A horse is power you sit on top of, and dreams never let you forget it. Artemidorus put the question plainly: however the horse carried the dreamer, so the people it stood for would behave. Were you riding, or being carried?
| Variant | What the old books read | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Riding a horse | Fortune advancing; a harmonious home | Golden Wheel 1862; Artemidorus |
| A horse bolting | Interests injured by a friend's folly | Miller 1901 |
| Falling off a horse | Disgrace; a strong rival | Golden Wheel 1862; Miller 1901 |
| A white horse | Prosperity and congenial friends | Miller 1901 |
| A black horse | Success by deception; postponements | Miller 1901 |
| A brown horse | A rise in fortune | Miller 1901 |
| An injured horse | The trouble of friends | Miller 1901 |
| A dead horse | Disappointments of various kinds | Miller 1901 |
What does it mean to dream about a horse?
The English books were warm about horses. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book (1862) ran through riding, being thrown, buying and selling, then closed with a plain verdict: "Horses are excellent animals to dream about." Miller's 1901 dream dictionary (Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted) gave the horse a very long entry, branching by color, rider and mishap, but its first line read horses as wealth amassed and life enjoyed to the full.
Artemidorus, whose Oneirocritica (2nd century) we cite in Friedrich Krauss's 1881 translation, read the horse more intimately. It stood for the dreamer's wife or beloved, since it prides itself on its beauty and carries its rider, and also for a ship, an employer or a patron. As the horse carried the dreamer, he held, so those people would behave towards him.
Miller, the Golden Wheel and Artemidorus agree that a horse is good news when it goes well. They differ on what the horse is: Miller's is fortune, Artemidorus's is a relationship.
Riding and falling
These are readings from the old dream books, reported as history — no dream foretells the future.
What does it mean to dream of riding a horse?
Riding well is the dream people wake from lifted. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book read riding "well and easily" as the dreamer's fortune advancing in the world. Miller read riding as ease and comfort, and a fine bay horse as a rise in fortune. Artemidorus read an obedient horse that followed the rein as a good sign for everyone, a partner in harmony. Psychologists hear momentum: your energy and your direction, for once, agreeing.
Was your dream different? Dreamlock reads the one you actually had →
What does it mean to dream of a horse bolting?
A horse that takes its own head is the version that wakes people. Miller's 1901 dictionary read riding a runaway horse as the dreamer's interests injured by the folly of a friend or employer, and a horse running away with others as news of friends' illness. The modern reading turns inward: drive outpacing control, your own power moving without you. That is what separates this dream from being chased.
What does it mean to dream of falling off a horse?
The fall is sudden, and the ground comes up hard. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book read being thrown as "a sign of disgrace", the exact reverse of its riding line. Miller read being thrown by a bucking horse as meeting a strong rival, with business suffering slightly through competition. The modern reading is a loss of momentum, or the fear of one, as in falling dreams. What you did after you landed is worth keeping.
Was your dream different? Dreamlock reads the one you actually had →
The horse's color
What does it mean to dream of a white horse?
A white horse tends to feel like an event, whatever it does. Miller read seeing or riding one as favorable for prosperity and pleasant company with congenial friends, though a white horse soiled and lean meant confidence betrayed by a jealous friend. Psychologists often hear an ideal: something you hope for, seen clearly and a little out of reach.
Was your dream different? Dreamlock reads the one you actually had →
What does it mean to dream of a black horse?
A black horse has a darker charge, even when it's beautiful. Miller read it as success in fortune gained through deception, and elsewhere in the same entry wrote: "Black in horses, signifies postponements in anticipations." The modern reading hears power you don't fully trust, or a plan put off.
What does it mean to dream of a brown horse?
A brown horse is the everyday horse, and its dreams are often calmer. Miller's nearest line is a bay: riding a fine bay horse he read as a rise in fortune and gratification of passion. Psychologists hear steady, unglamorous strength, the kind that gets you there.
The horse at pasture, hurt or dead
What does it mean to dream of horses at pasture?
Horses grazing in a field are the quietest horse dream. The three books have no grazing horse. The modern reading is kind: power present, fed and not needed for now, a season of rest. The follow-up question is whether the horse looked rested or neglected.
What does it mean to dream of an injured horse?
A lame or wounded horse wakes a protective instinct. Miller read a wounded horse as the trouble of friends, and a horse with a tender foot as some unexpected unpleasantness in an otherwise good state of affairs. Psychologists hear energy neglected: ambition, or a body, worked too long without care.
What does it mean to dream of a dead horse?
A dead horse is a heavy image, and people often remember its size. Miller gave it one of his shortest lines: disappointments of various kinds. The modern reading hears an ending of effort, a project or a hope that has stopped moving, and the grief of admitting it.
What does a horse dream mean psychologically?
The psychological reading keeps the old skeleton and drops the forecast: the horse as drive and vitality, the body's power and how it's being ridden. Freud and Jung both leaned on the horse as instinct under, or out from under, the rider's hand. Riding well tends to track a season of momentum; a bolting horse, drive outpacing control; a lame one, energy neglected.
Artemidorus would recognize part of this. His horse was a relationship, and the modern horse is too: the one between you and your own energy.
A question to sit with
Where in your life right now is there real momentum, and whose hands are on the reins of it: yours, or somebody else's?
Miller sorted horses by colour; your dreams sort them by memory. Maybe yours was your grandfather's, or it bolts only in the weeks before a deadline. Only your own dreams, remembered together over time, can show a pattern like that, and it's what Dreamlock, on the App Store for iPhone, is built for.