Spider Dream Meaning

If you’re like me spiders freak you out. I’ve got a serious case of arachnophobia. So when spiders begin to invade my dreams I had to know what they meant. In my almost decade of dream study I’ve heard a lot of spider dreams. I’ve solved they mystery of what a spider means in a dream.

Spiders represent darkness, witchcraft and occult activity. Spiders are known to live in dark places, spin webs to catch their prey (like a spell) and are closely associated with Halloween. As hard as Western entertainment has tried to put a positive face on witchcraft the last twenty years, I’ve never seen a dream where spiders are a positive dream symbol.

The Spider Symbol and Context

The Dream

I was in my bedroom where I saw lots of spiders.  They were in all four corners of the ceiling and floor.  Then I saw this huge spider, as big as a Saint Bernard.  Afraid, I turned and ran out of my bedroom and down the stairs to the living room.  The huge spider followed me and went airborne at the top of the stairs.  I woke up just before it landed on me.

It’s not uncommon for dreams to end abruptly in the middle of action.  It doesn’t seem to matter what the dreamer is doing, whether being chased or observing something.  If the dream comes to an end before the action does and leaves everything unresolved it’s actually a very good thing.

The dreamer who had the dream above is left wondering what happens.  Does the spider land on him or does he avoid it at the very last second?  The reason that it’s good the dream is unresolved is because it’s telling the dreamer that the ending has not been written yet.  Things can still be changed in this situation.  If you were the one that had this dream about an infestation of spiders in your bedroom, I’m sure that you’d want to write your own ending of how the dream ends.  And believe it or not its possible to that very thing.

Here’s what I mean.  To find yourself in your bedroom with small spiders in all four corners of the room suggests that the little spiders have been in the dreamer’s bedroom for a long time, long enough at least to multiply and grow into an infestation.  It’s kinda like if you didn’t clean your bedroom for six months all kinds of things would gather in the corners of the floors and who knows what would be living in the corners of your ceiling?  The metaphorical language of the dream is saying that when you ignore things in your life and push them to the side, out of sight and out of mind, things get worse.

So we see that the dream is communicating that the dreamer is ignoring something in his life.  He’s ignored it for so long that it’s grown so big that he just can’t ignore it anymore.  The fact that at the end of the dream the huge spider doesn’t land on the dreamer or latch onto him with its fangs means that there’s time to stop ignoring this problem and do something about it.  What’s this problem that the dream’s talking about?  It doesn’t reveal any specifics.

One of the most misunderstood things about dream interpretation is that the person who is able to extract insight out of the dream and interpret that insight doesn’t actually know all the sordid details of what they are seeing and communicating to the dreamer.  The interpreter seems to know so much about the dreamer is due to the fact that dreams are intensely personal to the dreamer.  The revealing of the dream starts with the interpreter and ends with the dreamer.

So then, what does the dream reveal about the dreamer?  Simply stated, the dream says that the dreamer’s been ignoring something for so long that it’s taken up residence and is interfering with their peace and rest.  The problem has gotten so big that it is threatening to leave the confined area of the bedroom and enter the living room which is representative of the dreamer’s life.   However, If the dreamer takes action now there is still time to do something about it and avoid a nasty bite.

But, as any of us who’ve been forced to deal with situations in life that we’d rather ignore, it’s easier said than done.  It takes great courage to intentionally face something that’s gotten this big, and this warning dream is giving the dreamer the chance to do just that.

EB

Photo credit: Andrew Hoffman via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND