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Father in dreams: what it can mean

  • Family
  • Love and relationships

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The short answer

Dreams about fathers usually reflect the real relationship, or questions of authority, approval and protection.

Your dream is not everyone's

Tell it the way you remember it. You get a reading about your dream and your life, not a dictionary entry.

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Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

Parents are frequent characters in dream reports. A continuity reading starts with your real relationship with your father: approval you want, conflict, worry, grief, or pride. Father figures in dreams are also commonly connected with rules, authority and judgement, so the dream may be about a boss, a mentor or your own inner critic.

Folk tradition

Tradition, not science

Tradition: American popular dream books, around 1900

Dream books around 1900 tended to read seeing your father as a sign of a coming difficulty that calls for good advice. We report this as folklore, not as prediction.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. What did your father want from you in the dream, or you from him?
  2. Whose approval matters to you right now?
  3. Is there a rule or expectation you are questioning?

Related symbols

Sources

Every reading on this page comes from these works. Page references have not all been checked yet; those still waiting are marked.

  1. Calvin S. Hall, Robert L. Van de Castle (1966). The Content Analysis of Dreams. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: coding categories: characters (reference not yet checked)

    The standard coding system for dream content (characters, social interactions, misfortunes, emotions, settings, objects) and its normative sample.

  2. G. William Domhoff (2001). A New Neurocognitive Theory of Dreams. Dreaming 11(1): 13-33.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: pp. 13-33 (dreams as simulations of personal concerns) (reference not yet checked)

    Dreams as embodied simulations of personal concerns (the continuity view). The backbone of our psychology lens.

  3. Gustavus Hindman Miller (1901). What's in a Dream (later reissued as Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted).

    public domain

    • Cited at: entry: Father (reference not yet checked)

    An American popular dream dictionary. Its entries are written as omens ("foretells"); we only report how people once read a symbol, never as a forecast.