What it means to dream about a witch (and what it doesn't)

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 witch does not mean that someone cast a spell on you, or that envy or spiritual work is underway. The witch is one of the best-known images of fear since childhood, and it tends to appear when there is tension with someone close, a feeling of being judged or an environment that seems hostile. When the witch is kind or talks calmly, the dream tends to come with curiosity rather than dread.

Read also: Dreaming about a demon and Dreaming about a ghost or spirit.

What dream studies show

Being chased is among the most reported dream themes in the world. In a survey of Canadian university students, Tore Nielsen and colleagues found being chased at the top of the list of typical dreams. The witch "trying to catch you" is one of the forms this scene takes, with the detail that the threat comes from a figure everyone learned to fear as a child.

The continuity theory completes the explanation: dreams reuse what occupies waking life. A horror movie, a costume party, a cartoon the child at home watched, a conversation about folk remedies or the memory of a feared neighbor from childhood are enough to put a witch in the middle of the night.

Sources: Nielsen et al., The Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students, Dreaming, 2003; Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003.

The most common versions of this dream

When the figure in the dream seemed more like a spirit than a person, it is also worth reading dreaming about a ghost or spirit.

When the dream deserves professional attention

A dream about a witch, however frightening, does not indicate illness or danger. If it repeats, if you wake up afraid to fall asleep again or spend your days feeling chased, it is worth talking to a health professional. Frequent nightmares are treatable. See how to have fewer nightmares.

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

What dream books say

In O Livro dos Sonhos (a Brazilian dream book), L. P. Baçan gives the witch two readings: in life, a wish for change; in love, covetousness. Note that neither mentions spells or spiritual attack: the book looks at the dreamer, not at someone outside.

Man and His Symbols, a work edited by Jung, is wary of this kind of dictionary. For the book, dreams are completely individual phenomena and their symbols cannot be cataloged. One person's witch may be the stepmother in a tale read in childhood; another's, a boss who shouts at work.

Sources: Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014.

Freud, Jung and faith on this dream

In Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud used the word condensation for the dream work that merges several people into one figure. The witch is an easy example: the nose may be an aunt's, the voice an old teacher's, the way of looking a coworker's. With the free association method, each part is examined separately to see which memories it brings up.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, the anima, the feminine side of the male unconscious, often appears as a sorceress or priestess. The book notes that the idealized image of woman in the Middle Ages produced its opposite, the belief in witches, and that this figure tends to split between the saint and the witch. In the Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant summarize Jung: for women, the sorceress can be a scapegoat onto which their own dark sides are placed.

In the traditions of faith. The same dictionary recalls the legend of the sabbath, in which sorceresses rode brooms to gather in a clearing, and sums up: when God rests, the demons stir. In the Bible, 1 Samuel 28 tells how Saul sought the medium of Endor, an episode many churches read as a warning against seeking answers that way.

Putting the two readings together. Science explains the chase and the fright; faith and psychology ask who this witch reminds you of. Noting the face, the voice and the place in the dream often gives better clues than any ready-made list.

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

What folk tradition links to this dream

In popular belief, the witch is usually associated with envy, gossip and people who wish harm. An old witch appears as a sign of advice that comes from experience; a flying witch, as news arriving from afar; defeating or driving away the witch, as overcoming an intrigue. Some people also link the dream to spiritual work. These are cultural interpretations, to reflect on, not predictions. See dream meanings according to science and culture.