Dreaming about a guitar: what this dream usually reflects

Dreaming about a guitar: 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.

Dreaming about a guitar is not a sign of romance, news or a big life change. Instruments show up in the dreams of people who play, people who wish they did and people who spent the day listening to music. The scene tends to come with a wish to express yourself, missing someone or a stage of life, and sometimes the jitters of performing in front of others. If the guitar is out of tune or broken, the dream most often mirrors frustration or fatigue, not a bad omen.

Read also: Dreaming about a piano and Dreaming about dancing.

What dream studies show

The continuity hypothesis, studied by Michael Schredl, shows that dreams pick up hobbies, routines and worries from waking life. If you play guitar, are learning it, have a gig coming up or can't get a song out of your head, you are more likely to dream about the instrument.

There are also hints that dreaming about a new task helps you learn it. In a 2010 study by Erin Wamsley and colleagues, people who dreamed about a virtual maze they were practicing did better after sleeping. For anyone studying music, dreaming about chords may be part of the memory work the brain does during sleep.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Wamsley and colleagues, Current Biology, 2010.

Science and belief: Freud, Jung and faith traditions

In Freud's psychoanalysis. The first chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams collects reports of sounds that slip into dreams, like an alarm clock that turns into church bells. Music playing in the room or next door can become a guitar at night. Freud also notes that dreams reuse leftovers from the previous day: the song on the car radio, a concert clip on your phone.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, Jolande Jacobi discusses a dream in which a young man, Henry, gets private singing lessons from an unknown young woman. For Jacobi, singing is "an immediate expression of feeling," and the dream was teaching Henry to voice emotions he feared. The book also recalls Orpheus, who taught while singing and playing the lyre. In the same key, playing guitar in a dream can be read as giving voice to what is held back.

In symbols and faith. In A Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant tell how Orpheus, with his lyre, calmed storms and enchanted plants, animals, people and gods, and how the lyre, an attribute of Apollo and the Muses, symbolizes poetic and musical inspiration. An early Christian writer quoted in the entry compared the cithara to the heart and its strings to the senses. In the Bible, in 1 Samuel 16:23, David plays the harp and Saul is soothed, and Psalm 150 calls for praise with stringed instruments.

Bringing both views together. Science shows why the guitar appears; faith traditions remind us that music has always been used to soothe and to express. Asking what you wanted to say with that song is a good place to start.

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

Common variations of dreaming about a guitar

If the music came from another instrument, you may also want to read dreaming about a piano.

If the dream keeps coming back: when to seek help

Dreaming about a guitar is almost never a cause for concern. If dreams of messing up on stage or being booed keep coming back, leave you tense when you wake up or disrupt your rest, talk to a health professional: frequent nightmares can be treated. See how to have fewer nightmares.

Source: Morgenthaler et al., Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

What dream books say

In the Brazilian dream book O Livro dos Sonhos, by L. P. Baçan, the guitar stands for good news in life and something new in love. The entry for music points the same way: union or health in life, satisfaction in love.

Freud called this kind of reading "decoding": each dream image is swapped for a fixed meaning, as if looked up in a table. He found the method lacking, because it ignores what the guitar means to the person who dreamed it. For a musician it is work; for someone else, the memory of a father playing on the porch.

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

Popular beliefs about this dream

In popular belief, playing guitar in a dream is seen as a sign of joy, harmony and good news; hearing a serenade, as affection on its way; and a snapping string, as a small setback or disagreement. These are cultural readings, good for reflection, not guarantees of what will happen. See what dreams mean according to science and culture.