Heart
Feeling, courage, the center of the Self.
The heart is the seat of feeling and, in many traditions, of soul itself. Egyptian judgment weighed the heart against Ma’at’s feather. Sufi tradition treats the heart (qalb) as the organ of spiritual perception. Christian iconography gives us the Sacred Heart. A dream-heart that is visible — worn outside the body, held in the hand, offered to another — is a classical image of vulnerability and courage. A heart that is wounded, a grief the psyche is asking you to acknowledge. A heart made of some unexpected material (glass, stone, light) often marks the current state of your feeling-self. Notice the color of the heart and whose it is.
What to ask in your journal
If heart appears in your dream, sit with these prompts before reaching for an interpretation.
- What was the heart doing in your dream?
- How did you feel in its presence — drawn, repelled, indifferent, awed?
- Was the heart familiar from waking life, or unfamiliar?
- What in your waking life right now resembles the quality the heart carries?
- If the heart could speak, what would it say to you?
Frequently asked
What does it mean to dream of a heart?
Across the depth-psychological tradition, dream-hearts carry the meaning suggested by the dreamer's emotional response and the symbol's behavior in the dream. Feeling, courage, the center of the Self.
Is the heart a positive or negative symbol in dreams?
Most dream-symbols are not intrinsically positive or negative; they take their valence from the dreamer's relationship to them in the dream. The heart is no exception — its specific weight depends on context, emotional tone, and the dreamer's associations.
How do Egyptian and other traditions read the heart?
Egyptian dream-interpretation places the heart within the broader Egyptian, Sufi, Christian reading of the dream-life. See the page body and bibliography for the specific primary sources cited.
What if the heart keeps recurring in my dreams?
Recurrent dream-symbols generally point to material the conscious self has not yet fully integrated. The recurrence usually softens once the underlying material has been allowed expression — sometimes through journaling, sometimes through therapy, sometimes simply through more careful attention to the symbol on its own terms.
Cited works
Each interpretation on this page traces back to one of these primary sources. Quotation with attribution welcome — see our methodology for how we cite.
- Carl Gustav Jung (1959) *The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Collected Works, Vol. 9, Part 1)*. Princeton University Press. Trans. R. F. C. Hull.
- Carl Gustav Jung (1956) *Symbols of Transformation (Collected Works, Vol. 5)*. Princeton University Press. Trans. R. F. C. Hull.
- Artemidorus of Daldis (c. 2nd century CE) *Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams)*. Oxford University Press. Trans. Daniel E. Harris-McCoy (2012).