Dreaming about bones: what this dream usually reflects

What this dream usually points to (and what it does not)

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 bones, a skeleton or a skull does not predict death or illness. Bone is the most durable part of the body, and that is why it shows up in dreams both as an image of structure and strength and as an image of what is "left over" after an ending: a relationship, a phase of life, a project.

The emotion of the scene (fear, curiosity, calm) and what the bone is doing (breaking, turning up, being buried) say more than the bone itself. A skeleton in a museum that you look at with interest is a different dream from a pile of bones that you find with dread, even though the image is similar.

Read also: Dreaming about death, Dreaming about a cemetery and Dreaming about teeth falling out.

Why bones show up in the dream

Dreams work with images of the body, of death and of fear, and these themes appear above all in nightmares, in stressful periods and after movies, news stories or visits to places such as hospitals and cemeteries. According to the continuity hypothesis, what happens at night follows what we live and feel during the day.

Someone who has just read about bones, had an imaging test, broken something or watched a horror series may carry that image into a dream. Bone is also a strong cultural symbol, one the mind uses to speak of support and of endings.

That is why the same image can be harmless on one night and frightening on another: what changes is less the bone than the state of mind and the day that came before it.

Sources: Schredl and Göritz, Nightmare Themes, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018; Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003.

Versions of the bone dream and what they usually go with

If the skull or the skeleton came with a strong sense of death, see dreaming about death. If the bone was in the mouth of a pet, see dreaming about dogs.

See also: Dreaming about a cemetery and Dreaming about ghosts or spirits.

When dreaming about bones calls for attention

The dream does not point to any problem with your bones. If you have persistent bone pain, fractures with no explanation or any other real symptom, see a doctor regardless of the dream. And if dreams of death and bones keep coming back to the point of making you afraid to sleep, or started after a loss, talk to a psychologist: frequent nightmares can be treated, as explained in nightmares: why they happen and how to have fewer.

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

Science and belief: Freud, Jung and traditions

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, Jung tells how he once had a dream about skulls and skeletons and did not dare tell Freud about it, because Freud, he says, had the impression that Jung was anticipating his death. Jung's real associations with the dream were different: he was working at the anatomy institute and was fascinated by the study of fossil man, such as Neanderthal man. The episode shows the central idea: the same symbol has different meanings depending on the dreamer's own associations.

In symbols and faith. A Dictionary of Symbols explains that bone is the framework of the body, its essential and relatively permanent element, and that is why it is a symbol of firmness, strength and virtue. Because it holds the marrow, it also carries the idea of essence. For shamans, contemplating the skeleton is a return to the primordial state, and for the Bambara people of West Africa, bones symbolize the essence of creation. Among hunting peoples, the bones of game were respected and put back together as a way of ensuring that life would be renewed.

Bringing both readings together. Tradition sees in bone the part that endures and the promise of renewal; science reminds us that the dream reflects emotions and images from the day. The useful question is: what in your life is the structure that stays when everything else changes?

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

What dream books say

L. P. Baçan's O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book, shows how traditional readings contradict each other: a bone is linked to illness in life and dishonesty in love; a skeleton, to bad news and betrayal; and a skull, to a long life and falseness. Similar images, opposite messages: a good reason to treat these dictionaries as folklore and not as warnings. Freud described dream books as a kind of dictionary that translates each image into another with a fixed meaning. Artemidorus of Daldis, author of the oldest complete Greek dream book that has survived, advised looking at the dreamer's life before interpreting anything. If you see the dream as a message, both paths make the same suggestion: ask what this image recalls in your life right now. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.

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

Read also: dreaming about a funeral or a coffin; dreaming about someone who has died; why we dream.

Folk beliefs about this dream

In folk reading, dreaming about bones is linked to losses, to the end of cycles and to "buried" things that come back to the surface; for others, it speaks of structure, inheritance and ancestry. These are cultural interpretations, with no scientific proof. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.