Dreaming about grasshoppers: swarms, plagues and leaps

What dreaming about grasshoppers 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 grasshoppers does not announce a plague, a lost harvest or a punishment. As a swarm, the scene usually goes with phases of overload: many demands at once and the feeling that something is eating away at what you planted with so much effort. When there is only one grasshopper, hopping from side to side, the dream tends to come with restlessness or the urge to take a leap.

This article covers the specific scene of the grasshopper; for small creatures in general, there is the main article about insects. None of the versions is a prediction.

Read also: Dreaming about insects and Dreaming about a cricket.

Why the grasshopper jumps into the dream

The continuity hypothesis, tested by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, says that dream content follows what occupies waking life. The grasshopper has easy paths into the night: one that came in through the window, a childhood spent on a farm, a church reading about the plagues of Egypt, the news of the locust swarm that hit crops in Argentina in 2020 and put southern Brazil on alert.

The typical dreams questionnaire used by Tore Nielsen and colleagues in 2003 includes insects and spiders among its themes. For people who make a living from farming, a plague is a real worry, and it is natural for it to come back at night.

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

Grasshopper scenes and what usually comes with them

If the dream took place in the fields, see also dreaming about crops or a vegetable garden and dreaming about a farm. If the heart of it was running from the swarm, read dreaming that you are being chased.

See also: Dreaming about wasps or hornets and Dreaming about a beetle.

When a grasshopper dream calls for attention

Dreaming about grasshoppers is hardly ever a cause for concern. It deserves attention when the cloud of insects turns into a recurring nightmare, you wake up with a racing heart several times a week and you begin to dread going to sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recognizes treatments for frequent nightmares, such as imagery rehearsal therapy, in which the person rewrites the ending of the dream while awake. The first step is talking to a health professional. See also how to have fewer nightmares.

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

Freud, Jung and faith before the swarm of grasshoppers

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud analyzes a patient's dream about two beetles trapped in a box. In the conversation, leftovers from the day come up, such as a moth that had fallen into a glass of water the evening before, along with the memory of a summer when a plague of beetles hit the region. The insect in the dream was a bridge to much more intimate matters. The method works for the grasshopper too: ask what the image pulls up in the memory of the person who dreamed it.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, animals in dreams appear tied to our instinctive nature, and the meaning depends on the dreamer's moment in life. A swarm that devours everything may show a force growing out of control; a grasshopper that leaps, energy for change.

In symbols and faith. In the Bible, locusts are the eighth plague of Egypt (Exodus 10), and the prophet Joel promises to restore the years the locust has eaten (Joel 2:25). Yet John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4). A Dictionary of Symbols, by Chevalier and Gheerbrant, shows this again and again: the same animal carries opposite meanings depending on the culture.

Bringing both readings together. Research explains how the news, the backyard and the church bring the grasshopper into the dream. Traditions ask what is being consumed in your life and what you want to protect.

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

The grasshopper in dream books

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for the grasshopper, nor for insects in general. For the scene of the swarm over the crops, the closest entry is the one for the harvest: in life, plenty; in love, peace of mind. It is a curiosity of tradition, not an answer.

Freud recalls that symbolic reading is ancient and cites Joseph before Pharaoh: the seven lean cows that devour the fat ones became seven years of famine. For him, this way of translating image by image stumbles over the confusing dreams of real life, which call for the dreamer's own associations.

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

What folk tradition says about the grasshopper

In Brazilian folk reading, a single green grasshopper is often seen as a sign of hope and good news, perhaps because it looks like the katydid, a green relative that many people mix it up with and that Brazilians call esperança, the same word as "hope". A swarm of grasshoppers is read as losses; a brown grasshopper, as tiredness; driving the swarm away, as victory over difficulties. These are traditional readings, not predictions. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.