Dream meaning Dreaming of an elephant

An elephant in a dream arrives with a weight that cannot be ignored, and with it come memory, strength, patience and things too large to overlook. The reading hangs on whether the elephant is calm or enraged, and on whether you ride it, follow it or flee from it. Elephants stand at the edge of sacred history.

The Qur'an's Surat al-Fil recalls the army of Abraha, which came with an elephant to destroy the Kaaba in the year the Prophet was born and was turned back by flocks of birds. Buddhist tradition tells that Queen Maya dreamed of a white elephant entering her side before she conceived the Buddha, and Hindus honour Ganesha, the elephant-headed remover of obstacles.

Rumi tells of people who touched an elephant in a dark room: one took the trunk for a water pipe, one the ear for a fan, one the leg for a pillar, each certain of a partial truth. Elsewhere he writes that only a sleeping elephant dreams of India, as a soul dreams of where it came from.

Classical interpreters read the elephant as a powerful ruler or a person of great weight, and the rest of the dream follows from that weight. A calm elephant is a powerful person who is well disposed toward you, or a large matter that will go smoothly; riding one is gaining standing, or taking charge of a great responsibility that you can carry.

An elephant chasing you is a powerful person's displeasure, or a large matter you have been avoiding and that will not stay behind you. An enraged elephant is a trial from someone strong, and the story of Abraha says how such trials can be turned back. A mother with her calf is protection over your household, and an elephant squeezed into a cramped room is a matter too large for the place you are in now.