Dreams about war: Jung, traditions and semiotics
This is not a dream dictionary. Each perspective below names where it comes from; traditions are shown side by side, not merged into one meaning.
Start with yourself
In the war, were you a soldier, someone fleeing, or watching from outside? Was there a particular enemy?
Jung · Two levels of reading
There is no specific Jungian note for this image; this is his general method.
Jung suggested reading a dream image first on the “objective level” (the War as the real thing in your life), then on the “subjective level” (the War as a part of you). He also warned against fixed dream dictionaries: the same image means different things for different dreamers.
If the War were a part of you, which part would it be?
C. G. Jung, Collected Works 7 & 8; “Approaching the Unconscious”, in Man and His Symbols (1964)
Traditions, side by side
Homeric epic Classical text
Zeus sends Agamemnon a deliberately false dream promising that Troy will fall at once. The epic itself treats a war dream as something that can mislead.
Homer, Iliad II
Song-dynasty poetry Literature
Lu You and Xin Qiji, both kept from the frontier they longed to recover, kept dreaming of battle; their war dreams are read today as poems of unfulfilled duty.
Lu You; Xin Qiji
Clinical psychology Dream research
For people who have lived through war or other trauma, recurring distressing dreams can be part of post-traumatic stress. If that is your experience, it is worth talking to a professional rather than looking for a meaning here.
American Psychiatric Association, DSM-5 (2013), PTSD criteria
Semiotics: how an image comes to mean
Following C. S. Peirce, an image can work as a sign in three ways:
- Icon — by resemblance
Does the war look like one you have actually seen? Could it simply be a copy of a memory? - Index — by connection
Could the war point to an actual cause — a bodily sensation, a sound in the room, something that happened that day? - Symbol — by convention
Does the war mean what it means by convention — an idiom, a saying, a family phrase? Would it still mean that in another language or culture?
C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers 2.247–249 (icon, index, symbol)
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types (1921), “Definitions: Symbol” — a sign stands for something known, a symbol for something not yet fully known
Ellis (1911), ch. II, on verbal links between dream images
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Recorded dreams with war
- Ptah forbids the king to fight Egypt · c. 1208 BCE
- A barley loaf tumbled into the camp Valley of Jezreel · undated narrative
- You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me Troy (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
- A lying dream in the likeness of Nestor Troy (setting) · c. 8th century BCE
- His daughter took away his armour Ithome, Messenia · c. 724 BCE (as told)
- The god stood by the weeping priest Memphis, Egypt · c. 701 BCE (as told)
- Wolves brought a lion without claws Messenia, Greece · c. 7th c. BCE (as told)
- My son would be killed by an iron spear Sardis, Lydia · c. 550 BCE (as told)
- Two women yoked to my son’s chariot Susa (setting) · 472 BCE (play)
- Honour the new Siren Attica, Greece · 406 BCE
- The fetters fell from my legs River Centrites, Anatolia · 401 BCE
- The dark woman who led the sleepers away Kurukshetra (setting) · c. 4th c. BCE–4th c. CE (epic)
- Two Alexanders in battle, crowned with corn Cappadocia, Anatolia · 321 BCE
- Throwing thunderbolts upon Sparta Sparta, Greece · 272 BCE
- A goddess put lightning in my hand Near Rome, Italy · 88 BCE
- Hector’s ghost before my sight Troy (setting) · 19 BCE (poem)
- Minerva withdrew from her sanctuary Rome, Italy · 96 CE
- Carried up out of a well Chang’an, China · c. 750
- The general’s buried sword Shouchun, Anhui, China · Tang (undated)
- Riding the sky to the Southern Peak Yangzhou, China · c. 840
- Into the water with three knives Guangling (Yangzhou), China · c. 890
- He woke with the sword in his hand Vindhya hills · c. 1070 (compiled)
- Woken from a dream a thousand li long Southern Song China · c. 1138
- Iron cavalry, silent as water Shu (Sichuan), China · c. 1173
- Armoured horses on frozen rivers Shanyin (Shaoxing, Zhejiang), China · 4th day of the 11th lunar month, 1192
- A warning of the war-party Dakota country · early 19th c. (told)
- Snow fell so no one could track them Great Lakes region · traditional (recorded c. 1820s–1850s)
- The guillotine fell France · c. 1850
- A plague of certainty Siberia, Russia · 1866 (novel)
- Riding with Achilles Vienna, Austria · c. 1900
- The white horse at dawn Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- A mother praying for a father who never returns Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- A samurai racing the temple clock to enlightenment Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- A cannon before the Arch of Constantine Rome (dreamed) · before 1912