Dreaming about
angels

Angel dreams are usually remembered as good dreams, and a lot of people wake from one wondering whether it was more than a dream. Whatever you believe about that, dreaming about angels tends to arrive at particular moments. They come when you need comfort or protection, when you're facing a choice and want guidance, or after you've lost someone you love.

What the angel did is the place to start. An angel speaking to you, an angel standing guard and an angel that frightened you are three different dreams, and it matters whether the angel was a stranger or wore a face you knew. Set that against what's been happening in your life, and the dream usually tells you what you were looking for.

What dreaming about angels means

The word angel comes from the Greek angelos, which simply means messenger, and in Judaism, Christianity and Islam angels carry messages and watch over people. Dreams keep both jobs, so most angel dreams are about something being said to you, or someone looking after you.

Comfort when things are hard

The most common angel dream comes during a stretch of fear or exhaustion, like an illness, a hospital stay, a breakup or a long night with a sick child. Something in you wants to be held, and the dream provides a figure who can do it. It's worth noticing what the angel gave you. Was it a touch, a word, or simply the sense of being watched over? That's often exactly what's missing in your waking life right now.

A message you're ready to hear

When an angel speaks in a dream, people tend to remember the words very clearly. Often they're something you already know but haven't let yourself say, like "you can leave", "it wasn't your fault" or "rest now". The angel gives that thought an authority you don't give yourself. So write the words down as soon as you wake, because they're usually the heart of the dream.

Someone who looks after you

English calls a kind nurse or a generous neighbor "an angel", and dreams use the word the same way. If the angel reminded you of a real person (a mother, a teacher, a friend who got you through something), the dream may simply be about them. It shows how much you rely on them. And if the angel was you, ask whether you've been the one looking after everyone else lately, and who is looking after you.

Grief and the people we lose

Many angel dreams follow a death, and we all dream of the people we've lost (in one survey of students, more than half had dreamed of someone dead as alive).^[1] And when the person appears with wings or wrapped in light, the dream often marks a turn in grief, from the shock of the loss towards some kind of peace.

Dreaming about an angel talking to you

In the Bible, an angel speaks to Joseph in a dream and tells him not to be afraid to marry Mary, and Joseph wakes and does as he was told.^[2] Many people who dream of an angel speaking to them think of that kind of dream. Whether or not you share that belief, what the angel said is the thing to work with. Does the message fit a decision in front of you? Did it reassure you, warn you or give you permission? A message that makes sense of your situation is worth taking seriously as your own wisdom. But a message about the future isn't a prophecy, and whether dreams can predict anything has a post of its own.

Dreaming about a guardian angel

The guardian angel is one of the oldest comforts in Christian tradition, drawn from lines like the psalm that says God "shall give his angels charge over thee".^[3] Dreams of a guardian angel usually come when you feel exposed, before surgery, during a move to a new city or when a child of yours is going through something you can't fix. If the guardian stood behind you, you may be leaning on support you can't see. But if it stood in front of you, blocking something, ask what you'd like to be protected from.

Dreaming about angels in the sky

Jacob, asleep on a stone pillow, dreamed of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels going up and down it.^[4] Angels in the sky, especially moving between the ground and somewhere higher, often go with a sense that two parts of your life are connected again. That might be you and a faith you'd drifted from, you and someone far away, or the person you are now and the one you're trying to become. If you watched from the ground and couldn't reach them, think about what feels out of reach.

Dreaming about a dead loved one as an angel

Seeing a parent, grandparent or partner who has died, now with wings or standing in light, is one of the gentlest dreams there is. These dreams tend to come once the first rawness of grief has passed. The person often looks younger, well or at peace, and many people wake from them feeling that the person is all right. You don't need to settle what the dream was in order to accept the comfort. The post on ancestral dreams goes further into how different traditions read them.

Dreaming about a scary angel

The angels of the Bible are often frightening. That's why so many of them open with "fear not", and Ezekiel's vision describes creatures with four faces and four wings, next to wheels "full of eyes".^[5] The internet's "biblically accurate angels" come from passages like this. A terrifying angel in a dream tends to go with judgment, something bigger than you that sees everything. Are you waiting for a verdict, an exam result, or a reckoning with your own conscience? The fear in the dream is often about that.

Dreaming about a fallen angel

Isaiah's taunt against the king of Babylon ("How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer") became, in Christian tradition, the story of a bright angel cast down for pride.^[6] A fallen or dark angel in a dream is usually about a fall from grace. It might be someone you admired who let you down, a role model who turned out to be ordinary, or your own fear of losing your standing after a mistake. A dark angel that tempted you is closer to dreams of demons, and is often about a desire you feel guilty about.

Dreaming about fighting an angel

Jacob wrestled all night with a mysterious figure that tradition calls an angel, refused to let go until he was blessed, and walked away limping.^[7] Wrestling with an angel in a dream is often a struggle with your conscience, your faith or a calling you're resisting. It doesn't mean you're wrong to fight. And Jacob's story ends with a new name and a blessing, and the struggle in your dream may be a sign that you're working something through rather than running from it.

Dreaming about angels according to Jung and Freud

An angel is a messenger with authority and a comforting figure at once, and both men's ideas about dream figures fit that double role.

Jung: the angel and the wise old man

Jung's wise old man is the figure of guidance and meaning, and his usual costumes in a dream are grandfather, teacher, priest, doctor, magician or any other authority.^[10] An angel that speaks to you with calm authority does the same job in a different costume, and a dead grandfather standing in light with wings is one of the wise old man's usual faces wearing an angel's. Jung also thought of dreams as a counterweight to a lopsided waking life. Someone who has been giving everybody else advice and doubting their own may be handed the line they needed by a voice with more weight than theirs.

Freud: a wish granted

Freud's basic idea was that a dream pictures a wish already fulfilled.^[11] After a loss, a dream that gives you the person back, younger and at peace, is that idea at its gentlest: the wish is to be told they're all right, and the dream tells you. The angel at the end of the hospital bed or standing guard before surgery is the wish for protection, granted. He would also ask what came before the dream, so a funeral, a church visit or a film with wings in it may be where the angel came from.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of angels in dreams

The Bible's angels fill the sections above, from Joseph's dream to Jacob's ladder and Ezekiel's creatures, and two other texts have angel dreams of their own.

Angels in the Talmud

In the Talmud, which rabbinic Judaism treats as its central text, dreams are sorted by who sends them. Some come through an angel, and those are true, while others come through a demon and are false.^[8]

Angels in Sahih al-Bukhari

Sahih al-Bukhari is the Sunni collection of the Prophet Muhammad's sayings and deeds that Muslims trust most, and in it a companion named Abdullah ibn Umar dreams that angels with iron maces lead him to the edge of Hell and then take him to the right. The Prophet said he was a good man, if only he prayed more at night.^[9]

Questions to ask about your angel dream

An angel dream often feels too important to question, but a few questions will tell you much more about it.

• What did the angel say or do, word for word if you can?
• Did it comfort you, warn you or frighten you?
• Did it look like anyone you know, or anyone you've lost?
• Where were you, and were you alone?
• What do you most need to hear right now?

Oniri asks about the dream's feeling and your life at the time before it reads a dream, so an angel at a hospital bed won't get the reading of one over a battlefield.