Dream about writing: what does it mean? Jung and traditions compared

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

Were you reading the words or writing them? Do you remember anything you could use when you woke?

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 Writing as the real thing in your life), then on the “subjective level” (the Writing as a part of you). He also warned against fixed dream dictionaries: the same image means different things for different dreamers.

If the Writing 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

English Romantic poetry Literature

Coleridge said he fell asleep over a book and, for about three hours, composed two or three hundred lines of “Kubla Khan”, with the images rising “as things”. When he woke and began writing, a person on business from Porlock interrupted him for an hour, and most of the poem was gone.

S. T. Coleridge, preface to “Kubla Khan” (1816)

Victorian fiction Literature

Stevenson wrote that after two days of racking his brains for a plot, on the second night he “dreamed the scene at the window” of Jekyll and Hyde, and the scene where Hyde takes the powder and changes. The rest, he said, he made awake.

R. L. Stevenson, “A Chapter on Dreams”, in Across the Plains (1892)

Greek philosophy Philosophy

Socrates tells how, again and again in life, the same dream said “Cultivate and make music”. He had taken it to mean philosophy, “the noblest and best of music”, but before dying he also composed verse, in case the dream meant music in the ordinary sense.

Plato, Phaedo 60e–61b (Jowett trans.)

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 writing look like one you have actually seen? Could it simply be a copy of a memory?
Index — by connection
Could the writing point to an actual cause — a bodily sensation, a sound in the room, something that happened that day?
Symbol — by convention
Does the writing 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 writing

The dead king advises his son Egypt · c. 1950 BCE (Middle Kingdom)
A tall man spoke to him in riddles Athens, Greece · 514 BCE
Asleep among the grapes Eleusis, Attica · c. 510 BCE
The one goddess he never sang Thebes, Greece · c. 438 BCE
The dead poet recited a hymn Thebes, Greece · c. 438 BCE
Cultivate and make music Athens, Greece · 399 BCE
She woke holding a sealed letter Naupactus, Greece · c. 300 BCE
The five-coloured brush taken back Southern China · c. 500 (Liang)
My heart’s spirit resigned Ye (Handan), China · c. 560 (Northern Qi)
Swallowing pearls in the stream Nankang, Jiangxi, China · c. 880
My wife wrote me a poem in the dream Chengcheng, Shaanxi, China · c. 880
Two to three hundred lines composed in sleep Exmoor, Somerset, England · summer 1797
The letter on the seashore Seashore, location unstated · 31 January 1877
The scene at the window Bournemouth, England · 1885
The pencil writing by itself Inn, location unstated · 5 November 1885
A book read during sleep Atcham, England · March 5, 1885
Already at the hospital, so no need to go Vienna, Austria · c. 1895
Evensong without light England · before 1911
The scene I had to write England · before 1911
A postcard written partly in Latin England · before 1911
A parody by the goose-pond Montserrat, Spain · before 1911
A miracle drug called selvdrolla England · before 1911
My friend, alive, no longer editing England · before 1911
Charged one franc of interest Zurich, Switzerland · c. 1914

Common questions

What does a dream about writing mean?

There is no single answer. The same image has been read differently by different people and traditions. Jung approached writing through Two levels of reading; English Romantic poetry, Victorian fiction, Greek philosophy each offer a separate note, shown side by side above with their sources. Start with your own associations: what did writing make you feel in the dream?

Is this a dream dictionary?

No. It does not give one fixed meaning. It shows what named sources say, each with where it comes from, so you can compare them against your own experience.

Have other people dreamed about writing?

Yes. This site lists 24 sourced dream records that share this image, the earliest dated c. 1950 BCE (Middle Kingdom). They are listed at the bottom of this page.

Is the dream I write on this site uploaded?

No. Your own dream is matched against the records on your device and is not uploaded. The only exception is the optional AI reading, which sends the text you confirm only after you ask for it.

Related dream images

Dream images — Jung, world traditions and semiotics, side by side