Dreaming about
a squirrel

In autumn a squirrel buries thousands of nuts and acorns, each one in a separate hiding place, and digs them up through the winter by memory and smell. It finds most of them, but not all, and the ones it forgets grow into trees. Dreaming about a squirrel usually comes back to that habit of saving for later, whether money, time or energy, and to the worry about running out.

What the squirrel was doing changes everything. One busy burying nuts is a dream about planning ahead, one darting everywhere is about restlessness, and one loose in your attic or biting your hand is about small worries getting where they shouldn't. Your own mood matters too, since some people find squirrels charming and others see rats with good publicity.

What dreaming about a squirrel means

Squirrels are quick, nervous and very good at planning, and the readings come from those three traits.

Saving for later

English has "squirrel away" for putting something aside in secret, a bit of money, a bar of chocolate, a plan. If the squirrel in your dream was hoarding, look at what you're storing up and why. It might be sensible preparation for a hard stretch ahead, or anxiety about never having enough, and how the dream felt usually tells you which.

Restless energy

Squirrels rarely stop moving, and when chased they zigzag to throw off a predator. A dream full of squirrel energy can be about a stretch where you're doing too many things at once, jumping between tasks without finishing any. It can also be about a scattered mind at night, the thoughts that run up and down while you try to sleep.

What you've forgotten

The nuts a squirrel forgets become oak trees years later. A squirrel dream can be about things you put aside and lost track of, a skill, a friendship, an old plan, that may have grown into something while you weren't looking.

Dreaming about a squirrel gathering nuts

This is the most common squirrel dream and usually a calm one. It tends to come when you're preparing for something, saving for a move, building up savings before a baby, or stocking up energy before a busy season at work. If the squirrel was frantic, the preparation may have tipped into worry.

Dreaming about a squirrel in your house

Squirrels are a real nuisance in attics, where they chew wires and nest in insulation, and the sound of them scratching inside the walls at night is hard to ignore. In a dream it's usually about restless thoughts in your own house, the worries that keep you up, or about something small that has got into your private life and is quietly doing damage.

Dreaming about a squirrel biting you

A bite from a small, nervous animal is about a minor conflict that hurt more than it should, often with someone who felt threatened by you. If you were feeding the squirrel when it bit you, think about where kindness or generosity has been taken badly.

Dreaming about feeding a squirrel

Coaxing a squirrel to eat from your hand is about patience and trust, slowly winning over someone shy or wary. It can also be about being the one who provides for others. If the squirrel kept coming back for more, the dream may be about someone who has learned you'll always give.

The gossip in the tree

Norse myth has a squirrel called Ratatoskr who runs up and down the world tree, Yggdrasil, carrying insults between the eagle at the top and the dragon gnawing at the roots. It's an unusual picture of a squirrel, as a gossip who keeps a fight going. If the squirrel in your dream was carrying something between two people, or running between floors of a building, ask who in your life passes on messages, and whether they help. English adds a phrase of its own, "going nuts", for a stretch of squirrel-like energy.

Dreaming about a squirrel according to Jung and Freud

Squirrels aren't in either man's writing, so these readings apply his ideas to what a squirrel does.

Jung on saving and spending

Jung thought dreams make up for what your daytime attitudes leave out,^[2] which gives the squirrel two opposite jobs. For someone who spends everything the week it arrives, a squirrel burying nuts is the planner who's missing. For someone who hoards and worries, a squirrel darting about for no reason is the missing play.

Freud on the small ones in the walls

Freud wrote that small animals and vermin in dreams stand for small children, often unwanted siblings.^[3] A squirrel in the attic is closer to vermin than most dream animals, and the scratching in the walls is the part a Freudian reading would take up: who in the house is small, noisy and hard to get out of the way? That applies his list, and he'd have wanted your own associations before accepting it.

Questions to ask about your squirrel dream

The squirrel's mood, calm or frantic, is the first thing to look at, because it usually mirrors yours.

• Was it storing food, darting around, or coming at you?
• Was it outdoors in the trees, or inside your home?
• Did you feed it, chase it, or watch it?
• What are you saving up for, or worried about running out of?

Squirrels are everywhere in parks, and seeing one the day before can be enough to put one in your dream.^[1] Oniri asks about details like these before it reads the dream.