Dreaming about
blood

Blood is the one part of us we're never meant to see, so a dream full of it tends to wake people with a jolt. Dreaming about blood rarely has anything to do with illness or violence about to happen. It's usually about energy and how it's being spent, a hurt you've taken, anger you're carrying, or something in your life that's slowly draining you.

Where the blood came from changes the reading a lot. A cut that won't stop bleeding is a different dream from period blood, and coughing up blood is nothing like seeing it on your hands. How you reacted matters as much as the blood (panic, disgust, calm or nothing at all). Put the two together and your own dream will usually show you which part of your life is losing something.

What dreaming about blood means

Blood keeps us alive, and losing it is the most direct picture of losing strength. English is full of it, from bad blood to blood being thicker than water. Most blood dreams lean on one of four readings.

Your energy and what drains it

The commonest reading treats blood as life energy. Losing blood in a dream often mirrors feeling drained, by a job that takes everything, a relationship that asks more than it gives, or money "bleeding" out of your account. If someone was bleeding you dry, ask who or what in your life feels that way. And a dream where the bleeding stops is often a sign you're getting your strength back.

A hurt you've taken

Blood is the proof that a wound is real, which is why dreams use it so readily. Emotional hurts often appear as physical wounds in dreams, especially ones you've played down while awake. If you bled after an argument in the dream, or after someone said something, the dream may be telling you the remark hurt more than you admitted.

Family and belonging

"Blood is thicker than water" and "bad blood" are both about family and old loyalties. A dream with blood shared, spilled between relatives or passed on may be about family ties and duties. It can also be about the family traits you've inherited and aren't sure you want.

Anger and passion

We say blood boils, runs cold or rushes to the face, and dreams with a lot of blood can carry anger you haven't expressed, or passion that feels dangerous. If the blood came with violence (a fight, knives, an attack), look at where you're angry and holding it in.

Dreaming about bleeding

Bleeding from a wound is the most common blood dream. Where you were bleeding is a good clue, since hands are about what you do and make, feet about where you're going, the head about your thoughts and the chest about your feelings. A wound that won't stop bleeding points to a loss of energy that feels out of your control. If it didn't hurt, the dream may be about numbness, a loss you know about but haven't felt yet. And if you bandaged it yourself, or someone helped, the dream is about healing as much as hurt.

Dreaming about peeing blood

Peeing blood is one of the most searched blood dreams, and it understandably frightens people. In dreams, urinating is about release, letting go of tension or something you've held in. Blood in it suggests a release that costs you something, like ending a relationship, saying something painful or giving up a plan you'd put a lot into. It can also reflect a health worry you already carry. But if you've noticed real blood in your urine while awake, see a doctor about that, because the dream itself can't tell you anything about your body.

Dreaming about period blood

Period dreams are common, and for many women they simply follow the cycle or a real worry. A late period, or the hope of being pregnant or the fear of it, can easily turn into a dream about bleeding. Beyond that, a period stands for cycles and renewal, the end of one phase making room for the next. Bleeding through your clothes in public is a classic embarrassment dream, about being exposed and judged for something natural. Men dream about periods too, and then it's often about cycles, creativity or something private becoming visible.

Dreaming about coughing or spitting up blood

Coughing up blood is a dream about the mouth and the chest, which means speech and feeling, so it often points to words you held back until they hurt, or something you said that cost you. Spitting blood can mean getting rid of something painful, maybe anger finally said out loud. Blood in your mouth often comes with dreams of teeth falling out, and the two together usually point to stress about how you come across. As with any blood dream, it's not a sign you're ill.

Dreaming about vomiting blood

Vomiting is the body rejecting what it can't take, and vomiting blood adds that something has become part of you. It may be a job, a role, a relationship or a belief you've been living with until you can't stomach it anymore. These dreams often come when you're at the end of your tolerance. Did you feel relief afterwards? Then the dream may be about finally letting something go, even though it hurts.

Dreaming about someone else bleeding

Seeing someone else bleed is usually about them, or about how you feel toward them. If they're someone you love, it can be worry about their health or their struggles, especially if they've been having a hard time. If you caused the wound, the dream may be about guilt over something you said or did. Trying to stop someone's bleeding is a caretaker dream. It's common among people who look after others, whether in a hospital or at home, and it often shows how much responsibility you feel for keeping someone going.

Dreaming about blood on your hands

"Blood on your hands" means guilt, and a dream will often stage the idiom literally. The most famous sleeper with blood on her hands is Lady Macbeth, who walks in her sleep rubbing at a stain only she can see ("Out, damned spot!"). If you couldn't wash the blood off, ask what you feel responsible for, whether or not it was really your fault. If the blood wasn't yours and you didn't know where it came from, the dream may be about blame landing on you from someone else's actions.

Dreaming about a blood moon

A blood moon is a total lunar eclipse, when the Earth's shadow turns the moon a deep red. It's rare and striking, so in dreams it usually marks something unusual, like a big change, intense feelings, or a turning point you can feel coming. The moon is often tied to emotion and cycles, and turning it red makes those feelings stronger. Some people search for this dream because of the prophetic readings of the blood moon, which come from the Bible (see below). But the dream itself isn't a sign of the end of anything.

Dreaming about blood according to Jung and Freud

Neither man is known for a reading of blood, so what follows carries over their wider ideas.

Jung: blood and the shadow

Jung's shadow is whatever you've pushed out of your own picture of yourself, and it likes to arrive in dreams as a pursuer or an intruder.^[5] Blood on your hands, a wound you caused or a fight you were part of can be read through it as the dream handing you something you'd never own awake: anger at a parent, a wish to hit back, guilt for a thing you can't quite name. He also saw dreams as a counterweight to waking life, so a very gentle, agreeable person is the one you'd expect to meet a lot of blood at night and be shaken by it. It doesn't mean you're violent.

Freud: blood in the mouth

Teeth falling out is one of the typical dreams Freud wrote about, and he listed it, with baldness, a haircut and beheading, among the dream's pictures of castration.^[6] Blood in the mouth often comes with it, as the section above says, so in his reading a mouth full of blood and a loose tooth would be about that fear, of losing power or potency. That's what he wrote about teeth, and he'd have asked for your own associations before settling on it. He would also have asked what happened the day before, whether a dentist visit, a nosebleed, a cut or a shift in a hospital.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of blood in dreams

Blood is one of the few symbols where the spiritual traditions say more than the psychologists, so this section leans on them.

Blood in the Bible

The Bible says plainly that "the life of the flesh is in the blood", which is where most spiritual readings of blood dreams start.^[1] When Cain kills Abel, God tells him "the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground", the oldest picture of guilt that won't stay buried.^[2] And the prophet Joel says "the moon into blood" will come before the great day of the Lord,^[3] which is the source of blood moon prophecies. None of these tells you what your dream means, but they explain why blood carries so much weight.

Blood in the Agni Purana

One chapter of the Agni Purana, a Sanskrit Purana, sorts good dreams from bad, and blood goes among the good ones: seeing it, bathing in it or drinking it is commendable.^[4] The chapter is teaching addressed to Rama, and its lists invert the obvious, with your own death and your house burning among the good omens too.

Questions to ask about your blood dream

The meaning of a blood dream is mostly in where the blood came from and how you met it. These questions help you see it.

• Whose blood was it, and where was it coming from?
• Did it hurt, frighten you, or leave you oddly calm?
• What in your life feels like it's draining you right now?
• Is there an anger, a guilt or a family tension you haven't faced?
• Has your health been on your mind lately?

Oniri asks you about your dream in the same way before it reads it. If bloody nightmares keep breaking your sleep, tell a doctor, and try the practical tips for fewer nightmares on the blog.