What Does it Mean to Dream of Lions?

Strolling through a zoo on a beautiful summer’s day, you’ve got an ice cream in your hand and a smile on your face. Passing the zoo’s ‘Gorilla Kingdom’, you spot a sign for the big cat enclosure. But before you notice a gate swinging open, a huge lion bounds out of it. Running straight at you, it’s both angry and hungry, and it looks like you’re about to become lunch.

An almighty roar chills you to the bone, and you’re wrestling on the ground with the lion in the blink of an eye. Adrenaline pumping, you’re fighting for your life. Despite its size and power, you manage to push the beast’s head back, desperate to keep its razor-sharp teeth as far away as possible.

The beast’s huge jaws are now fully wide open, and it’s just about to take a huge bite out of you when you wake up in a sweat. Fortunately, it was all just a dream. But what could it all mean to your waking life?

According to Aunty Flo, the animal is spiritually connected to the Persian, Mesopotamian, Greek, and Indian mythologies. The lion represents Greco-Roman culture and is one of the twelve symbols of the Zodiac, with Leo being the Latin word for lion.

Everyone knows that lions represent courage, so if you see one in your dreams, there’s a strong likelihood it means you have to be bold enough to face a significant challenge in your waking life.

According to The Symbolism, a dream of being chased by a lion is likely to represent aggression in your life. “You might be running from someone else’s aggression towards you. Alternately, you may be trying to escape your own aggressive feelings that you wish you did not have.”

Sometimes people dream of lions in a cage, in a zoo, or even – frighteningly – in their own house. According to Dream Meaning Net, having a lion pet symbolises that you have a tamed sense of power in your daily life. It recommends trying to see if the lions are acting normally or are “lazy” inside the dream. If they are active and walking around, this is said to mean you have shown some good leadership.

This dream is said to signify that you’re in peace or in a good relationship with powerful people, especially if the lion licks you. “Dreaming of a friendly lion is a sign that great joy is coming your way. This is especially the case if, in your dream, you happen to be petting and playing with the lion,” says Alo Dreams.

The lion has been an important symbol since ancient times. The earliest graphic representations of lions showed them as organised hunters with great strength, strategies and skills, and the lion also holds huge historical significance for English heraldry and symbolism.

On both the battlefield and in the sporting arena, our heroes look to the lion’s courage and prowess for inspiration; the Coat of arms of England was a symbol for Richard the Lionheart and, later, for England. Indeed, the nation’s greatest sporting success in recent times belongs to the women’s national football team – the Lionesses! Images of the lion are also worn by both the England men’s national football team and the England and Wales cricket team.

In Western culture, lions have played starring roles in dozens of famous films and books, with three of the most famous lion characters being:

• Simba in The Lion King – inspired by the character Bambi from Disney’s Bambi, as well as the stories of Moses and Joseph from the Bible. Similarities have also been drawn between Simba and Prince Hamlet from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
• Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia – a noble leader standing for goodness and justice. Aslan is the rightful King of Narnia who rights all wrongs and removes the White Witch from her terrible reign over Narnia. The character represents Jesus Christ, according to the author, C. S. Lewis.
• The Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz – a walking, talking contradiction. Although he should be King of the Jungle, instead of being courageous, he’s wracked with self-doubt. However, as the story develops, the lion does several brave deeds and eventually realises the courage he’d sought was in him all along.

Even though they’re not native to the British Isles, the lion’s prominent place in our culture is seen in the amount of common English idiomatic expressions we all use. They include ‘the lion’s share’ to mean the largest part of something, ‘the lion’s den’ to mean a hostile place or situation, and ‘feed someone to the lions’, to express forcing someone to do something dangerous for one’s own gain. How many more can you think of?