Horse in dreams: what it can mean

Animals
Journeys

DraftAn editor has not reviewed this page yet.

The short answer

Horses carry strength, speed and the question of control. Riding smoothly, being thrown or watching a horse run free are very different dreams, and the difference is usually the point.

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.

Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

Animals are a regular part of dream content in the standard coding system used by researchers, and the continuity view suggests they borrow meaning from the dreamer's own experience with them. For one person a horse is a childhood riding lesson, for another a powerful animal they never quite trusted. Many people find the question of control useful: who is steering, you or the horse?

Hall & Van de Castle 1966
Domhoff 2001

Classic texts

History

Artemidorus, the second century dream interpreter, read a horse partly through what it does for its rider: carrying, obeying or resisting. He tied a well behaved horse to good standing and an unruly one to trouble with the people or position the dreamer depended on. Jung later wrote about the horse as an image of instinctive, animal energy that the conscious self rides but does not fully command; we paraphrase him, since his work is still under copyright in some countries.

Artemidorus 1644
Jung 1916

Folk tradition

Tradition, not science

Tradition: American popular dream books, around 1900

Miller's 1901 dream dictionary treated horses as a sign of fortune and status, reading a white horse in particular as a hopeful image and a wild or injured horse as trouble. It is one American book's tradition, reported here as history rather than prediction.

Miller 1901

Questions to ask yourself

Did you feel in control of the horse, or was it taking you somewhere?
What strength or drive in your life feels bigger than you right now?
Where would you have wanted the horse to go?

Sources

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

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: animals (reference not yet checked)
The standard coding system for dream content (characters, social interactions, misfortunes, emotions, settings, objects) and its normative sample.
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.
Artemidorus of Daldis (1644). The Interpretation of Dreams (Oneirocritica), in five books, translated by Robert Wood. London.
first published 2nd century CE
public domain
- Cited at: Book I, on horses and riding (reference not yet checked)
Greek dream manual from the Roman era. We paraphrase the public-domain Wood translation (1644). Modern translations (White 1975, Harris-McCoy 2012, Hammond 2020) are copyrighted and only cited.
C. G. Jung (1916). Psychology of the Unconscious, translated by Beatrice M. Hinkle. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company.
first published 1912 (Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido)
cited, not reproduced
- Cited at: Part II, on the symbolism of the horse (reference not yet checked)
Public domain in the US, but Jung's work stays protected in the EU and Georgia until 2032. Cite and paraphrase only.
Gustavus Hindman Miller (1901). What's in a Dream (later reissued as Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted).
public domain
- Cited at: entry: Horse (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.