Dreaming about
alligators

In Florida and Louisiana alligators turn up in golf course ponds, swimming pools and garages, and people who live there learn to check the water before they walk too close to it. That habit of looking twice is what alligator dreams are about. Dreaming about alligators usually points to a danger that's lying low, like a problem you know is there but can't see, someone stronger than you who hasn't moved yet, or a feeling you've kept just under the surface.

The alligator's position is the first clue. One lying in murky water is a different dream from one crossing your kitchen floor, and an alligator with its jaws open is different again. Then there's what you were doing, wading, swimming, running or standing on a bank, because that shows how close you are to the thing you're afraid of.

What dreaming about alligators means

An alligator can lie still for hours with only its eyes and nostrils above the water. It strikes fast, grips, and if the prey is big it drags it under and rolls. Its armored skin shrugs off most damage, and its jaws close with enormous force but open with very little, which is why handlers can hold them shut with their bare hands. Most of what alligators mean in dreams comes from those few facts.

Something lying in wait

The most common reading is a problem that hasn't struck yet. It might be an unopened letter, a medical test you keep postponing or a conversation you know is coming. You can feel it out there. But the not-knowing is often worse than the thing itself, isn't it? One theory says dreams of predators like this are the brain rehearsing threats, keeping you alert to danger you can't see.^[1]

Someone stronger than you

Alligators are thick-skinned, heavy and very hard to move. And dreams use them for people with the same qualities. Think of a boss who can't be reasoned with, an ex with a good lawyer, or a relative whose mind never changes. If the alligator in your dream simply blocked your way, look at who in your life you can't get past or get through to.

A feeling just under the surface

Because alligators live half in water and half out, they suit feelings that are almost conscious. Anger you haven't expressed, grief you've been too busy to feel and a resentment you keep calling "fine" can all take this shape (the last one more often than people admit). An alligator rising out of the water often comes when that feeling is about to break the surface, whether you're ready or not.

Being pulled under

The alligator's roll, dragging its prey under and spinning, is a vivid picture of being overwhelmed. Debt, depression, a relationship you can't leave or a workload that keeps growing can all feel like that (and a river with a current you can't fight is a close cousin of this dream), and a dream of being dragged into dark water by an alligator is often your mind saying so plainly.

Dreaming about an alligator attacking you

An attack means the hidden problem has gone from waiting to acting. Where it got you matters less than what happened next. If it held on and wouldn't let go, look for a situation in your life that has its jaws in you, like a debt, a dispute, or a commitment you can't get out of. But remember the odd fact about alligator jaws. If you managed to hold them shut in your dream, the threat may be weaker in your hands than it looked from the bank.

Dreaming about alligators in water

Alligators in water are the danger you can't locate, and how clear the water was says how much you know. In dark, muddy water you can't tell where the alligator is or how many there are, which usually points to confusion about a situation, a sense that something's wrong without knowing what. In clear water you can see exactly where it is, and the fear is more specific. Were you in the water with them, or watching from the bank? Being in the water means you're already involved, while watching from dry land suggests you still have a choice.

Dreaming about an alligator chasing you

Alligators are quick over a short distance and tire fast, and they almost never chase people on land. So a dream alligator that runs after you is your mind turning a slow, waiting kind of threat into a fast one. And it often comes when a problem that seemed dormant suddenly feels urgent. The reassuring part is in the animal itself. An alligator can't keep a chase up, and the dream may be asking whether you can outlast this problem rather than outrun it.

Dreaming about an alligator in your house

An alligator in a house isn't only a dream image in parts of the American South, which may be why the dream feels so real to people who live there. But wherever you live, a house in a dream tends to be your private life, so an alligator indoors brings the danger close. It might be tension with someone you live with, a family secret, or a problem you've let in and now step around every day. An alligator in a bathtub or a pool at home is often about a threat that's been there so long it feels normal.

Dreaming about alligators and snakes

Snakes and alligators together make a dream full of reptiles, cold-blooded and ancient, and people usually wake from it with a general sense of threat. A snake tends to be the sly danger, a person you don't trust or a change you're going through, while the alligator is brute force waiting under the surface. So having both often means you feel threatened on several fronts at once, by what people might say and by what might actually happen.

Dreaming about a baby alligator

New York has a famous urban legend about baby alligators bought as pets, flushed down the toilet, and grown huge in the sewers. A baby alligator in a dream is often that story in miniature, a small problem you're tempted to get rid of quickly that could grow where you can't see it. But it can also be the start of your own toughness, something small that will one day be hard to hurt.

Dreaming about killing an alligator

Killing an alligator is usually a dream of overcoming something much stronger than you, like winning an argument, paying off a debt, or leaving a situation that had its jaws in you. Most people wake relieved. Did you feel uneasy instead? Then ask whether the alligator was protecting something too, since even dangerous things in our lives (a hard-nosed boss, a fierce parent) sometimes keep worse things away.

Dreaming about a crocodile

Crocodiles have a narrower, V-shaped snout, and their lower teeth show even when the mouth is closed. The big saltwater species is also far more dangerous to people than any alligator. So a crocodile in a dream tends to be a more open threat, less hidden and more aggressive. English adds "crocodile tears", from an old belief that crocodiles weep while they eat their prey, so a crocodile dream can also be about someone whose sadness or apology you don't believe.

Dreaming about alligators according to Jung and Freud

Alligators aren't in anything either man wrote that this page can draw on, so each reading below is a method or an idea applied, and said as such.

Jung: what surfaces from the water

Water, Jung said, is the symbol of the unconscious we meet most often.^[2] An animal that spends its life half under it, and shows you only its eyes, is that idea with a mouth. Read through his shadow, the part of you that you'd rather not own, an alligator is the cold, patient, hungry side of yourself that surfaces without warning.^[2] That step is ours, but it's the "feeling just under the surface" reading above put in his terms, and the question he'd put to you is what you've been keeping down there.

Freud: an animal with no entry

Among the animals Freud's list names are snakes, fish, snails, cats and mice, and an alligator isn't one of them, so he'd have fallen back on his method.^[3] That means starting from the day before (a trip to Florida, a news story about a swamp, a boss with a wide smile and a lot of teeth) and from what alligators bring to mind for you. And since a dream disguises a wish in his view, even a dream that is all fear has a side underneath, and what the alligator is covering is what he'd want to dig for.

The biblical and spiritual meaning of alligators in dreams

Alligators are American, so the old texts talk about their Old World cousin, the crocodile.

Leviathan in the Book of Job

In Job, God asks whether anyone can catch Leviathan with a hook or make it a pet, and goes on to describe a creature with scales "shut up together as with a close seal" and a heart "as firm as a stone".^[4] Many readers have taken Leviathan for a crocodile. The passage is about power that no person can master, and a spiritual reading of a giant alligator often starts there, with the humility of admitting that some things are bigger than you.

Questions to ask about your alligator dream

An alligator is about distance and visibility, how close the danger is and how clearly you can see it, so the useful questions are about both.

• Was the alligator in water, on land, or inside your home?
• Could you see it clearly, or only its eyes?
• Did it attack, chase, or simply wait?
• Who in your life is thick-skinned, patient and hard to move?
• What have you been meaning to deal with that you keep walking past?

Oniri gets you to answer questions like these about your alligator before it offers a reading, because a gator in the swamp and a gator in your bathtub mean different things.