Dreaming about a circus or a clown: meaning and variations

The short answer

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 circus or a clown is not a prediction of death, of betrayal or of someone mocking you. The circus usually appears in phases of agitation, exposure or change, when life looks like a show with a lot of people watching. The scary clown, in turn, is a classic nightmare character, fed by horror films and by the strangeness of a face that smiles without showing what it feels.

Read also: Dreaming about a party and Dreaming about being chased.

What research helps to understand

The threat simulation hypothesis, proposed by Antti Revonsuo in 2000, sees part of our dreams as rehearsals of danger in a safe setting. Being chased is one of the most typical scenes, and the pursuer changes with the culture: for many people, after films like It, he took on white makeup and a red nose.

The continuity between waking life and dreaming explains the rest. A children's party with entertainers, a circus that passed through town, a clown video online or a childhood memory from the bleachers slip easily into sleep. See also why we dream.

Sources: Revonsuo, The reinterpretation of dreams, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000; Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003.

The most common versions of this dream

If what stood out most was running from the clown, read dreaming about being chased.

See also: Dreaming about a helicopter falling or flying and Dreaming about a hole.

When dreaming about a circus or a clown calls for attention

An occasional dream about a scary clown is common. If the scene keeps coming back, you wake up in a panic several times a week or the fear of clowns starts to get in the way of life (avoiding parties, birthdays, places), it is worth talking to a health professional. Frequent nightmares have treatment: see how to have fewer nightmares.

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

Science and belief: Freud, Jung and the traditions

In Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud observed that children love being rocked, thrown up in the air and spun around, and that, when they watch the acrobatics of a circus, they relive those games. Years later, they reappear in dreams of flying, falling and feeling dizzy, only without the hands that held them. The trapeze in the dream may have its roots in that old memory of the body.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, Joseph Henderson describes the Trickster, the cheat of the myths: instinctive, childish, now cruel, now funny. He appears as the Chinese monkey, the little Hermes who steals Apollo's cattle and the Norse Loki, and the book calls Charlie Chaplin, stirring up trouble in Modern Times, "our Trickster of the twentieth century". The clown in the dream can be read in that key: the playful, clumsy part that asks for room, or that frightens when it has been repressed too much.

In the Dictionary of Symbols. Chevalier and Gheerbrant tell that the clown is, traditionally, the figure of the murdered king: the reverse of royalty, in which laughter takes the place of fear and mockery the place of ceremony. They also recall that, in Moscow's cemetery of famous men, there is a marble tomb of a clown next to those of writers and statesmen. The harlequin, with his black mask and wooden sabre, symbolizes the indecisive one.

Bringing both readings together. Fear explains the chase; the symbol asks who is behind the makeup.

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

What dream books say

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, is not cheerful about the theme: the circus points, in life, to embarrassments and, in love, to intrigue; the clown, in life, to annoyance and, in love, to fickleness. Freud called this way of reading "decoding", in which each image is translated through a fixed code, the same for everyone. The ring of someone who grew up in a small town, waiting for the circus to pass once a year, does not fit in the same entry as the clown from a horror film.

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

Dreaming about a circus or a clown in folk interpretation

In folk reading, the circus usually stands for passing joy, exposure and chaotic situations; the clown, for falseness, people who smile on the outside and hide their intentions, or the need to take life more lightly. Some ask whether dreaming about a clown means death, but no serious tradition supports that idea. In the Brazilian countryside, the masked clowns of the Folia de Reis, a procession in honor of the Three Kings, are part of an old popular devotion and also appear in the dreams of those who grew up close to it. These are cultural readings, not predictions. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.