Dreaming about
toilets

The toilet is the most private room in any house (or the bathroom it sits in), the one with a lock on the door even in families that never lock anything else. So it's no surprise that dreaming about toilets is usually about two things: getting rid of something you no longer need, and privacy. It's also one of the few dream images that can come straight from the body, since a full bladder at 4am has a way of turning into a long search for a bathroom.

Which kind of dream you had depends on what went wrong, because something nearly always does in a toilet dream. A toilet that overflows is not the same as one with no door, and a filthy public toilet you refuse to use says something different again. What's been weighing on you lately, or what you've been holding in, usually tells you which.

What dreaming about toilets means

Toilets get rid of what the body is done with, they're where we're most exposed, and they're the one thing nobody wants to talk about at dinner. Each of those gives a reading.

Letting go of something

A toilet is where you get rid of waste, and English uses the same idea for feelings. You "flush away" a bad memory or need to "get something out of your system". A dream where you used a toilet easily, with relief, often comes when you've finally let go of a resentment, ended something toxic or said what you'd been holding back. And if it felt good in the dream, it probably was good for you.

Privacy, and the fear of losing it

Many toilet dreams are about being seen at the one moment we all expect to be alone. The cubicle has no door, the walls are glass, the toilet sits in the middle of an office or a crowd queues outside. These dreams belong in the same family as being naked in public, and they usually come when you feel exposed in waking life (a new job, a breakup everyone knows about, a mistake people saw). They're also common when you have no time or space to yourself at all.

Your body asking for something

Sometimes a toilet dream is just a toilet dream. If you need to pee during the night, the dream often sends you looking for a toilet, so you can stay asleep a bit longer, and plenty of people have woken from one just in time. Children sometimes don't, which is why some bedwetting comes with a dream of having already found the toilet.

A mess you'd rather avoid

Toilets are where the unpleasant stuff goes, and a dream about a dirty or broken one can be about a situation you find distasteful, a conflict, a job nobody wants or someone else's problems landing on you. Who has been leaving their mess for you to clean up lately? And have you said anything about it?

Dreaming about an overflowing toilet

Overflowing toilets are by far the most searched toilet dream. Dirty water rising over the rim and onto the floor is about something you've been holding down that won't stay down, like anger, tears or stress that keeps building. It often shows up when you've been coping by pushing things away, and the pushing has stopped working. Notice where the water went. If it flooded your home, the feeling is getting into family life, and if it soaked your shoes, it's affecting how you get through the day.

Dreaming about a blocked toilet

A clogged toilet is about being stuck with something that won't go away however many times you flush it, whether that's an argument you keep having, a debt or a feeling you can't process. And if you tried to fix it and it got worse, the dream may be pointing at a problem you keep attacking the same way, with the same result. If someone else unblocked it, think about who in your life could help.

Dreaming about dirty toilets

A filthy public toilet you have to use anyway is one of the most common toilet dreams, and the disgust is the reading. It often comes when you're in a situation you find unpleasant but can't avoid, like a workplace with bad politics, a family gathering where old fights come out, or a job that feels beneath you. If you refused to use it and held on instead, you may be denying your own needs to keep away from something.

Dreaming about poop in the toilet

Most people find this dream embarrassing to search, and yet it's common. Poop in a toilet that flushes away cleanly is about release, getting rid of something that was making you uncomfortable. Poop that won't flush, or that overflows, is about a mess that keeps coming back. Folk belief in several countries ties excrement to money or luck. But no dream sends you money, and the clearer reading is about clearing something out of your life.

Dreaming about going to the toilet and wetting the bed

Dreaming you've reached the toilet, sitting down with relief, and then waking to a wet bed happens mostly to children, though adults have it too. Here the dream isn't symbolic at all. Your bladder was full, the dream gave you permission to go, and your body took it literally. If it happens to you as an adult more than once, mention it to a doctor, because it often has a medical cause that can be treated.

Dreaming about a toilet with no door

Searching for a private toilet and finding only ones with no door, no walls or people walking past is the privacy dream in its sharpest form. It usually means you feel you can't attend to your own needs without being watched or judged. It's common in people who live in crowded homes, share an open-plan office, or have a lot of people depending on them (new parents get it a lot, which won't surprise any new parent). And sometimes the dream is just your bladder again, with your mind refusing to let you go until you wake up.

Dreaming about toilets according to Jung and Freud

Freud's plainest example of a wish-fulfilling dream comes from the body, and Jung's ideas fit the privacy side of the toilet dream.

Jung: the shadow and the persona

Read through Jung's idea of the shadow, everything you refuse to own,^[2] a toilet is where a house keeps what it wants no part of, and the overflowing bowl is the disowned thing coming back up. Read through his persona, the face you show other people, the toilet with no door is the one room where you're meant to drop that face, which is why losing the door is so alarming. Both are our application of his ideas, not readings he gave.

Freud: the toilet that keeps you asleep

One of Freud's plainest examples of a dream fulfilling a wish was a bodily one. After salty food in the evening he'd dream of drinking water, then wake up thirsty.^[1] A full bladder works the same way, with the dream giving you the toilet so you can stay asleep. Read his way, a toilet dream with no full bladder behind it raises a different question, about what you're holding on to and why.

The spiritual meaning of toilets in dreams

The Talmud names this image outright.

Using the toilet in the Talmud

Dreams take up three folios of the Talmud's tractate Berakhot, and relieving yourself is one of the images read there. The rabbis count it a good sign, backed by a verse from Isaiah, as long as you don't wipe and dirty your hands.^[3]

Questions to ask about your toilet dream

Start with the obvious question, which is whether you woke up needing the bathroom. If not, dreams mirror what we deal with by day,^[4] and a few questions help find what this one is about.

• Could you use the toilet, or was something wrong with it?
• Were you alone, or could people see you?
• Did you feel relief, disgust or panic?
• Whose bathroom was it, home, work, a stranger's?
• What have you been holding in, or trying to get rid of?

Oniri asks about details like these before giving you a reading, which helps tell a bladder dream from a dream about your life.