afraid of. If he was proud of you, the dream may be giving you the approval you've been waiting for from someone, sometimes from yourself.

The relationship as it is

Sometimes the dream is just about him, which is easy to overlook when you're hunting for symbols. A conversation you never had, a phone call you keep putting off or an old argument can all come back at night, and if the dream father behaved exactly like the real one, take the dream at face value.

Protection and provision

Many people's earliest sense of safety is tied to a parent who kept things running, with the bills paid, the car working and the monsters out of the closet. A father driving the car, fixing something or standing in a doorway is often about feeling protected, or missing that feeling, and it's common in dreams of people going through a hard time with nobody to lean on.

Becoming like him

Most of us end up a little like our parents, whether we wanted to or not, and dreams notice. Wearing your father's clothes, sitting in his chair or speaking with his voice can show you noticing the resemblance, with pride or alarm, often when you've just taken on a role he used to have, like running a business or raising a child.

Dreaming about arguing with your father

A fight with your father in a dream is often an old fight in a new setting. It can come when you've made a choice you know he wouldn't approve of, or when someone else is treating you the way he used to. But if you finally said what you never said in real life, notice how it felt. These dreams can be a rehearsal for a conversation you need to have, or a release for one you'll never have.

Dreaming about your father being angry with you

Being shouted at or coldly ignored by a father in a dream usually reflects guilt or fear of disapproval. It tends to show up after you've broken a rule, yours or someone else's, or when you're about to. And ask whether the anger belongs to him or to you. Many people carry an inner voice that sounds exactly like a parent, and the dream lets it speak.

Dreaming about your father being sick or old

Seeing your father weak, confused or in hospital can be frightening, but it usually reflects a change you're already noticing. Parents age and roles reverse, so the man who used to carry you on his shoulders now needs a hand on the stairs, and the dream shows your worry about that, or your sense that you're now the one in charge. If you're actually caring for an aging father, it's simply your days continuing at night.

Dreaming about your father leaving

A father who walks out, drives away or can't be found is a dream about absence. If your father did leave, or was emotionally absent, a recent loss or rejection may have touched an old hurt. If he didn't, it may be about losing guidance, after a mentor moves on or when you face a decision alone.

Dreaming about your father giving you advice

A father who sits you down and tells you what to do is one of the oldest dream figures there is. Listen to what he said, because it often turns out to be your own good sense in a voice you trust. If the advice was wrong, or felt like an order, the dream may be asking whose rules you're still following.

Dreaming about your father dying

This dream doesn't foretell anything, however real it felt. If your father has already died, dreaming of him alive is extremely common, and 54.1% of students in one survey had dreamed of a dead person as alive.^[3] Those dreams are part of grief, and usually a gentle part.

Dreaming about your father according to Jung and Freud

Jung and Freud each had a stock role for a father in a dream, a guide for one and a king for the other.

Jung: the wise old man behind the father

One of Jung's archetypes is the wise old man, who can turn up in a dream as a doctor, a priest, a professor, a grandfather, a magician or any authority figure.^[1] He's the one who knows the way. Carried over to fathers (our application), a father who sits you down with advice has taken that seat. The question then is less "what does my dad think?" and more "what do I already know but haven't trusted?"

Freud: kings, emperors and a parent's death

For Freud, royalty in a dream was usually family in disguise, with the king or emperor playing the father and the queen or empress the mother.^[2] A king in your dream is a cue to ask about your father, and, stretching his idea a little, so is a judge or a general. His approach also rests on what you associate with the figure, so begin with the first memory of your father that comes to mind. He wrote at length about dreams of a parent's death too, and noticed they usually concern the parent of the dreamer's own sex.^[2]

Other readings

Artemidorus, a Greek writer who set down the Oneirocritica in the 2nd century, counted parents among the figures whose words in a dream can be trusted, together with gods, priests, kings and teachers.^[5] What they say, he held, is true, while a fortune-teller's sayings are false. He read dreams as forecasts, which this page doesn't, but his point about who is speaking makes a father's advice worth hearing out.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of your father in dreams

Joseph's boyhood dream of the sun, the moon and eleven stars is the best-known father-and-child dream story in two scriptures.

Jacob and Joseph's dream in Genesis

In Genesis, the young Joseph dreams that the sun, the moon and eleven stars bow down to him. His father Jacob rebukes him, reading the dream at once as his parents and brothers, but he also keeps the saying in mind.^[4] It's one of the oldest records of a father hearing his child's ambitions, irritated and quietly impressed at once.

Joseph and his father in the Quran

In the Quran's telling, Joseph brings the dream straight to his father, and Jacob's answer is protective, telling him to keep it from his brothers because they might plot against him.^[6]

Questions to ask about your father dream

A father dream is personal, so the reading starts with your own history, which nobody else can fill in for you. Run through these questions.

• Was he the father you know now, or the one from your childhood?
• What did he want from you, and what did you want from him?
• Who else in your life judges you the way he did in the dream?
• Have you recently made a decision he'd have something to say about?
• What part of him do you see in yourself these days?

Oniri asks you what your father is like and what's going on between you before it reads the dream. A silent father and a proud one need very different readings.