What Do Dreams About Being Chased Mean?

The dream:

The path you travel is dark as you walk alone, grateful for the short-lived luminescence of each streetlight. But in the darkness between you feel the hairs raise on the nape of your neck.

You can feel someone or something watching.

You stop, listening carefully but it takes a moment to differentiate the soft footsteps from the thunderous beating of your heart.

Your breath catches in your throat as the steps grow louder. You turn and you run, furiously pumping your arms and legs.

It’s getting closer. Somehow you know, without turning, that it’s gaining on you.

You know that in a matter of moments it will be upon you.

Still, it’s only a dream – right?

Variations of the dream:

Dreams of being chased vary wildly outside of the fact that they feature a pursuit. Chase dreams include variations in location – they can be packed urban environments, or desolate wilderness, the pursuer can be human or beast (mythical or natural), the dreamer may feel they know the chaser (even if the chaser remains unseen) or know somehow the nature of a beast.

Meaning(s) of the dream:

The elements of chase dreams tend to be symbolic rather than representative – or, as Carl Jung stated in Man and His Symbols:

[These] are motifs that must be considered in the context of the dream itself, not as self-explanatory ciphers.

More than that, even, interpretation of dreams will often rely upon which branch of psychology or philosophy you use as a frame of reference for the analysis. While dreams are still several steps from being understood by science, humanity has begun to understand some of the functions of dreaming for the mind – whether that’s in the organisation of information or in conducting a strange kind of threat analysis through invention.

As such, it’s not too big a leap to suggest that dreams – especially the vivid kind that tends to stay with us in wakefulness – might have some special relevance that needs investigating. In the case of chase dreams, there is a relatively broad consensus (as you would expect) that chase dreams are related to heightened anxiety in waking life and that the overall scenario suggests that the dreamer is avoiding acknowledging the cause of that anxiety.

In typically mysterious language, Jung puts it this way:

A persecutory dream always means: this wants to come to me. When you dream of a savage bull, or a lion, or a wolf pursuing you, this means: it wants to come to you.

You would like it to split off, you experience it as something alien – but it just becomes all the more dangerous. The urge of what had been split off to unite with you becomes all the stronger.

Though Jung often requires as much deciphering as the dreams he discusses, this is a relatively standard interpretation of the dream even with modern psychologists – a recurring dream that sees the dreamer fleeing suggests a person, event or situation that the dreamer is avoiding.

Common forms of dreams of being chased:

Whether you’re being chased by a stranger, a friend, a loved one or an animal, each dream may have different meanings. Here, we explore each type in more detail:

1. Being chased by a stranger:

This is indicative that you are anxious, but are not consciously sure of the source. Dreams of being chased by a stranger therefore require the dreamer to examine their behaviour for avoidance.

2. Being chased by a friend or loved one:

This may not indicate fear of the individual, but of what that individual represents to you. Reflect on what their strongest traits are and whether they represent something about you or your situation that you’re worried about.

Related: What does it mean to cheat in a dream?

3. Being chased by an animal:

Again, consider the animal to be emblematic of a problem. What does the animal represent to you and how could that relate to issues you’re facing?

Related: What do dreams about snakes mean?

Answering the dream:

The general action you should take, when faced with a dream causing you to worry, is to meditate on its meaning and reflect on how the dream might relate to your waking life. What are you avoiding? What could you do to face that fear and overcome it? To complete the Jung quote used above, when offering advice to those facing chase dreams, Jung states:

The best stance would be: “Please, come and devour me!”

Working with such a dream in analysis means to familiarize people with the thought that they should by no means resist when this element faces them.

The Other within us becomes a bear, a lion, because we made it into that. Once we accept this, it becomes something else. That’s why Faust says: “So this, then, was the kernel of the brute!”

Can you stop dreaming about being chased?

Dreams about being chased can be anxiety-inducing and have you waking up with a racing heart. But is there a way to stop having these dreams? While you can’t totally control your dreams, you may be able to uncover the cause and therefore help to prevent being chased in your dream.

Try to keep a dream journal and understand why you are being chased. Are you avoiding or fearing something? Are you struggling with a relationship or internal conflict? Are you being pursed in your life, or something is catching up to you? Solving your anxiety about a situation may help.

Notable appearances in popular culture:

As with many of the most common dreams, the dream becomes the work of art rather than featuring in it – and films about an unknown, sinister peril pursuing a protagonist make up a large segment of genre films, but it has been present in creative works for hundreds of years. For example, in his poem, The Hounds of Heaven, deeply Catholic poet Francis Thompson uses the dream as a conceit to deconstruct the urge to sin:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Being chased in your dream is anxiety-inducing, take a look at similar dream meanings, such as what dreaming about running late means, or about your teeth falling out.