Dream symbols beginning with D

Traditional meanings, folk-average only. Death dreams especially: the tradition itself says they are almost never about death.

Dancing — harmony and release; dancing badly or unwillingly, social exposure. Group dances were read as family fortune, solo dances as private joy.

Darkness — the unknown ahead. Walking steadily through it read well in the old books; being lost in it read as a decision made without enough information.

Death — the entry that brings most people to a dream dictionary, and the one where the tradition is at its most reassuring: dreaming of death, including your own, was read as change — one chapter ending so another can start — not prophecy. Dreaming of a living person dying was read as a change in the relationship. The bereaved dream of the dead as part of ordinary grieving, and those dreams need no dictionary.

Dog — loyalty and friendship. A friendly dog, faithful company; a growling one, a friend to watch; being bitten, betrayal from inside the circle. Folk dictionaries disagree about black dogs, which is a useful reminder the entries are folklore, not law.

Door — opportunity. Open, closed, locked and unfamiliar doors were read as exactly what they sound like; a corridor of many doors is choice overload, four centuries before the phrase.

Drowning — overwhelm; too much feeling and not enough footing. The old interpreters distinguished drowning from swimming hard: effort in water read as coping, going under as the need for help. If the dream repeats, the useful question is what in waking life is over your head.

Dust — neglect; long-undisturbed matters. Sweeping it, setting old business in order.

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