Dreaming about a werewolf: meaning and what science says

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 werewolf is not a sign of a curse, a spell or someone wishing you harm. It is a threat dream, from the same family as chase dreams, and it tends to appear in phases of stress, fear or conflict. The figure is also heavily fed by culture: films, series, stories told by grandparents in the countryside and talk about the full moon.

Read also: Dreaming about a wolf and Dreaming that you are being chased.

Why the werewolf shows up in the dream

The threat simulation hypothesis, proposed by Antti Revonsuo in 2000, suggests that dreaming works as a rehearsal for danger: the brain creates risky situations and trains escape in a safe setting. A beast that chases you at night is exactly the kind of scene this idea tries to explain.

Being chased is also one of the themes most often cited when researchers ask university students about their typical dreams, as the survey by Tore Nielsen and colleagues showed in 2003. The werewolf is one of the forms this old plot can take, with the frightening advantage of looking like a person and an animal at the same time.

Sources: Revonsuo, The reinterpretation of dreams, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000; Nielsen and colleagues, The Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students, Dreaming, 2003.

Scenes that show up most in this dream

If the creature looked more like a blood drinker, it is also worth reading dreaming about a vampire.

If the dream keeps coming back: when to seek help

A nightmare about a werewolf now and then does not point to a problem. If it repeats, if you wake up in a panic, avoid sleep or spend the day dreading the night, it is worth talking to a health professional: frequent nightmares have effective treatment. See why nightmares happen and how to reduce them.

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

What dream books say

Popular dream books tend to treat the werewolf as a sign of betrayal or of a disguised enemy. Freud called this way of reading "decoding": each figure in the dream is swapped for another according to a fixed code, the same for everyone. He found the method insufficient, because it leaves out the story of the dreamer, and preferred to ask what each part of the scene (the moon, the door, the familiar face) brought to mind.

Source: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900.

Psychoanalysis, symbols and faith: another look at dreaming about a werewolf

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud says that seemingly innocent dreams are, when analyzed, "wolves in sheep's clothing". The image fits the werewolf, who is precisely an ordinary person on the outside and a beast on the inside. Through condensation, the creature can merge several people or ideas into one figure, such as a boss, a neighbor and a frightening piece of news.

In Jung's psychology. For Jungian psychology, the animal represents instinctive nature, and the shadow is the side of the personality one prefers not to see. In Jung's key, a werewolf can be read as the image of impulses that frighten, such as anger or desire, trying to gain room. The useful question is what in your own life is being held back by force.

In symbols and faith. In the Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant record that belief in lycanthropes, werewolves, is attested in Europe since Antiquity, and that Virgil already mentions it; in France, doubt only begins under Louis XIV. In the Bible, Matthew 7:15 speaks of false prophets as wolves in sheep's clothing, an image often recalled by those seeking the spiritual sense of this dream.

Putting the two readings together. Science explains the fright as a rehearsal for threat; tradition asks what hides behind the appearance. Noting who the creature was and what it wanted helps separate the two.

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

Popular beliefs about this dream

In Brazilian folklore, the werewolf is the man who turns into a beast on full-moon nights, and in many versions the transformation happens on a Friday, at a crossroads. In the popular reading, dreaming about it is usually seen as a warning against falseness or two-faced people; defeating or scaring off the creature, as courage. In religions such as Umbanda, interpretations vary from house to house. These are cultural and faith readings, not predictions. See dream meanings between science and culture.