What it means to dream about nails (and what it does not)

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, always saying which is which.

Dreaming about nails is not a warning of an accident, of envy or of spiritual work done against you. The nail usually gets into the dream through very concrete things: a renovation at home, an old fence, the memory of having stepped on one as a child. Scenes of a nail piercing the foot or the hand tend to come with pain and fright; new nails and a hammer in hand, with a sense of building or fixing something.

Read also: Dreaming about a knife and Dreaming about shoes.

Why a nail appears in the dream

The continuity hypothesis, reviewed by Schredl and Hofmann in 2003, shows that dreams repeat what fills waking life. Someone who is hanging pictures, works in construction, does woodworking or walked down a street full of rubble keeps recent images of nails, hammers and boards.

Body sensations can also become plot. In 1958, William Dement and Edward Wolpert showed that stimuli applied during sleep, such as drops of water on the skin, were woven into dreams. A cramp in the foot, a heel resting on the edge of the bed or a toothache can take, at night, the shape of a nail going into the skin or the mouth.

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

The most common versions of this dream

If the scene in the mouth recalled loose or breaking teeth, see also dreaming about teeth falling out.

See also: Dreaming about okra and Dreaming about plates or dishes.

When the dream deserves professional attention

A dream about a nail, on its own, points to no problem. If scenes of injury repeat, if you wake up with a racing heart several nights in a row or begin to be afraid of sleeping, talk to a health professional. Frequent nightmares have treatment: see how to reduce nightmares.

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

Freud, Jung and faith on this dream

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud discusses authors such as Binz, who saw the dream as a purely bodily process, and acknowledges that physical stimuli get into dreams but do not explain everything. The method he proposes is to break the scene into pieces: to ask what comes to mind about the nail, then about the rust, the foot, the place. Freud said he wrote down his own thoughts as they came up.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, Jung observes that, in dreams, the most banal things can take on a fascinating or terrifying aspect. The nail is a perfect example: in life, it is barely noticed; in the dream, it can fill the whole scene.

In symbols and faith. In A Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant tell how, in the Turkic-Tatar tradition, the pole star fastens the tent of the sky like a stake, and how in the language of the Samoyeds it is called the "nail of the sky", an idea that also appears among the Lapps, Finns and Estonians. The same dictionary recalls Thor's hammer, creator and destroyer at the same time. In the Afro-Brazilian religions, such as Umbanda and Candomblé, Ogum is the orixá of iron, metals and tools, tied to work and open roads, according to the mythology gathered by Reginaldo Prandi.

Bringing both readings together. A nail can wound or hold up a house: it is worth remembering which of the two appeared.

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

What dream books say

In O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book, L. P. Baçan reads the nail as difficulties in life and intrigue in love. The hammer, which many people dream of alongside it, has another reading in the same book: in life, poverty; in love, persistence.

Freud called this way of reading "decoding": each image is swapped for a fixed meaning, as in a table. For him, the main thing was missing, which is the dreamer's story. A nail in a carpenter's dream and in the dream of someone who got hurt by a nail as a child hardly call for the same translation.

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

Folk beliefs about this dream

In folk reading, the nail usually symbolizes obstacles and small hurts, but also firmness and construction. A rusty nail is read as an old problem that still bothers you; a new nail, as a project getting started; nailing something with a hammer, as effort that pays off; and pulling a nail out of your foot, as relief. These are cultural interpretations, for reflection, not guarantees. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.