Red
Even where red appears quite casually in a dream, as with the hat in the example, there is frequently fear, screaming, horror or a sense of danger in the same dream. Red also represents ones basic emotions, earthy nature, and sexuality. In this sense it depicts your strength or vitality and your down to earth health and power. But because of the modern association with traffic lights and warnings such as brake lights on cars, it may sometimes be used as a warning, or a way of saying ‘stop’ or ‘no’.
Example: These men were throwing a big red rubber ball into a field, and if we didn’t catch it, we would get shot. Example: ‘An old woman with a very pink, lined face, and wearing a clashing red hat, knelt close to my face. The woman leaned forward to poke my hand, and I recoiled, screaming myself awake.’ Joy S.
But red must also be understood in context with the other ideas presented. For instance a road accident where blood is seen has a different feeling in your dream that a lovely young girl with red hair – a sign of a lively and perhaps passionate woman. From findings concerning early humans we know that the colour red, and substances such as red ochre, played a large and important part in their life.
In Africa red ochre was, and still is, called the ‘blood of the earth’ and is used in rituals to do with death and renewal. Because red is connected with blood and blood’s obvious links with health, being alive, and the process of childbirth in women, ochre and the colour red were and still are, often used in healing practices. Red wine is also seen as blood in the magical rituals of the church and other groups. See: blood under body; archetype of blood; wine.
A recent research team of U.S. and German scientists found that the colour red influences the way people function. It reduces the ability to perform well at whatever task they are doing. University of Rochester and University of Munich researchers reported that even if people being tested were aware of even a hint of red, their performance would be reduced in quality to a significant degree. University of Rochester psychology Professor Andrew Elliot, head of the research, said people associate the colour red with mistakes and failures.
Less frequently: Red can link with blood; menstruation; the biological life force; conception; reproduction; death. Pale pink: Baby feelings; gentle love; weakness.
Red and grey often appear together: Emotions connected with depression or lack of motivation and pleasure.
Red brick building: Homeliness; warmth.
Red clothes or motif: Sexuality; passion; strong emotions.
Red earth: Fertility; richness; the healing power of the body; the collective memory of past human struggles and discoveries which we now inherit as personal or social skills, or ease of performance of things that would have been difficult or impossible for our ancestors.
Red eyes: This usually suggests feelings or fears about sickness or being irrational or deeply emotional.
Red face: Anger; high emotion; illness .
Red hair: Passionate thoughts, angry ideas, great energy like a fire. See: hair.
Red flowers: Love; passion; dangers of passion.
Red furniture or decor; Plush: richness; comfort.
Rose pink: Love, as one might give to a child.
Idioms: paint the town red; redneck; see red; in the red; red carpet; red letter day; red light district; red faced; red handed; red tape; run a red light.
Useful questions and hints:
Are there signs of powerful emotions in the rest of the dream – if so what am I feeling passionate or emotional about?
Is there a warning of danger here, or a message to stop – if so what does that apply to in my life?
Do I feel in any way connected to the earth, to the spirit of nature or life in this dream – if so what does that tell me?
See Colours – Emotions – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Comments
I’ve been having this reoccurring dream over the past couple of years that comes and goes every couple of weeks. In the dream, a woman and I open a door up and walk into a totally red room. The walls are red, the ceiling, the floor, and the bed are all crimson red. There’s no other furniture in the room besides the bed. And the girl is constantly interchanged, one day it may be a girl I have a crush on, a girl I’ve never met before, or a girl that I can’t stand to be around, doemy matter who it is, every time I habe the dream it’s the same room same bed different girl, then the girl begins to undress herself and is laying there saying that she wants me to have sex with her, and as soon as I go in to have sex with the girl, the dream ends and I wake up coated in sweat.
Dear Cole Barefoot – In general dreams recur because there are ways you habitually respond to your internal and/or external world. Because your attitude or response is unchanging, the dream that reflects it remains the same. It is noticeable in those who explore their dreams using such techniques as described under processing dreams (http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/processing-dreams/) and/or Power Dreaming (http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/) that recurring themes disappear or change because the attitudes or habitual anxieties that gave rise to them have been met or transformed.
I believe that your dream is about some form of resistance that is withholding you to interact and/or unite with the different aspects of your inner female on a deeper level.
In a sense, sex is also a merging with the person who is the dream character. Because we are always inside of ourselves male and female (and also everything we dream about), it may therefore show an attempt to merge more fully with your anima.
In general we can say the anima represents the man’s emotions, his nurturing and caring quality, forgiveness, his sense of what is natural and his connection with nature, its cycles and drives.
The anima also holds in it an expression of a man’s complex of feelings about women, gained as experience mostly from his mother – or lack of mother – but also from a synthesis of all his female contacts. So the whole realm of his personal experience of the female, along with the whole racial experience of woman can be represented by the woman in his dream, and is accessible through the image.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-anima-jungs-view-of-the-female-in-the-male/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/mother-mum-ma/#InnerMother
I believe that using Power Dreaming will be a good start to explore your dream and to uncover what your resistance ( fear or anger?) is about.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/energy-sex-and-dreams/
Anna 🙂
im having a lot of nightmares.
ive been under a lot of.pressure in school ( im 15) and im having some feeling that i might die soon. anyways recently i remember dreaming about a red eye with bloody red blood cappillaries looking straight at me through a whole in the soil. the soil is outlimes with red and white, infact the whole image is in red and white.
its been 3 weeks.full of nightmares.
Judy – I know we are educated by modern beliefs that we are just a body, and as such can die. But you are Life that gives a body life and consciousness. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/signs-of-consciousness-people-who-are-considered-vegetive/ It shows massive brain activity in a body that cannot let the brain activity express, so they appear without real life in them and are often switched off of life support.
Life is much more mysterious than your fears show you. The images of your nightmare – which are actually a healing process except people run from such in fear – shows you that even in the soil, the body, the ‘dead’ earthy stuff, consciousness looks out at you. Please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/near-death-experiences/ and http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing
It is ringed in red and white because life is blood – the red – and white – your consciousness. So wake up to the mysterious life that you are.
Tony
I dream of a woman in red monk robes every night and she has never done anything regardless of wqha goes on.bad dream or good dream.just stands there n watches what’s going on usually about twenty feet or so or right in my face almost. I heard all the generic “red” answers I’m looking for who she is and why she’s around.when I speak to her she turns her head.anyone??
Hi, My girlfriend has night terrors every night about red eyes. They’re always the same colour. And the person with the red eyes, occasionally me, Always hurts her in some way. My eyes are blue. Sometimes she sees the blue eyed me in her dreams and sometimes the blue eyed me helps her and sometimes he hurts her. I’m wanting to know what this could mean and how I can help her. I can answer any further questions. – Loving boyfriend rob
Hi tony-
Your site is amazing btw. Anyways, I had a dream a few nights ago, and in the dream I was at a wedding wearing a beautiful red dress. In the wedding all my family members where there, and I felt happy, at the same time I was looking for my boyfriend in the crowd. I went outside and there was different entrances to the wedding. I took the middle entrance, and it was very dark and narrow and stair where going down (like 5 stairs down) beautiful curtains. As I entered the wedding there was a dance floor , and I started dancing with my sister .
My boyfriend had a dream and say my face covered in blood then he heard screams please help
Ashley – Please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing then you will see that dreams of other people are not some sort of prediction about the person – you. But are images used to describe the dreamers feelings about them.
So your boyfriend must be feeling something awful is happening to his feelings about you.
Tony
Hi
I am wondering about the color red.
I had a dream that I was driving at night. It was very dark even the road. The sky was clear and the stars were shining. I was driving slowly and looking at the stars when I drove over a bump ( at that point the car was gone and it was my leg that rubbed over the bump in the road ) I was suddenly scared. In the darkness I heard and saw a female figure run by me down the road towards a car that was crashed into the trees. I looked down and the bump was a male body wearing a bright red shirt. I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. I felt anxious and scared. Then woke. I wonder about the red only because about a week ago I had a dream that I was in the house of my late grandfather. The energy was good and I felt calm and peaceful. There was a girl maybe 12 or 13. She was the main presence in the dream and she had red hair. Her name was Wendy. Eventually in the dream I realized she was a spirit. By the end of the dream the house was filled with male and female spirits. Still the energy was good and I never felt fear. I am just wondering why I’m dreaming of red and death.
Thank you so much
Jen – Dream images are usually your own feelings clothed in images that may give you an understanding of what is going on inside you, based on your present understanding based on your physical experiences. But the cause of dreams lies beyond that in the formless state – the spirit. But because our beliefs and personality are built around our world experience we use the images we pick up from that.
The dream shows you entering the world of dreams and the unconscious – night – and realising a hurt or injured man. But as your dream showed you, every part of a dream is you – the car was also your leg touching the man. The dream suggests that you are aware of an injury to your worldly active part of you, the part that is good at work, at standing up for yourself. But to really understand your dream you need to explore it – maybe with – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
The second dream with red is totally different. Because red must also be understood in context with the other ideas presented. For instance a road accident where blood is seen has a different feeling in your dream than a lovely young girl with red hair – a sign of a lively and perhaps passionate woman. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/context-theme/
Tony
I dreamt of a red house that was large with lots of windows. I was with a man and a boy I did not know. The boy did something that filled me with so much fear that I woke up. In my dream, I saw what he did, but I can not remember it. I keep trying to remember. Is it even significant? Or is that enough of the dream?
Good morning!
I can usually figure out my own dreams but this one is bothering me. Plain and simple: I saw my name written in cursive, small but rather bold in RED.
I am disturbed by the dream. Can you enlighten me to it’s meaning?
THANK YOU!
Lesa
Thanks Tony, you are awesome! More power!
I recently had a dream of being in a small church that had red carpet and red pews. My boyfriend’s family was with me as we walked through the church, we were the only ones in there. I approached a large closet with my boyfriend’s grandmother and when we opened the door a huge crucifix fell forward and we tried to hold it up. We finally rested it in the closet and all agreed to leave the eerie church. When we walk out of the church we notice it’s in an amusement park. I dream the amusement park a lot and I always seem to be with my boyfriend and his family. Only once have I dreamt the church though. My mother died when I was sixteen so I try very hard I be close to him and his family. I was wondering if anyone could interpret this dream or give me so sort of explanation. My family and I never really attend church or anything so it was rather strange to have this dream.
Jenna – Well it seems from the dream that you have a lot of feelings, sometimes troubling, about church. The colour red indicates this.
The feelings are mixed up with your feelings about family, and if you are not a church attendee it is probably associations with marriage and funerals.
Then the crucifix falling sounds like it is something you have hidden from yourself or has been stored up until now and is about to come into your attention. If you want to find more for yourself try – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
Tony
Thank you so much.
Hi Tony, I really find it amazing that you can explain dreams. I have had some weird dreams in the past but have never cared enough to find out their meanings. I am curious for this though. My best friend dreamed about me just recently, she said that in her dreams, I called her name, and when she followed me, I started dancing and I wore a red dress. She said I looked happy. Coincidentally, the day before that, I went into a store where I saw a red dress that I really liked, however it was a bit small for my size and it had no other sizes so I bought a blue dress instead, though I really liked the red dress. My bestfriend does not know this because we don’t really see each other everyday and I did not share the story with her. I do love a red dress and been wanting to have one imagining myself as the “lady in red” in a song, but I’m not sure if my bestfriend and I have talked about this fantasy. I wanted to know if her dream had something to do with me or more of something to do with her since she was the one who dreamed of it. Thanks really, and more power, 🙂
Catherine – It is your friends dream and has meaning for her – but as best friends there is also a sort of sharing in ones dreams. It is like sharing the same room and knowing each others thoughts and feelings. My wife Hyone used to do this regularly. We would be driving along without speaking for ages, then my wife would say exactly what I was thinking.
A good example is when my son Neal was young. I was standing in the kitchen leaning against the range to keep warm, and thought I needed to get my shoes that were in another room where Neal was. I thought of shouting to him but thought it was too complicated for him to understand. Then a few moments later Neal walked in carrying my shoes. He had never done it before and not since.
Tony
Last night I dreamt that a “blood” lady came to me.. She began to torture me. I felt no pain.. At first. As she stabbed me, I began to light on fire. It was gruesome. Every night she comes and every night I am tortured in a new and more excruciating way than the night before. It’s been this way for months now. It’s driving me mad. What does this mean?
I have this same nightmare. Blood pours from her eyes as she cries. It’s like she doesn’t want to cause me so much pain. Now she haunts me outside of my dreams. She has me running in fear. I can’t look out my windows at night and I can’t sleep without a light.
Sarah – Dreams are only like computer games, in which you are simply dealing with images, and can be killed a thousand times and still play again. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing
You are creating in yourself scenes that scare you and you need to face the images of your dreams without fear. So what really are you frightened of? Feel the fear and trace it to its root. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/black-magic-evil-and-dreams/#Fear and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/emotions-and-mood-in-dreams/
Tony
Kay – It means that you are the creator or your own torture. Why not see why you have created this scary image by using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/ and read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing
Then you will begin to see how we create such fears and can face them. The following shows how such fears can be set in place and also be dealt with – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/conditioned-reflexes-or-responses/
Tony
Hello Tony,
I love your site and always check in when I have an impactful dream. I am curious about a dream I had last night:
I was a police officer (although I am not in real life) and my partner and I had just come back to the station after finding some evidence for a crime (although those details are blurry). When we entered the room there were three cages filled with red birds resembling flame-colored tanagers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame-colored_Tanager). These birds were our pets at the police station. We saw that in each of the cages at least half of the birds had died. I picked a couple of the dead birds up to see if they were really dead and they were. I wondered if the birds were dying because we had forgotten to feed them or give them water. I kept saying how we should get the remaining birds food and water, but we never got around to it.
– I often have dreams about neglecting caged pets, whether they are mine in real life or not, but this is the first time I’ve dreamt about birds and had so many to look after. I would love to hear any of your insights! Thank you so much!
~Lee
Lee – Thank you for an interesting dream, and also for the Wiki link – I usually like to look up any reference.
First of all you feel that your partner is very much a part of our life. Also you are police connected with a real crime – but not one that we usually think of as real. Yet it is real, to kill out your creativity and wonder by not feeling that part of you enough or taking care of it.
The caged pets are the feeling you get that sometimes you are holding yourself back. They are the ideas, the thoughts and urges you get that are dying because you are not taking notice of them. I get the impression that you are a creative person and have a lot to give the world if you do not trap yourself in ‘duties’.
Tony
Thank you, Tony! This definitely makes sense to me.
In researching red for the possible use on a particular painting I have found this site to be very helpful. It has enabled me to appreciate its importance and make a decision to go ahead and use the only plash of colour in an otherwise monocrome painting.
Hi Allan – It is good to find you on my site.
I would love to see how you use red and take photo of it. Neal is talking about renting a room and bringing the young boys. Maybe even bring me. 🙂
Tony
i dream when ever i sleep, i see a lot in my dreams.
I recently dreamt of myself willingly being involved in a really scary graphic situation, although I cannot remember any of this part. Afterwards I was in a store and saw an old friend from highschool modeling and dancing in a long red dress. I went up to hug her and she dodged me a few times before I realized she was backing away. She told me no one was supposed to touch the dress because she was modeling it for the store. I am a bit confused as to what this dream could mean.
Alisoni – I would like to have known what character the friend had that was modelling the red dress. Whoever we choose to put in our dreams is very carefully chosen, because they are aspects of your own self that are acting out in the dream. So if your friend, as you remember her was a very quiet girl it would suggest one thing; but as she was in a red dress and modelling it, I would suggest that she was someone who liked the bright lights.
Therefore, even without those associations, the red dress suggests you had a dream of your wedding being a very sensuous and glamorous affair. But your dream seems to be saying, “Keep your hands of this! Do not go in that direction.”
The direction it seems to be suggesting is the realisation that marriage is a family affair, and your ancestors need to be honoured in some way. They want it to be a warm thing, with acknowledgement or their honoured place in you life. And in the dream you do this.
So blessings on your marriage. And remember that the DreamHawk is ever watching and caring.
Tony