Dreaming about
hiding

Everyone learned to hide as a child, behind a curtain, under a bed or at the back of a closet, holding their breath while someone counted to twenty. Dreaming about hiding usually brings back that same mix of fear and stillness. It means you're avoiding something, whether a person, a conflict or a feeling you'd rather not have, or keeping a secret you're afraid will come out.

There are two very different hiding dreams. In one, you're the thing hidden, crouched somewhere while someone looks for you. In the other, you're hiding something else, an object or, quite often, a body. The first is usually about avoidance and the second about guilt or shame, and who or what you were hiding from decides the rest.

What dreaming about hiding means

Hiding works only as long as you keep still and quiet, and it leaves you stuck in one small place. That's often exactly how the situation behind the dream feels.

Avoiding something

Most hiding dreams are about avoidance. There's a conversation you've put off, an email you haven't opened, a person you've stopped answering. The dream gives that avoidance a body, and you, cramped behind a door, waiting for it to pass. How long had you been hiding? A dream where you've been in the closet for hours is often about something you've been dodging for months.

Keeping a secret

If you were hiding something rather than yourself, the dream is usually about a secret. It might be big or small, a debt, a relationship, a part of your past or simply something you think about yourself and don't say. English talks about "skeletons in the closet", and dreams take that quite literally. The fear in the dream tends to match how much it would cost you if the secret came out.

Needing a break from the world

Not every hiding dream is anxious. Sometimes you're hiding somewhere cozy, like a fort or an attic or a corner nobody knows about, and it feels like relief. That usually means you need time alone, away from demands. If the hiding place felt safe, ask where in waking life you could get some of that quiet.

Dreaming about hiding a dead body

This is one of the most common and most alarming hiding dreams, and it has nothing to do with being violent. A dead body you need to hide usually stands for something from the past you feel guilty or ashamed about, or a problem you've buried and never solved. Many people have the same dream for years. If the body was starting to be discovered, the matter may be coming back to the surface in your life.

Dreaming about hiding from someone

Who you were hiding from is the key. Hiding from a parent or a teacher often points to old guilt or a fear of disapproval, hiding from the police to feeling you've broken a rule. Hiding from an ex or a partner can be about a conversation you're avoiding. If you couldn't see the seeker, only hear footsteps, the threat may be something you haven't put a name to yet.

Dreaming about being chased and hiding

Hiding during a chase mixes two classic dreams. Being chased is usually about running from something, and hiding is the moment you stop running but still won't face it. One theory holds that chase dreams like these are the brain rehearsing escape from danger while you sleep.^[2] If the chaser walked right past you, you may be getting away with avoiding the issue for now. If you were found, it may be catching up.

Dreaming about hiding something

Hiding money, a letter, a phone or a gift is about privacy and control. Ask what the object means in your life. A phone is usually about communication you're keeping to yourself, money about security or a debt, a letter about something you know and haven't told. Hiding a present is the happy version, about a surprise you're planning.

Dreaming about hiding according to Jung and Freud

Jung: the shadow you keep out of sight

Jung's shadow is the part of yourself you've pushed out of sight, and he found it often appears as a stranger of your own sex who follows or intrudes.^[1] Hiding is a fair picture of the shadow's own situation, since a trait you've disowned is something you keep out of sight too. So the hider and the seeker can both be you, the anger or ambition or need hidden and hunted at once. The question his idea leaves is what you would have to accept about yourself to come out of hiding. The step to hiding dreams is ours.

Freud: a dream that does what dreams do

Freud's account of dreaming is itself about hiding. The dream you remember is a cover for what it's really about, and the dreamer's associations are how you lift the cover.^[3] A dream where you hide something, a body in the garage or a letter in a drawer, shows that process on screen, and he'd have you talk about the hidden thing before anything else. What it was, who mustn't find it and what finding it would cost you are the first associations to chase.

Questions to ask about your hiding dream

Before reading anything into it, go back to the hiding place in your mind, since where you hid and from whom carry most of it.

• Were you hiding yourself or hiding something?
• Who or what were you hiding from?
• Where did you hide, and did it feel safe?
• Were you found?
• What have you been avoiding, or keeping quiet, lately?

Guilt and a plain need for quiet can both send you into a closet in a dream, so Oniri asks where you hid and from whom before reading it.