Rats in a dream can have many meanings, starting from a sneaky particular person (AKA “rat”) in your life, a problem that is “gnawing” away at you, and even secrets and techniques.
According to skilled dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg, cultural associations and wordplay come up quite a bit in dream symbolism, with the time period “rat” typically colloquially used to explain an individual who would snitch on you, throw you underneath the bus, or in any other case “rat you out.”
Speaking of cultural associations, Loewenberg additionally calls out The Secret of NIMH, a preferred kids’s film from the 80’s that has rats as characters. “So rats in a dream can symbolize secrets and techniques, due to that affiliation The Secret of NIMH,” she notes.
And when interested by wordplay, we affiliate gnawing with rodents, so if there’s some situation or person who’s been gnawing away at you, Loewenberg says rats can present up in your goals as a illustration of that misery. Similarly, after we get unhealthy information, we would say, “Oh rats,” so the rats within the dream may symbolize disappointment or feeling let down, as effectively.
However, she provides, solely you possibly can perceive what rats actually symbolize to you, and when you had a candy and affectionate pet rat in childhood, the rat may really symbolize an facet of your self that is misunderstood.
Here are some extra interpretations on rat goals based mostly on the context.