Dreaming about
roses

No flower has been asked to say as much as the rose. People give red ones on Valentine's Day, white ones at weddings and funerals, yellow ones to friends, and a single rose left on a pillow means something a whole bunch of tulips couldn't. Dreaming about roses usually points to love and desire, to being cared for or wanting to be, and to how things stand in your romantic life right now.

The color, the thorns and who the roses came from all change the reading. A bouquet from your partner is a different dream from one left by a stranger, and a fresh rose is not a wilted one. Then think about who you've been longing for, or loving, or missing.

What dreaming about roses means

The rose has thorns, it opens slowly, and it fades quickly once cut. Most rose dreams are built on one of those three facts.

Love and desire

Roses are the language of romance, so the plainest reading is about love. A dream of them often comes with a new crush, an anniversary, a relationship getting serious, or a time when you're hoping for more romance than you're getting. The more the roses delighted you in the dream, the more likely it's about something you want.

Love that hurts

The old saying that every rose has its thorn turns up in dreams more literally than you might expect. Roses that cut you, or that came from someone who has hurt you, are about love with a cost, a relationship where you take the pain along with the sweetness. Ask what the thorns would be in your own life.

Something opening slowly

A rose bud takes days to open, petal by petal, and a rose opening in a dream can be about a feeling, a person or a part of you unfolding gently, often with a sense of care behind it.

Dreaming of a bouquet of roses

Being handed a bouquet of roses is a dream about being loved, noticed or thanked. Who gave it to you is the key. From a partner, it often mirrors the relationship, and how you felt holding the flowers says more than the flowers do. From an ex, it can be about longing or unfinished business. From a stranger or with no card, the dream may be about a wish for attention, or unease about attention you didn't ask for. Giving a bouquet points to someone you want to show your feelings to.

Dreaming about red roses

Red roses are passion. They often appear when desire is on your mind, a new attraction, a spark you hope to rekindle, or a love you haven't admitted to. A field of red roses can be about abundance in love. If the red felt too deep, close to the color of blood, the dream may be about a love that feels intense, possessive or a little dangerous.

Dreaming about white or yellow roses

White roses belong to weddings and funerals both, so they're about beginnings and endings. A white rose dream can be about commitment, a wedding on your mind, or grief for someone gone. Yellow roses traditionally mean friendship, and they tend to show up when a friendship is changing, getting closer or drifting. A pink or a mixed bunch softens all of this toward affection and gratitude.

Dreaming about rose thorns

A thorn in your finger while picking a rose is the price of beauty. It often comes when you've been hurt by someone you love, or when you're scared that getting closer to someone will cost you. If you kept picking roses despite the thorns, the dream may be saying you've decided the love is worth it. A rose stem covered only in thorns, with no flower, is a love that has become mostly pain.

Dreaming about dead roses

Wilted or dried roses are love that has faded, or a memory of it. They often appear after a breakup, a loss, or during a long relationship that feels less alive than it used to. Some people keep dried roses for years, though, and if the roses in your dream were pressed in a book or kept with care, the dream is more about cherishing a memory than about loss.

Roses and secrets

In old Europe a rose hung over a council table meant that whatever was said there stayed secret, which is the usual story behind the Latin phrase sub rosa, under the rose. A rose in an odd place in a dream, over a door or on a table between you and someone else, can carry that hidden meaning, something said in confidence or a secret love.

Dreaming about roses according to Jung and Freud

Jung: the rose as a vessel

Jung's essay on the mother archetype names vessel-shaped flowers, the rose among them, as one of the forms the mother can take.^[1] A rose is a cup of petals, so one that opens slowly in your hands, or that comes from someone who looks after you, may be about being mothered more than being courted.

Freud: the bouquet with no card

Freud's two rules were that a wish shows up in the dream already fulfilled and that the material comes from the day before,^[2] and a bouquet left at the door with no card fits both. The day before may hold a florist you passed or a Valentine's display, and the wish is in the question of who you hoped sent it. He thought the wish often arrives in disguise, so a sender with no face can be the dream's way of not saying a name.

Other readings

Artemidorus, a Greek dream diviner of the 2nd century AD who gathered readings in the marketplaces of Greece, Asia and Italy, counted roses as good for everyone except the sick, since they wilt fast, and people trying to stay hidden, since the scent gives them away.^[3]

The biblical and spiritual meaning of roses in dreams

The rose of Sharon in the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs, the Bible's book of love poetry, has its speaker say "I am the rose of Sharon" in the second chapter.^[4] The rose there is a person in love.

Questions to ask about your rose dream

Roses are about love, so the questions are mostly about people.

• Who gave you the roses, or who were they for?
• What color were they, and were they fresh or faded?
• Did the thorns hurt you?
• Who have you been longing for, or missing, lately?

Oniri asks about these details before it reads a rose dream, since a bouquet from your partner and one from an ex can mean opposite things.