Dreaming about
murder

Murder is the most extreme thing one person can do to another, and that's exactly why dreams use it. Dreaming about murder usually points to strong feelings you haven't expressed, like anger, fear, or the wish for something in your life to be over. It is not a hidden wish to hurt anyone, and it isn't a premonition, even when the dream feels terrifyingly real.

What decides the reading is your role. Witnessing a murder, being murdered, being accused of one and committing one are four different dreams, and so are the details, like who was involved and what you did afterwards. If you've been watching crime shows or listening to a true crime podcast before bed, start there.

What dreaming about murder means

In a murder story there's always a killer, a victim and someone trying to work out what happened. In a dream, you can be any of them, and each gives a different reading.

Fear of a threat

Many murder dreams are threat dreams. Being chased is the most common dream theme of all, remembered by about four in five people,^[3] and a murderer is the darkest version of the chaser. One theory holds that dreams like this rehearse danger, so the mind practices escaping while you sleep.^[1] Ask where you feel unsafe or under attack right now, at work, at home, or with someone specific.

Anger with nowhere to go

If you were the killer, the dream usually points to anger you haven't been able to show. It doesn't mean you want anyone dead. It means a feeling is bigger than the outlets you've given it, and the dream turns the volume to the maximum. The separate page on killing someone goes into this version.

Something you want to end

Murder ends something for good, and dreams sometimes borrow that. A job you can't leave, a relationship that's over in all but name or a habit you're sick of can turn into a murder at night, and who or what died is often a stand-in for the thing you want gone.

Dreaming about witnessing a murder

Watching a murder happen, and often being seen by the killer, is about seeing something you can't unsee. It can be a conflict between people you love, a betrayal at work or news that shocked you. If you had to hide or run afterwards, the dream may be about the fear of getting involved, or of what you'd have to do if you spoke up.

Dreaming about being murdered

Being the victim is a frightening dream, and usually about feeling powerless. Someone or something in your life feels like it's taking more than you can give, like a boss, a debt or a draining relationship. It's also a dream about endings, and some people have it during big changes, when part of their old life is being taken away.

Dreaming about being accused of murder

Being blamed for a murder you didn't commit is about guilt and unfairness. Maybe you've been held responsible for something at work or at home that wasn't your fault. It can also point to guilt you do feel, about a small thing that the dream inflates. If police were involved, ask who is judging you.

Dreaming about hiding a body

Hiding a dead body, in a garden, a freezer or under the floor, is about a secret or a mistake you're afraid will come out. The fear is rarely about the murder, but about being found out, and people who have this dream often have something minor they wish they'd admitted sooner.

Dreaming about murder according to Jung and Freud

This is the dream where the big theories sound most alarming, so it helps to be exact.

Jung: the killer you can't place

Jung called the shadow everything you've refused to own, and in dreams he found it in strangers and pursuers.^[4] The unknown murderer you watch from a doorway is a candidate in his terms, the part of you doing what the rest of you would never allow while the watching self stands by. Hiding a body is the same idea turned around, a part of you buried and kept from view. That's his idea applied (he wrote no murder reading), and it points at something you've refused to look at, not at anything you're about to do.

Freud: the true crime podcast and the wish

Freud traced part of a dream's imagery to the previous day and gave those leftovers a name, day residue.^[5] A crime show or a news story before bed is exactly that, and it's the first thing to rule out. He also held that dreams fulfill wishes in disguise, which is where the fear comes from that a murder dream exposes a hidden wish. Still, his method started from what the dreamer made of the images, so the useful question is who or what the victim reminds you of, and what you'd like to be over.

Other readings

Artemidorus, a Greek diviner whose five-book dream guide is the oldest from Greece to survive, read seeing people slaughtered as a good sign, one that whatever you had in hand had reached its end.^[6] He meant it as a forecast, which no dream can be, but it lines up with the idea above that a murder dream is often about something finishing.

Questions to ask about your murder dream

Your answers show which feeling was behind the crime.

• Were you the witness, the victim, the killer or the suspect?
• Did you know the people involved?
• What did you feel most: fear, anger, guilt or shock?
• Had you seen or heard anything about a murder before bed?

Oniri asks who was in a murder dream and what you felt before it reads one, so the dream is read as a story about your life, not a crime. Murder nightmares that wake you night after night are worth raising with a doctor, and this guide to stopping nightmares has steps you can start on tonight.