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Spider in dreams: what it can mean

  • Animals
  • Fear and danger

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The short answer

Spiders are a frequent dream animal and a common real-life fear. In dreams they often come with feeling trapped, watched, or caught in something complicated.

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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

If you are afraid of spiders, the simplest continuity reading is that the dream reuses a fear you already have and attaches it to a current worry. The web is often part of the story: something intricate that catches you, a situation that feels sticky, or a person who seems to be pulling strings. For people who like spiders, the same image can suggest patience, craft and building something carefully.

Folk tradition

Tradition, not science

Tradition: American popular dream books, around 1900

Unusually for a dream-book animal, spiders were often read favourably around 1900, as a sign of energy and careful work being rewarded. We report this as folklore, not prediction.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. Did you feel trapped, watched or just startled by the spider?
  2. Is there a situation in your life that feels tangled or hard to get out of?
  3. What are you building patiently, strand by strand?

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. 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.

  2. 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.

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

    public domain

    • Cited at: entry: Spider (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.