Dreaming about
ghosts

Ghost stories are nearly always about the past refusing to stay in the past, and ghost dreams work the same way. Dreaming about ghosts usually points to something from your own history that isn't finished, like a loss you're still grieving, a regret, or a person who left your life without a proper ending.

Of all the details, who the ghost was matters most. The ghost of a grandparent at the kitchen table is a different dream from a faceless figure in a hallway, and being a ghost yourself is different again. What the ghost wanted from you, and how you felt about it, usually tells you what in your past is still asking for attention.

What dreaming about ghosts means

In the old stories, ghosts stay because something is unfinished. Hamlet's father walks the castle walls until his son agrees to avenge him, and Marley's ghost drags the chain he "forged in life" to warn Scrooge before it's too late. Your dream ghost is usually after something similar, a word, an act or a reckoning that never happened.

Grief you're still carrying

The most common ghost is someone you've lost. We all dream of the dead sooner or later (about half of people remember a dream in which someone who died was alive again).^[1] The ghost version tends to come when the loss still feels unsettled. Maybe there was no goodbye, the death was sudden, or the relationship was complicated. The ghost often looks the way you last saw them, in a hospital bed or on the doorstep after an argument, and that image is a clue to where your grief is stuck.

Regret or guilt

Like Marley's chain, a ghost can carry what you did or didn't do. Did the ghost seem to accuse you, follow you or simply stare? Then think about a mistake you haven't made peace with (an apology you never gave, a friend you dropped, a parent you didn't call enough). Ghosts like these tend to fade once the regret is said out loud, even if only to yourself.

Someone who vanished

English now has a verb for this one. To "ghost" someone is to disappear from their life without a word, no reply, no explanation. If a friend, a date or a family member stopped answering you, a ghost in your dream may be about them, and about the conversation you never got to have. And if you're the one who did the ghosting, the dream is your conscience catching up.

A past that still shapes you

Some ghosts are less a person than a period of your life. A ghost in your childhood home, your old school or a flat you shared with an ex can be about habits and fears you picked up there. And often you never quite left them behind. The question then is what from that time still runs your present.

Dreaming about the ghost of someone you know

Seeing the ghost of someone you knew, a parent, a grandparent, a friend, is the ghost dream people search for most, and it can be either comforting or upsetting. A calm ghost that smiles, talks or simply sits with you tends to come as grief begins to settle, and many people wake from it feeling the person is at peace. An angry or distressed ghost is more often your own unfinished feelings, things you wish you'd said or done, given the person's face. The post on ancestral dreams looks at how different traditions read these visits. If the ghost was a grandparent, the dream may also be about the family history they carried.

Dreaming about a ghost in your house

A haunted house in a dream is usually your own life, with something from the past still living in it. It often comes after a move into a home with a history (a partner's old place, a house where someone died, your parents' home after they've gone). It can also come after a breakup, when every room holds a memory. Where the ghost appeared narrows it down. A ghost in the bedroom points to an old relationship, while one in the kitchen or living room points more to family. One in the attic or basement suggests something you packed away years ago and haven't opened since.

Dreaming about a ghost attacking you

Being attacked, pushed or held down by a ghost is the frightening end of ghost dreams. Often it's about a part of the past that still hurts you, an old trauma, a person who treated you badly, a memory that returns at the worst times. But if you felt awake during the attack, couldn't move and felt pressure on your chest, it was very likely sleep paralysis. That's common and harmless, and you'll find the whole story in the sleep paralysis demon post. A ghost attack that blurs into something more monstrous is close to dreams of demons.

Dreaming about a ghost following you

A ghost that follows you from room to room, or town to town, is a past you can't shake. People dream of it after leaving a place, a job or a marriage, when they hoped a fresh start would leave everything behind. The ghost came along anyway. Did you ever turn and face it? If you did, and it spoke or faded, you're readier to deal with the past than you think.

Dreaming about talking to a ghost

Talking with a ghost, sometimes for what feels like hours, is a dream about the conversation you never had. Pay attention to what you said and what the ghost said back, because those lines tend to be the whole point of the dream. If your talk with a ghost left you frightened, the fear was already there, and the ghost only gave it words.

Dreaming that you're a ghost

Being the ghost, walking through rooms where nobody sees or hears you, is usually about feeling invisible. It comes with loneliness, after a move to a new city, in a family where you're overlooked, or in a job where your work goes unnoticed. If you were watching your own life go on without you, ask where you feel left out of it. Being invisible in a dream has its own page, and the two often go together.

Dreaming about a friendly ghost

Not every ghost is frightening, though, and a friendly one tends to bring something you've been missing, like company, advice or a sense of being watched over. If the ghost was a stranger who helped you, it may be a side of yourself you've lost touch with, the more playful or braver person you used to be. These are often good dreams to stay with for a moment after waking, before the day takes over.

Dreaming about ghosts according to Jung and Freud

Put to a ghost, the two men's ideas ask different questions of the same figure. None of what follows is a reading either man gave.

Jung on ghosts: the shadow and the figure you can't place

Jung's shadow is the part of yourself you'd rather not see, and he found it turning up in dreams as a pursuer or a stranger, often of your own sex.^[2] A faceless ghost that follows you from room to room and never speaks fits that picture better than the ghost of a grandmother does. Read his way, it's there because something about you was pushed out of sight, and the question his idea raises is what you've stopped letting yourself be or feel. He also argued that dreams push back against a lopsided waking stance, so if you've been telling everyone you're fine, a ghost may be the other half of the story arriving at night. And he distrusted fixed meanings, which makes what ghosts mean to you (a film, a house you grew up in, a story an aunt told) the place to start.

Freud on ghosts: the day before and the wish to see them again

A dream in which a loved one dies is among Freud's typical dreams,^[3] and a ghost dream is a close relative. His method for any dream began with the day before, so the first question is what put the person in your head yesterday (a photograph, a song, a smell on the stairs, an anniversary you only half noticed). His second starting point was the wish, and the simplest wish a ghost can carry is to see the person again. But he also took your own associations as the way in, and feelings about the people we've lost are rarely just one thing, so a ghost that frightens you may carry anger or relief you never allowed yourself to admit.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of ghosts in dreams

Two old texts have something specific to say about the dead turning up among the living, and they don't say the same thing.

Ghosts in the Bible

King Saul, desperate before a battle, asks the woman of Endor to call up the dead prophet Samuel, and the ghost only tells him what he feared.^[4] The Gospels have the opposite scene. When the risen Jesus appears to his disciples they're terrified, thinking they've seen a spirit, and he tells them to touch him, because "a spirit hath not flesh and bones".^[5]

The dead in the house, in the Talmud

In the Talmud, the foundational text of Jewish law and thought after the Bible, the tractate Berakhot has a stretch of three folios about dreams, and one entry concerns a dead person seen in the house.^[6] The rabbis read it as a sign of peace for the household, and a dead person who eats and drinks there as good for it. One who carries things out of the house was a bad sign, though Rav Pappa limited that to shoes and sandals, which he took to mean a long journey.

Questions to ask about your ghost dream

A ghost dream is usually easier to read than it feels, because the ghost tends to point straight at the unfinished business, and a few questions help you see it.

• Whose ghost was it, and had you met them in life?
• What did it want: to talk, to warn, to follow, to frighten?
• Where did it appear, and does that place belong to your past?
• How did you feel: scared, comforted, guilty, sad?
• What from your past still feels unfinished right now?

Oniri asks you about the dream's people and places before it reads your dream, so the ghost of a grandparent at the table isn't read like a stranger in the hall.