Dreaming about a black snake: what the dark color changes

Dreaming about a black snake: 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 snake is not a sign of the evil eye, of a death foretold or of a hidden enemy. The scene usually shows up in periods of vague worry, when something bothers you but does not have a name yet: unease at work, a conversation you keep putting off, a fear that grows at night. The dark color reinforces the feeling of not seeing clearly what lies ahead.

Nor is it a rule that the black snake is "worse" than the others. The general meaning of snakes in dreams is covered in dreaming about snakes; here the focus is on what the color and the darkness add to the scene.

Read also: Dreaming about a coral snake and Dreaming about a giant snake.

Why the black snake shows up right now

Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann showed in 2003 that dreams tend to follow what occupies waking life. A black snake has easy shortcuts into the night: a video of a snake in someone's backyard shared in the family group chat, a dark garden hose left on the lawn, the phone charger cable lying on the bedroom floor.

Some people also live alongside real snakes. In rural Brazil, the mussurana (muçurana in Portuguese), a snake whose body turns dark in adulthood, is known for feeding on other snakes, including venomous ones. And in the typical dreams questionnaire used by Tore Nielsen and colleagues in 2003, snakes appear among the themes that many people recognize having dreamed about at least once.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Nielsen and colleagues, Dreaming, 2003.

Black snake scenes and what usually comes with them

If the black snake was lifeless, see dreaming about a dead snake; if it struck at you, dreaming about a snake attacking.

See also: Dreaming about an octopus and Dreaming about crabs.

When the dark snake calls for care with your sleep

A single dream about a black snake requires no action. It deserves attention when it turns into a recurring nightmare, several times a week, and you start waking up with a racing heart or become afraid of going to sleep. Frequent nightmares have treatments with good evidence, and the first step is to talk to a health professional. See how to have fewer nightmares.

Source: Morgenthaler and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

The black snake according to Freud, Jung and faith

In Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud wrote that every dream contains a point of contact with the experiences of the previous day. So he would begin with the simplest question: where did you see something black and long in the last few days? Then he would ask for free associations for each piece of the scene: the color, the place, the size.

In Jung's psychology. Jung used the word shadow for the part of the personality that a person does not recognize as their own. In Man and His Symbols, Marie-Louise von Franz describes how the shadow appears in dreams, often in figures that disturb or frighten us. In this key, the black snake can be read as something of yours asking to be looked at, and not only as a danger from outside. It is also worth reading dreaming about a shadow.

In symbols and faith. A Dictionary of Symbols recalls that black has two sides: in the West it is the color of mourning; in ancient Egypt, the dark soil left behind by the Nile floods was a sign of fertility. In the Bible, Jesus asks his disciples to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16), an image in which the serpent stands for caution and wisdom, not only for threat. And linking black to evil is a cultural habit that not every tradition shares.

Bringing both readings together. Research shows where the color and the shape may have come from; psychology and faith ask what you still do not want to see. Write down how you felt when you woke up.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; Chevalier and Gheerbrant, A Dictionary of Symbols.

The black snake in dream dictionaries

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for the black snake. The closest one is the entry for snake, which tradition sums up like this: in life, problems; in love, dissatisfaction. The book also has an entry for serpent, linked to danger and betrayal. Color does not enter into it.

Freud called this way of reading the decoding method: each image turns into another through a fixed code, without asking the dreamer anything. He himself wrote that the same piece of a dream can mean different things for different people and in different contexts. The black snake of someone who lives in the countryside and the black snake of someone who has only seen snakes in documentaries do not tell the same story.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014.

What people usually say about the black snake

In Brazilian folk reading, the black snake is the most feared of all the colors: it is usually associated with envy, with false people nearby or with a hard period. A small black snake would be a small problem; many black snakes, several worries at once; a black and white snake, a choice between two paths. These are readings from tradition, which change from region to region, and not predictions. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.