Dreaming of the heart — what does it mean?

What does it mean to dream about the heart?

The heart may be the most charged organ in all of human symbolism — the seat of love, of courage, and of life’s own pulse. In the dream world the heart is rarely just an organ: it tends to stand for the centre of everything that matters.

These dreams can be about your body — a worry about your health that you carry with you — but just as often they are about something deeper: your capacity to love, your emotional strength, and what you genuinely care about.

Love, vulnerability and what you pass on

Your emotional core and capacity for love

The most common reading of heart dreams has to do with emotional life — your capacity to love and to be loved, to give of yourself and to receive. A strong, healthy heart in a dream can mirror a good relationship with your own feelings and an openness toward others. A weak or damaged heart may mirror something you have shut away, a love that has been given poor conditions, or an emotional tenderness you are carrying.

Courage and following your heart

“Taking heart” is no accident as an expression — in many traditions the heart is the seat of courage. Dreaming of the heart can arrive in periods when you are facing a choice that asks for exactly that: acting in line with what you know deep down is right, even when your head is protesting.

The dream can pose a question: what is your heart saying, and do you dare listen to it?

Vitality and life energy

The heart is what keeps us alive — it beats without pause, without rest, without interruption. Dreaming of the heart can mirror an awareness of vitality and life energy, either that you are full of it, or that you are worried something is draining it. It can read as a reminder to look after what keeps you going.

A concrete worry about health

Sometimes the heart dream is more direct — a concern about heart health that you carry consciously or otherwise. See also illness for other health-related dreams. If you have risk factors, have noticed symptoms, or have a family history of heart disease, the dream may mirror a worry that deserves attention — and possibly a conversation with your doctor.

Courage: acting from the heart

If the heart was strong and rhythmic: Good life energy, emotional strength and a healthy relationship with your own feelings.

If the heart was damaged or weak: An emotional tenderness, a loss of vitality, or something that has worn down your ability to love and open up. See also blood for related dreams.

If you saw the heart outside the body: Something very private and vulnerable has been exposed — you have given yourself to something or someone in a way that leaves you open.

If the heart was racing: Anxiety, excitement, passion — depending on the context of the dream.

If the heart stopped beating: A strong and dramatic dream — not necessarily a warning about health, but an image of something vital in your life being at risk.

If you held the heart in your hand: You are handling something deeply personal and vulnerable — perhaps your own capacity for love, or another person’s love for you.

The centre of feeling and what we truly feel

The heart is in many ways the address of emotional life — we say that something “goes straight to the heart”, that we “follow our heart”, or that we have our “heart in our throat”. Dreaming of the heart can therefore be about love, compassion and emotional honesty: what is it you actually feel, underneath all the practical and sensible things that fill the days?

At the same time the heart is an organ, and the body speaks through dreams too. Heart dreams can occasionally mirror an underlying worry about health, or stress and anxiety that has settled in the body — the hammering heart of anxiety is a familiar bodily experience. As a rule the dream is symbolic, but it is still worth listening to if the unease persists while you are awake.

“Heart” is also a word for courage and for the core of something — to “take heart” is to dare to show what you feel, and “the heart of the matter” points to what really counts. Culturally the heart has long been seen as the seat of the soul and the emotions: in ancient Egypt the heart was preserved after death and weighed against Ma’at’s feather, while the brain was discarded as unimportant. Dreams of the heart may therefore point toward your core values — what matters most to you, and whether you are living in line with it.

Sources and further reading

• Artemidorus of Daldis, Oneirocritica (c. 150–200 AD) — the heart as a dream motif in antiquity, the seat of courage as much as of feeling.
• G. William Domhoff, The Scientific Study of Dreams (2003) — the continuity hypothesis, and why the heart’s condition in the dream follows your own.