Dreaming about honey: meaning and what science says

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 honey is not a promise of money, marriage or pregnancy. Honey reaches the dream through taste, smell and memory: a spoonful in tea for a cold, the jar at the farmers market, grandma spreading honey on bread. When it appears clean and golden, it usually comes with a sense of comfort, reward or affection. When it runs too much, sticks or has gone bad, the feeling is usually one of excess, of something good that went past its point, or of a situation you cannot get free of.

The dream does not measure health or predict good business either. What it does is take a very old image, linked to sweetness in almost every culture, and apply it to what you are living now.

Read also: Dreaming about bees and Dreaming about sweets.

Why honey gets into the dream

The continuity hypothesis, described by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, shows that dream content follows what fills the day, down to small details. Someone who took honey for a sore throat, who keeps beehives or who heard someone call their partner "honey" has the image at hand.

The body contributes too. Dement and Wolpert showed in 1958 that outside stimuli during sleep can be incorporated into the plot of a dream. Sleeping with a dry mouth, with the taste of a honey lozenge or after a very sweet dinner can produce a whole scene of honey in your mouth or honeycombs dripping.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Dement and Wolpert, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1958.

Freud, Jung and faith on honey

In Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud saw the dream as the disguised fulfillment of a wish and gave an example from his own body: he ate something salty at night and dreamed he was drinking water. Someone who goes to bed hungry, on a diet or craving a forbidden sweet may dream of honey running off the spoon. For Freud, the sweet taste in a dream is often just that: a postponed craving taking shape.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, Jung recalls that the dream compensates for what is missing or excessive in waking life. Someone going through a bitter phase may dream of honey as a counterweight; someone who has been receiving too much praise may dream of honey that sticks and will not come off. The symbol is the same; the reading depends on the dreamer.

In symbols and faith. In A Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant present honey as a food linked to wisdom and immortality in several ancient traditions, from Greece to India. In the Bible, it is a sign of abundance: in Exodus 3:8, the promised land is described as a land flowing with milk and honey; in Judges 14, Samson finds honey in a honeycomb; John the Baptist lives on locusts and wild honey in Matthew 3:4; and Psalm 19:10 says that God's word is sweeter than honey. Proverbs 25:16, on the other hand, warns that eating too much honey makes you sick. In Afro-Brazilian religions, according to the Mitologia dos orixás collected by Reginaldo Prandi, honey is an offering linked to Oxum (Oshun), the orisha of fresh waters, beauty and plenty.

Bringing both readings together. Science explains why the taste of the day comes back at night. Faith and symbols remind you that honey is good in measure and cloying in excess.

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

The most common versions of this dream

If the bees were the center of the scene, rather than the honey, read dreaming about bees, which is a dream with a different weight.

See also: Dreaming about rice and Dreaming about coins.

When the dream deserves professional attention

Dreaming about honey is almost never a cause for concern. Two situations call for care. If dreams of sweet food often come with guilt, fear of eating or distress on waking, it is worth talking to a health professional about your relationship with food. And if the scene of sticky honey or attacking bees turns into a recurring nightmare, several times a week, there is treatment for that too. See how to have fewer nightmares.

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

What dream books say

In O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book, L. P. Baçan follows the short format of popular dream books, with one line for life and another for love. For honey, the tradition he records is optimistic: in life, prosperity and health; in love, sweetness and reconciliation. That is where much of honey's reputation as a good dream comes from.

Jung, in Man and His Symbols, makes the caveat that applies to any entry: dream symbols do not fit into lists, because they belong to the person. The honey of a beekeeper and the honey of someone allergic to bee stings do not speak of the same thing.

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

The Brazilian folk reading

In Brazilian folk tradition, clean, golden honey is a sign of a good phase and of affection; eating honey, of pleasure and health; spilled honey, of a wasted opportunity; sticky honey, of a clingy person nearby; lots of honey, of plenty; dark honey, of a mature sweetness; and honey with bees, of a reward that takes effort. These are cultural readings, good for thinking about, not predictions. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.