Ever wonder what your dreams mean? It depends on where you’re from: how cultures decode symbols differently

If you dreamed of your teeth falling out last night, Sigmund Freud might tell you it’s about repressed desires, while a villager in Papua New Guinea could warn you to avoid the firepit. That’s the strange thing about dreams: the same image can mean radically different things depending on where you ask about it.

Anthropologist Robin Sheriff put it simply to National Geographic: “If you understand what a given group believes about dreaming, you have understood their whole culture.” Simple words, yes, but how easy is that to actually achieve? Given how my subconcience behaved last night, I wanted to find out more...

How humans started reading dreams

Long before psychologists, people believed their nightly visions connected them to the divine. Ancient Romans turned to dream oracles for political guidance, while records from China’s Zhou Dynasty describe oneiromancy, dream divination used to predict illness, relationships, or harvests.

Ze Hong, a researcher at the University of Macau, notes to NG that in traditional Chinese culture dreams were treated as visits from ancestors or spirits. They weren’t background noise, but instead evidence that the unseen world was actively involved in human life.

In Papua New Guinea, anthropologist Roger Lohmann found something similar but more literal. Dreams weren’t just symbolic, they were seen as the soul stepping out for the night. A nightmare, like Lohmann’s own vision of his notes catching fire, could be retold as a practical warning to watch the hearth.

Do dream symbols mean the same to everyone?

Given what I’ve said above, you’ll be clear that interpretations vary, and rather significantly. In Western psychology, for example – and thanks to the likes of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung – symbols like snakes and falling teeth became somewhat famous. Freud argued dreams expressed forbidden urges. Jung thought they staged conversations between the conscious and unconscious and drew on shared archetypes like “the mother” or “the trickster.”

But outside Europe, the symbolism changes dramatically. Snakes, an animal that grabs human attention, are a perfect example:

• In Western circles, they’re linked to sexuality or danger
• In Hindu traditions, they can signal fertility or prosperity
• Hopi and Pueblo communities associate them with the fertility of land
• Pentecostal Christians in Zambia may read them as proof of the devil at work
• In some old Chinese texts, a snake dream could predict the birth of a child

So, the next time you wake up in a cold sweat after a king cobra’s teeth have fallen out in front of a naked you being chased down the street unable to scream thinking about the exam you just failed... consider that the explanation may be more complex than you first thought.

Read more on this fascinating topic at NatGeo.

Get your game on! Whether you’re into NFL touchdowns, NBA buzzer-beaters, world-class soccer goals, or MLB home runs, our app has it all.

Dive into live coverage, expert insights, breaking news, exclusive videos, and more – plus, stay updated on the latest in current affairs and entertainment. Download now for all-access coverage, right at your fingertips – anytime, anywhere.