Dreaming about
a key

Keys are small, easy to lose and very hard to do without, and whoever holds them decides who gets in. So dreaming about a key is usually about access and control. It tends to point to an opportunity opening up, to a secret being kept, or to the question of who decides what in your life. People who carry a heavy bunch of keys at work (caretakers, managers, nurses) dream about them for their own good reasons, too.

What happened with the key tells you most about the dream, more than its size or shape. A key you find in an old drawer and a set of keys you can't find when you're late are opposite dreams. Then there's what was behind the door (a room, a car, a box, a prison cell), which usually points to the part of your life that's on your mind.

What dreaming about a key means

A key does one job, which is to open or close one particular lock. That makes it a good picture of anything only one thing can solve, and of anyone with the power to let you in or keep you out.

An opportunity opening

The most hopeful key dream is about access, a door opening that had been closed. It often comes when a new job, a relationship or a chance to move is on the horizon. We talk about "the key to success" and "the key to her heart", and dreams borrow that language. A key that opened a room you didn't know was there may point to a possibility, in your life or in yourself, that you're only now discovering.

Control and responsibility

Whoever has the keys is in charge, from a landlord to a jailer to a parent who lets you back in at night. A dream of holding the keys can be about responsibility you've been handed, welcome or not. But being without them points to feeling dependent on someone else's say-so. If someone took your keys away, ask who in your life has been making decisions for you.

A secret kept or revealed

Keys protect diaries, safes, drawers and doors, so a key dream is often about something hidden. In the old tale of Bluebeard, a new wife is given every key in the castle and forbidden to use one of them, and of course she does. If you were tempted to open something in your dream, or afraid of someone else opening it, look at what you're keeping locked away, or what you suspect someone is keeping from you.

Dreaming about losing your keys

Losing your keys is the version most people know from real life, and it often comes straight from a hectic week. As a meaning, it's about feeling shut out or unprepared, unable to get into your own life the way you used to, usually when too much is happening at once. If you lost someone else's keys, the dream may be about a responsibility you feel you've let slip. Finding them again before you woke suggests you feel you can get things back under control.

Dreaming about finding a key

Finding a key, especially an old one you don't recognize, is about discovering a way in. It may point to a solution you've stumbled on, a talent you'd forgotten or a part of your past you're ready to look at. If you never found out what it opened, the dream is about possibility without a plan yet. And if you went looking for the lock, the door or box you found is worth a thought.

Dreaming about a key that won't fit

A key that won't fit or won't turn is a dream of frustration. You're doing what should work and it doesn't, perhaps in a job application, a conversation or a relationship where the old approach has stopped working. If it was your own front door, the dream may be about feeling locked out of your own home life, or of a house that doesn't feel like yours any more. Did you keep trying key after key? Then ask whether you're forcing a solution that was never going to work.

Dreaming about a broken key

A key that snaps in the lock is worse than one that doesn't fit, because now nobody can get in. The dream often comes when a way forward has been closed off for good, a relationship that ended badly or a chance that won't come back. It can also be about losing a skill or confidence you used to rely on. Holding the two halves and trying to fix it points to hoping a damaged situation can still be saved.

Dreaming about being given a key

Being handed a key is about trust, because someone is letting you into their home, their life or their confidence. Who gave it to you? It matters. A key from a partner can be about moving in together or taking a relationship further, while one from a boss can be about new responsibility. If you hesitated to take it, think about what you'd be agreeing to.

Dreaming about a bunch of keys

A heavy bunch of keys is about responsibility, all the doors you're expected to open and close (and remember which is which). It's the dream of the person everyone relies on. If you couldn't find the right key, you may be juggling so many roles that you've lost track of which one a situation needs. A ring you didn't recognize can be about responsibilities you've taken on without quite agreeing to them.

Dreaming about a key according to Jung and Freud

A key isn't among the objects either man named, so these are their ideas set against a key and its lock.

Jung: the key and the shut-away room

Jung distrusted ready-made lists of what objects mean, and a key shows why, since what it opens decides everything.^[1] Applied through his idea of the shadow, the part of you that doesn't fit the self you show, a locked room or a box you can't open is where that part is kept. The dream hands you the means to get in and leaves the turning to you, so a key you hesitated to use says more than one you found by chance.

Freud: a key in a lock

Freud read long objects as male and rooms, boxes and cupboards as female.^[2] By that list a key turning in a lock puts one inside the other, and a key that won't turn or snaps could be about difficulty in intimacy. That's his list applied to keys, and it fits only if a key means that to you. He asked for your own associations first, and a dream about keys on the night after you lost yours needs no symbol at all.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of a key in dreams

Two texts give a key a place in a dream, and both are about authority.

Keys in the Bible

In the Bible, keys stand for authority, and they change hands at important moments. Jesus gives Peter "the keys of the kingdom of heaven", with the power to bind and to loose.^[3] And in Revelation the risen Christ says he holds "the keys of hell and of death".^[4] A spiritual reading of a key dream usually starts there, with who has authority over a part of your life, and whether you've been trusted with some of it.

Keys in Sahih al-Bukhari

Sahih al-Bukhari, which Sunni Muslims rank first among the collections of the Prophet Muhammad's sayings, reports a dream of his in which the keys to the treasures of the earth were put in his hand. Abu Huraira, who passes the report on, links it to the conquests that came later.^[5] Islamic belief counts a prophet's dream as revelation, which is another matter from yours, so this report describes a key in a dream and doesn't decode yours.

Questions to ask about your key dream

A key only makes sense next to its lock, so most of these questions are about the door.

• Did you find, lose, use or get given the key?
• What was it meant to open, and did it work?
• Who else had keys, or who took yours?
• Is there an opportunity, or a secret, on your mind right now?
• Where do you feel shut out, or in charge?

Oniri asks what the key opened and who was there before reading your dream, so losing your car keys and finding the key to a secret room never get the same answer.