What research shows
Pet-owners dream of their own animals frequently; the symbolic reading applies mainly to unfamiliar cats.
Animals
Dreaming about cats
Dreaming about cats is traditionally read as independence, intuition and the parts of you that do not answer to anyone. No survey has measured how often this one occurs, so we give the reading without a frequency — only 13 of the dream themes here have a published figure at all.
The psychological reading
Often read as the independent or feminine aspect of the self. An aggressive cat suggests intuition being ignored.
What tradition claimed
A black cat in a dream was read as bad luck in Britain and good luck in much of continental Europe.
Not among the 55 themes ever measured — searched 0 times a month. Which dreams have been counted →
How to record a dream, why the feeling matters more than the content, and when recurring nightmares are worth a doctor rather than a dictionary — set out once on the main page.
Before you look anything up
How the dream felt matters more than what was in it. The same image can arrive as comfort or as threat, and that difference tells you more than any entry in a dictionary — including this one.