What Do Dreams of Spiders Mean?

Creepy crawlies. These two words perfectly sum up how millions of us feel about these tiny creatures living silently in the dark corners of our houses, minding their own business. Spiders characterise our fears of what may suddenly materialise in our dreams. They represent all the terrifying things that may unexpectedly scuttle out of the shadows.

Because dream symbolism is highly subjective, a spider in one person’s dream may not mean the same thing as another’s. According to the dream analyst and author of the book Bird of Paradise: Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition, Jane Teresa Anderson, the symbolism of a spider in a dream will depend on your personal associations with spiders. “If you had a particularly frightening experience with spiders when you were three, for example, then a spider may call back to that,” she explains.

In this article, we explore what Anderson and other leading dream experts have to say about spider dreams.

The meaning of spider dreams

Spider dreams often symbolise that you’re overwhelmed, anxious, or even trapped in a tricky situation in your waking life. They usually show up when you’re dealing with something that feels complicated and hard to navigate. However, these dreams can also signify positive qualities like creativity and patience, reminding us to take our time and plan things out, just like spiders do when they spin their intricate webs.

So, while these dreams might reveal some challenges, they also encourage you to pay attention to your feelings and address what’s been on your mind.

Other interpretations of spider dreams from experts include:

Sigmund Freud: Freud believed that spiders symbolise a mother figure and the complexity of the mother-child relationship that follows.
Carl Jung: Jung believed that the spider was a “shadow self”, a reflection of repressed elements and aspects of someone’s personality.

According to Ryan Hart, spiders also symbolise anxiety and protection. If they appear in your dreams, the meaning of the dream will depend upon your attitude towards spiders in general.

The spider dream:

There’s something in the room.

Something small. Something dangerous. Something that you can’t yet see.

Hairs prick up all over your body and a shiver of pure terror passes over you. Instinctively you sense your life is in danger.

Gingerly, you switch on the bedside light. There it is at the foot of the bed. A huge, hairy tarantula, as large as a dinner plate is slowly crawling up the sheet, advancing ever closer towards your face. You’re completely transfixed and can’t move a muscle to get away.

Fortunately, it’s only a dream – isn’t it?

Common takes on dreams about spiders:

A close up of a brown spider from the front, standing on a wet ground with a black background.

From anxiously watching a spider crawling on top of you, to observing one spin an intricate web, we look at some of the more precise meanings of specific spider dreams below:

1. Dreams about tarantulas

Tarantulas’ unnerving reputation has arisen because of their comparatively large, hairy bodies and legs. The biggest tarantula leg span is 11 inches, so they are still pretty small in relation to humans. As shown on IFLScience, tarantulas moult their exoskeletons as they grow. So, according to The Symbolism, dreaming of a tarantula could symbolise what you are going through, which is “a big growth spurt in your life.” This might be physical or emotional development or just a change in how you present yourself to the world.

If you ever dream of a large frightening spider, this could mean you need to connect to your inner self and discover the answers to overcome a problem. Dreaming of tarantulas is said to represent your own self and good luck. This dream indicates that you need to understand the beliefs, fears, and limiting beliefs that are stopping you from achieving your goals.

2. Dreams about a spider’s web

“Spider silk is thirty times thinner than human hair and very light, but do not let this fool you. It is the strongest fibre found in nature” – Kay De Silva.

Seeing a spider’s web in a dream connects to emotions that you feel stuck in a situation, and it may represent the fact that you can’t actually see what’s going on right in front of you. We usually associate spiders with what is known as the orb web (made in a wheel shape). Dreaming of a spider in the act of spinning a web has a much more positive connotation. In this case, the dream is said to imply that you’ll soon be appreciated because of your hard work.

If you get caught in a dream spider’s web, consider this a warning from your sleeping brain, says Jane Teresa Anderson in The Cut. “Spiders may come up in your dreams when you’ve got that sense like, I feel like I’m very stuck in something that I can’t get out of, or I feel like I’m maybe afraid of somebody,” she explains.

3. Dreaming about a spider crawling on you

Jung believed that a dreamer seeing spiders crawling on top of them is connected to the darker side of our personality or our shadow personality. If you dream about a spider crawling on your body, it could mean you’re facing some adversity that’s affecting your life negatively. It could also imply that a certain aspect of your life, including your projects or work ethic, is affected by those around you.

“Our dreams are helpful in showing us that however much we manage our lives and do the right kind of thing, we do have unconscious feelings and emotions,” according to Anderson. She reveals that spiders crawling on the skin may have been especially common dream symbolism amid the coronavirus pandemic when people were isolated at home and unable to get space from their family members or housemates.

4. Dreaming about killing a spider

Killing a spider in your dream signifies that you can work yourself through the feeling of being trapped. If you kill multiple spiders in the dream, this is said to signify your extreme need for security and protection to the point where you may be isolating yourself from others.

Answering the dream:

Recurring or particularly vivid dreams may not predict the future, but they can indicate a feeling of imbalance in the dreamer—an unexplored or purposefully ignored anxiety. As such, the best way to deal with spider dreams is to meditate on the questions these dreams raise.

If you suffer from arachnophobia in real life, then the origins of the spider dream can be associated with your own fear, and dreaming of seeing a spider indicates you may have anxieties about life.

Why could this be? The answer lies in our evolutionary past. Historically we were often surrounded by dangerously venomous spiders and this favoured our ancestors who would run a mile on seeing them. And it seems this fear has been passed on down the generations; a study by City University London found arachnophobia can run in the family. Out of 118 participants surveyed, the 75% who reported being afraid of spiders also reported having a family member who was afraid of spiders.

Notable appearances of spiders in popular culture:

The spider holds a special place in the public imagination as a creature that provokes a uniquely strong emotional reaction. If you’ve read or watched Lord Of The Rings, you’ll never forget Shelob, a monstrous man-eating spider described as “an evil thing in spider form.” Similarly, countless children have been brought to tears by Aragog, the giant spider in the second Harry Potter story.

Despite their generally negative portrayal, spiders are occasionally represented in our culture in a positive light. The 1952 children’s novel Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White is notable in its portrayal of the spider as a heroine rather than an object of horror. In the same vein, Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach tells the tale of abused orphan James, who makes friends with fantastical characters such as Spider and Centipede after entering a magical peach.

However, perhaps the most positive representation of the spider in film and books is that of ‘your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman’. One of the greatest of superheroes, alter ego Peter Parker fights evil with his spider-related abilities, gained with a bite from a radioactive spider. These spider-powers include clinging to surfaces, superhuman strength and agility, and detecting danger with his “spider-sense.”

In short, dreaming about spiders can reflect various aspects of your subconscious, ranging from anxiety and fear to creativity and patience. These dreams often symbolise complex emotions or situations that need addressing in your waking life. By understanding the symbolism behind spider dreams, you can gain valuable insights into your emotional state and personal challenges.