Dreams about insects – what do they mean? (dream interpretation insects)
Dream interpretation insects or bugs. Dreaming about creepy-crawlies is not uncommon, but what does it actually mean? It can be several things.
NOTE: Corona-update (April 2020) – the corona pandemic has resulted in a huge increase in dreams about bugs/insects attacking / crawling all over the body (as shown in preliminary corona pandemic dream research). In this image these dreams might simply symbolize our reaction (deep down) to the pandemic.
Mostly our fear/anxiety in relation to the virus – that then might show that we are more afraid/anxious than we maybe think we are.
Other angles on insect dreams / dreams about bugs:
Negative feelings that haunt you. Dreaming about insects or bugs – especially in large numbers – is often a symbol of negative thoughts or feelings (guilt, anxiety) that haunt you or, more metaphorically, crawls through your unconscious mind. You might ask yourself: what is it I am trying to push away or will not face?
Is it an old habit or previous experience that I am trying to avoid confronting and which is now popping up? If previous bad experiences lurk in the unconscious mind, one thing is certain: they influence – often in a negative manner – the way you think and act when you are awake.
This can for example be about low self-esteem because of the bad experience or a significant unconscious feeling of envy that may ruin your relationships with others.
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When trying to understand your dreams it is important to know that your dreams are… your dreams. As such, you are the best person to figure out the true meaning of your dreams.
However, it is important to learn how to generally approach your dreams. Dream dictionaries like this one are only a supplement, and if you want to fully utilize the potential of your dreams, you should start at a different place.
My online course “Unlock your DREAMlife” gives you a great foundation for understanding (and recalling) your dreams.
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Not being in touch with your instincts. However, it can also be about a fundamental instinctive part of yourself that you are not utilizing. In other words, you can be too “in your head” (too rational or logical), and a dream about loads of insects can in this way be a strong indication to change your approach to life and the challenges you might encounter.
Try noticing how you feel instead of overthinking things.
The individual insects can also be significant. An ant can symbolize a more group based and organized approach to life – a lone ant can therefore mean isolation. Do you have to ask for help and bring others into the solution to your challenges, or do you have to find your inner organizer?
The group mentality also applies to bees, but a bee that stings you can mean that someone or something has “stung you” – have you recently been hurt by others (external interpretation), or has a sudden inner impulse/feeling left negative traces (internal interpretation)? A significant theme in the world of dreams is spiders – see the blog post about Spiders.
Caterpillars, cocoons and butterflies are often signs of something growing into something bigger and better – a process of maturing, in other words. What inside of you is right now a caterpillar that one day could become a big, beautiful butterfly?
Worms – depending on the species – often feed on decaying things, and a dream where worms appear might be a symbol of something within you rotting or decaying. This can be a positive thing (destructive thoughts and patterns that have died), but it can also be a strong and positive, but unused aspect of yourself, and if you are not careful, this aspect might be lost.
Worms, however, can also symbolize something you feel threatened by, maybe a weakness or negativism.
If you are dreaming about ringworm, this might mean you have to take better care of your body (it will rarely mean that you actually have ringworm).
Dream dictionaries are a very helpful tool when interpreting dreams. However, generally learning how to approach your dreams, will give you a better foundation for understanding them. My online course “Unlock your DREAMlife” teaches you how to much better utilize – recall and understand – your dreams.
Also read: Why I no longer interpret dreams for free
Return to the index of dream themes and symbols:
Dream interpretation A-Z ↵
NOTE: Dream interpretation is not always an easy skill, and when you dream about insects, it is almost certainly about something different for you than it is for someone else dreaming about insects. It is crucial that you feel the interpretation fits you, but it might be the case that the above interpretations do not suit you and your situation.
I always in some way have a big circling my head, in many different ways. Yet to figure out what it means….
I dreamt about fishes in an aquarium locked and insects in a bag packed and as soon as I opened the cover bag I found insects coming out and also a snake (In green colour with black spots) which was crawling towards my mom.
I had a dream abt a lot of bugs but what stuck out to me the most was worms a whole lot of worms there was big worms and little worms and snake size worms it was in every room of house it’s like we couldn’t escape them and we couldn’t kill them
I had the weirdest dream last night, me and Justin Bieber (random, I know 😅) were just sitting there and I see these bugs crawling into his skin on his head and next think you know bugs are crawling into my arms, almost like beetles. Anyways that was scary dream lol
I had a dream I was with my mother and I think great Aunt and we were all house haunting for my mother and the first house was huge and beautiful but very white and empty feeling there was a reason we decided no and at the second house we all loved we were sta ding in the living room when a beetle flew between my mom and great aunts hair and got stuck, she got it out and I went into the bathroom where something told me in my mind to look for a hidden wall behind the toilet and when I did I slide over a wooden peice of wood where it behind it was several beetles. I’ve never dreamt about bugs let alone like this which concerns me. Any guidance would be great, thank you!
Just had a vivid dream of two small hand sanitizer bottles (labels of a brand I use often…live in a nursing home & have been locked in the building with all other residents since the March 13th) set in lush grass at a park under a standard park light at night.
In the dream, I thought to myself – oh! Great – I forgot to bring mine with. Walked up to them, knelt down and picked up one of the bottles and near my fingers were a few tiny red bugs that when I brought the bottle closer to my face set off a swarm of them out of now where that went up my nose.
In the dream it was frightening & uncomfortable – making me feel no one would help — because no one is sight at the park. I moved my head and body while then were swarming into both nostrils in an effort to have it stop—but stopped and stayed still – thinking to myself I can not prevent or stop them at this point.
In the dream and when I woke up (after a staff person open and closed the door for no reason) I thought to myself, I hope they don’t have a detrimental impact – now that their in my body.
Glad to have seen on this site – the connection to this type of dream and the pandemic.
I actually had a dream right before waking that some sort of bug crawled up my nose thru my nostril. And then i woke up and in shock and felt like that insect was still there or that the semi hallucinatio or hypnogogic dream was real.
Then the following night there was a dream in which the bug was in my throat, then all of a sudden took over my mouth and it morphed into a bug’s mouth with antennas, and although this seems most disturbing, I find comfort in that it is somewhat nirmal.
I have been having bug issues both in dreams at night and during the day the last 2 1/2 years. Last week I had a ham sandwich during the day and that night I had a dream I was in a large grocery store and had my food at the checkout. The woman working there lays ham all over my food and I watch 5 roaches grow out of the ham.
I woke up and thought I am definately not eating any pig anymore (which i rarely do anyway). I also thought I should test the dream, so i bought Thai flavored pork rhines and ate a half a piece. Four hours later there was a roach in my house near where I was sitting. I have never this lifetime had a roach in my space.
I eat extremely pure, organic and a specific diet to keep my vibration high, but if I cheat even a little, like a dairy product thats gone a bit sour, I will dream with the samenilla bacteria. Then I just do a two week cleanse to keep my inner system flowing.
I have wasp medicine (who are my helpers) and saw a metalic blue one (in waking life) the other day. I looked to see what the “enemy of the blue wasp is” so I know what I am dealing with in animism and it is the black widow. I usually will have manifestations within 24 hours. There was no black widow but a friend had come over.
A week later a friend of mine said he had a blue metalic wasp land on his shoulder and later that day, saw a black widow in his sink. So this time it was not about me but I was given warning by the blue wasp and told my friend that he is carrying some inner poison (something negative) from his past (back of his right shoulder) and needs to work on that.
I remember in 1995-2000 so many people dreamed about the appocolypse but it didn’t happen back then. Dreams have very personal meanings and many people back then were waking up (or at least the second group of four groups were).
Bugs to me have always revealed something hidden, deep in the earthy parts of our physical life. Bugs are also ruled by Scorpio and things hidden. They also can represent the breakdown of matter (symbolic for our physical body) as in sickness, bacteria, disease etc.
Hi..last night I peeled a long very thin yellow insect With tiny lack legs..hundreds of them.. from beneath the skin on my lips..Like peeled it right along my bottom lip.. it was just that. Everything else was black..
I had a dream bugs were biting me on the top of my hand and as I pinched myself where it hurt they came out Nd there was a bigger Vite that hurt therefore I told some friend In a dream “help me take it out “ it was some huge BUG. Disgusting Nd scary …. it was specifically on my right hand , what does this mean?
Hello I had a dream where I go to a bee farm then the swarm of bees came to eat me they eat me will I’m still conscious then they lay eggs on me. I can see worms all over my intestines eggs in my organs in still alive at that point. It felt really negative on my perspective, really a repulsive dream. what does It mean?
I just had the creepiest dream so I came here right away to investigate. So basically, I had gotten a new bike and I was wearing a helmet, shorts, a sports bra, and a jean jacket. While I was on the bike I felt an itchy feeling on my chest and I looked down to find bugs that kinda resembled brown silverfish crawling all inside my sports bra and around the rest of my body under my clothes and in my shoes and helmet. I immediately started freaking out because I am absolutely repulsed by bugs irl. As much as I tried to get them off they just kept appearing in different places and their gross dismembered legs and antenna stuck to my sweaty skin (I was on a bike after all) so yeah idk but it was absolutely a horrible dream :(.
I had a dream yesterday. I woke up in my dream and there where a lot of bugs and spiders crawling biside me on my bedroom wall. All in the same direction to my head. But they did not attacked me. I panicked and screamed. Then I went to the other side of the bed. That was crazy and i was so afraid.
i keep getting a recurring dream of a giant brown slimey bug with three stingd, kind of like an earwig, slug and scorpion combined but a footlong, being found in my living roon. Every time i am with different people. Sometimes I kill it, sometimes somebody else does.
In my most recent one, i remembered my other dreams whilst in the dream and told my friend its been happening a lot, and she says there must be a nest nearby. Theres never more than one at a time in the dream.
What could it mean?
Dear Syd,
thank you for your comment and dream! I currently cannot keep up with the enormous amounts of comments I receive daily (currently more than 200 unanswered), so I have decided to no longer offer this kind of help. I would however love to help you understand your dream in a private online session – see more here. Best regards – Michael
I don’t know why but in my dream I went inside a huge pit to retrieve something of mine (maybe a tennis ball) as soon as I came up to the surface. My legs were covered with very very small fleas
I removed almost all those fleas with a cloth but after some time my legs started burning and I could see 4 big wounds on my shin Calf. That pain made me woke up in shock.
I am sorry to inform you that I have decided to no longer help out here – I simply cannot keep up with the comments (more than 300 unanswered at the moment). You can try asking this one major question with regards to the dream; how might this dream in any way be relevant for my waking life? Another option is to learn how to work with your dreams from my self-study online course Unlock your dreamlife – Best regards -Michael
I’ve had a recurring dream every summer for the last three years, where every time i go outside there are these dragonfly bugs that attack me and not anyone else. Its not a swarm but one every couple of minutes and only ever when i go outside in my dream. When i tell someone in my dream they brush it off and say they’re not dangerous. Could you help me interpret this?
Dear May,
I am sorry to inform you that I have decided to no longer help out here – I simply cannot keep up with the comments (more than 300 unanswered at the moment). You can try asking this one major question with regards to the dream; how might this dream in any way be relevant for my waking life? Another option is to learn how to work with your dreams from my self-study online course Unlock your dreamlife – Best regards -Michael
I just had a dream that I was at school and a classmate of mine notified me of a big blackhead on my arm which is weird cause that doesn’t normally happen but I went to squeeze it out and when I squeezed a giant worm beetle like bug would partially come and it would really scare me but I kept doing it for no reason it was like the bug burrowed in my arm it was really weird to me. What could it mean?
Dear Nathan,
I am sorry to inform you that I have decided to no longer help out here – I simply cannot keep up with the comments (more than 300 unanswered at the moment). You can try asking this one major question with regards to the dream; how might this dream in any way be relevant for my waking life? Another option is to learn how to work with your dreams from my self-study online course Unlock your dreamlife – Best regards -Michael
Hi,
Yesterday night I got a dream that some thing caught my right leg which is coming up. Then I tried of pushing the insect with my left leg. So, suddenly I woke up from my bed and stood. Later my mom pulled me down. Then I got to know that is a dream. Previously I think 1 week back I got a dream that a white dog is barking at me. So, can you please help me by telling what does this dream means.
I had a dream that boxes of animals showed up to my grandmas door step and the first box I open was a box filled with healthy baby chicks there were so many I picked up and started handing the to people in my yard and then the second box was full of baby bunnies and me and mom again gave some away and kept a few and I walked inside the house looking for something and when I open my front door their were these different type of worms on my doormat and one bunny was eating it and I was disgusted because I accidentally stepped on it and I was bare footed and had one the people in the yard help get the bugs from in between my toes because they were once alive on the mat and now it was dead and after that I stood up and got off the porch and I looked and saw two python snakes one was skinner than the other but they were the same breed and they didn’t move almost like they were frozen my mom throw her shoe at it and the were calm and didn’t budge and I asked around the neighborhood hood if they could get the snake or kill it and I paid this guy I knew $50 because there was a gathering of people on my street laughing and having fun and so he grab a stick picked the big one up and chunked it in a ditch and he picked the smaller skinner one up and handed the stick to me and I looked at it I think it was dead or half way alive because a small part of the branch was kind of stuck through it and I looked at it and quickly threw it in another ditch but it’s was still a bit calm and it hissed once but barely when it was thrown into the ditch after that they were gone
In real life I saw this pretty big black bug crawling on my basement floor and of corse I got scared so my dad had to kill it for me and then one or two nights later I had a dream of it crawling up my shoulder it was like the same bug I saw in my basement in real life!!! I woke up scared and I think it is just because of fear but I don’t know and I often have very weird dreams so I would like to find out what they actually mean!