The world goes quiet. Sound softens, edges disappear, and a familiar street becomes somewhere you have never been. Snow dreams are rarely frightening, but they stay with people, partly for that silence. The old dream books liked snow more than most weather, and they read it closely: whether it fell on you, whether it came in its season, whether it melted.
| Variant | What the old books read | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Snow falling | Hardship leaving; or great fortune in its season | Yume handan jikkensho 1908; Zhougong 1880 |
| Snow falling on you | Affairs succeeding | Yume handan jikkensho 1908; Zhougong 1880 |
| A snowy landscape | Joy and pleasure, if the snow is clean | Golden Wheel 1862 |
| Slipping on a snowy road | No snow entry; slipping on winter ice as bad luck | Golden Wheel 1862 |
| Snowed in | Ill luck; a well buried by snow as a household divided | Miller 1901; Yume handan 1906 |
| Snow melting | Fears turning into joy; hardship first, then happiness | Miller 1901; Yume handan jikkensho 1908 |
What does it mean to dream about snow?
In Japan, Karasawa Shōkaku's Yume handan jikkensho (1908) gives snow three lines in its chapter on the sky, all kind. Snow falling meant hardship going away. Snow falling and settling on the dreamer meant an undertaking coming to completion. Red snow, the strangest of the three, meant a long life. The Chinese Zhougong dream book, in its 1880 print, reads snow falling on the body the same way, as "all things accomplished", which is one of many places where the Meiji book follows the older Chinese list. The Zhougong list also cared about timing: snow falling in its season was great fortune, while another line read frost and snow coming down as affairs that would not succeed.
The 1906 Yume handan, a Japanese translation of the Ming-era Menglin xuanjie, has no snow section in its chapters on the sky, but snow turns up elsewhere. Eating snow was read by rank: for a noble, promotion; for the wealthy, ease in everything; for an ordinary person, a life of wandering from province to province.
The Western books are cooler. Miller's 1901 dream dictionary (Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted) read seeing snow as no real misfortune but "the appearance of illness" and unsatisfying enterprises, and a snowstorm as disappointment. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book (1862) read the ground covered with clean, white snow as joy and pleasure, and eating snow as health.
Snow falling
These are readings from the old dream books, reported as history; no dream is a forecast.
What does it mean to dream of snow falling?
Flakes drifting past a window, or coming down thick in the light of a street lamp. The 1908 Japanese dream book read falling snow as hardship leaving, and the Chinese Zhougong list read snow in its proper season as great fortune. Miller read large white flakes seen through a window as a quarrel with a sweetheart. Psychologists read falling snow as quiet arriving: a pause, a softening, sometimes a chill settling over a relationship or a season.
What does it mean to dream of snow falling on you?
It lands in your hair, on your shoulders, on your open hands. This is the scene both Asian books single out. The 1908 Japanese dream book read snow falling and settling on the dreamer as an undertaking succeeding, and the Zhougong list read snow on the body as all things accomplished. Psychologists hear a feeling of being covered: calmed, or slowed, by something larger.
The snowy world
What does it mean to dream of a snowy landscape?
Fields and roofs gone white to the horizon, untouched. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book (1862) read ground covered with clean snow as joy and pleasure, and dirty or patchy snow as troubles that would not amount to much. Miller read the sun shining over a snowy landscape as adversity overcome. Psychologists notice what is hidden: familiar ground covered over, softened or frozen in place for a while.
What does it mean to dream of slipping on a snowy road?
Your foot goes, the world tips, and you land hard. No book cited here has an entry for falling on snow. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book's nearest line reads slipping on winter ice as bad luck, and gliding easily over it as a difficulty overcome. Psychologists read the slip as lost footing: a situation that looked stable and turned out to be treacherous underfoot.
What does it mean to dream of being snowed in?
The door won't open; the drifts reach the windows; nobody can come or go. Miller read being snowbound or lost in snow as "constant waves of ill luck". The 1906 Japanese dream book has an odd near-relative: a well about to be buried by snow, read as a household that would not stay united, or as being deceived. Psychologists read the scene as isolation: feeling cut off, or a pause that has gone on too long.
What does it mean to dream of snow melting?
Drips from the eaves, dark ground showing through. Miller read melting snow as fears turning into joy, and his entry on thawing ice as a worrying affair becoming profitable. The 1908 Japanese dream book read drinking melted ice or snow as hardship first and happiness after. The Golden Wheel Dream-Book was less hopeful about walking through slush. Psychologists read melting as feeling returning.
What does a snow dream mean psychologically?
Psychologists usually read snow as emotional quiet. The world in a snow dream is muffled and made still, and that stillness can be peace or it can be a coldness that has settled over a relationship, a job or a season of life. Many dreamers find snow covering familiar ground: what is known is temporarily hidden, softened or frozen in place.
Which way the snow is moving often says the most. Falling snow tends to arrive with a pause; deep, lying snow with a stretch that feels stuck; melting snow with feeling coming back. For the other weather that falls from the sky, see dreams about rain; for water in every form, dreams about water.
A question to sit with
What in your life has gone quiet lately, and does the quiet feel like rest or like cold?
A dream book can tell you that a Meiji writer read falling snow as hardship leaving. It can't tell you why your snow always falls on the house you grew up in, or only in the weeks after a decision you haven't told anyone about. That shows only when your dreams are recorded and kept together. If you're wondering whether reading dream meanings helps at all, we wrote an honest answer: should you stop reading dream meanings? Dreamlock, on the App Store for iPhone, is a private dream journal made for keeping them together: it listens to your dream, paints it, and notices when the same seasons come back.