Dreaming about a black cat: bad luck, good luck or superstition?

Dreaming about a black cat: what it usually points to

Dream interpretation is not prediction and not diagnosis. This article separates what sleep research observes from what popular interpretation associates with the theme, always saying which is which.

Dreaming about a black cat is not a sign of bad luck, of a spell or of envy. The animal's bad reputation is a superstition, and dream research links the scene to what you live and feel. A gentle black cat usually comes with a sense of mystery and coziness; an attacking one, with tension; one coming into the house, with the arrival of something new, which may be good or simply unknown.

If you live with a black cat, the dream may be nothing more than routine or affection. The general meaning of the animal is covered in dreaming about a cat; here the focus is the color and the history of superstition it carries.

Read also: Dreaming about a panther or leopard and Dreaming about an owl.

Why the black cat appears in the dream

The continuity hypothesis, tested by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, says that dreams follow what fills waking life. The black cat is everywhere: Halloween decorations, Friday the 13th jokes, the cat on the neighbor's wall. Cats are crepuscular, most active at dawn and dusk, which is why they are usually seen precisely when the light fades and the black of their fur becomes a silhouette.

The real animal is less mysterious than its reputation. The black coat comes from a genetic variation that is common in the species, many black cats have yellow or copper-colored eyes, and some take on a reddish tinge when they spend a lot of time in the sun. There is no basis for linking the color to temperament. Even so, many shelters report that black cats tend to take longer to be adopted, a sign that the superstition weighs on real life.

Source: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003.

Scenes with a black cat and what usually goes with them

If the house was at the center of the scene, also read dreaming about a house. If there was also a dark dog in the dream, see dreaming about a black dog.

See also: Dreaming about a big spider and Dreaming about a puppy.

Where the black cat's reputation for bad luck comes from

The superstition has European roots. In medieval and early modern Europe, cats, especially black ones, came to be associated with witchcraft and the devil, and they were persecuted along with the women accused of being witches. The image of the black cat beside the witch crossed the ocean with the colonizers and made its way into today's Halloween. See dreaming about a witch and dreaming about Halloween.

In other cultures, the reading is the opposite. In parts of the United Kingdom, a black cat that shows up at the door is a sign of good luck, and an old sailors' tradition looked kindly on having a cat on board. In Japan, black cats are also associated with good fortune in some traditions. The same color that frightens people in Brazil is a lucky charm elsewhere.

The black cat for Freud, Jung and faith

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud summarizes the theory of Scherner, for whom "the image of a cat expresses an irritable mood, ill humor". Freud saw in this system a return to the old interpretation by symbols, one that leaves room for arbitrary readings, although he granted that it held a kernel of truth. His own method asked for something else: what this black cat reminds you of, whose it was, where you last saw it.

In Jung's psychology. Jung separated the personal unconscious, made of each person's memories, from the collective unconscious, which holds images shared by many peoples, a central theme of Man and His Symbols. The black cat brings both layers together: centuries of superstition on one side, the cat you once knew on the other. It is worth asking which of them spoke louder in the dream.

In symbols and faith. Cats barely appear in the Bible. The exception is Baruch 6, found in Catholic Bibles, where cats and birds perch on the statues of idols, an image used to show that the idols have no power at all. No Christian tradition teaches that a black cat brings bad luck; the idea is a folk superstition.

Bringing both readings together. Research explains where the scene came from; psychology and faith help separate inherited fear from your own fear. Notice whether the cat was coming closer to you or moving away.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols.

When the black cat turns into a nightmare

A black cat that attacks, scratches or will not leave the bedroom can make the night heavy. A well-known hypothesis, from Antti Revonsuo, proposes that threatening dreams work as rehearsal: the brain simulates danger in a safe setting. A dream like this, every now and then, is part of life. It is worth seeing a health professional when the nightmare repeats several times a week or when you start to be afraid of going to sleep, because frequent nightmares have treatments with good evidence behind them. See how to have fewer nightmares.

Sources: Revonsuo, The reinterpretation of dreams, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000; Morgenthaler and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

The black cat in dream books

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for a black cat; the color does not count, and the book goes against the superstition. The entry for cat sums up the tradition like this: in life, good luck; in love, caution. For a cat that scratches, there is the entry for scratch: in life, risks; in love, suffering.

Jung warned against using symbols as a table of ready-made answers: the meaning depends on who dreamed it. The black cat of someone who grew up with one and that of someone who crosses the street to avoid one are not the same dream.

Sources: Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014.

What folk tradition says about the black cat

In Brazilian folk reading, the black cat is still strongly tied to bad luck, envy and the evil eye: a black cat attacking would mean betrayal; one crossing your path, an obstacle. But there is a growing, opposite reading, especially among cat owners, that sees the black cat as protection for the home, intuition and good luck. In this reading, a gentle black cat would be a sign that something that used to be frightening is losing its strength. These are interpretations from tradition, not predictions. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.