Dream meaning Dreaming of an owl

An owl in a dream watches from the dark with eyes that stay open while others sleep. It is the night's own intelligence, and its meaning changes remarkably from culture to culture. For the Greeks the little owl belonged to Athena and was struck on Athenian coins, and Hegel borrowed the owl of Minerva to say that wisdom takes flight at dusk, once the day can be understood.

In many Arab, Persian and Turkish homes the owl was long feared as a bird of ruins and ill news, yet Islamic teaching set such omens aside when the Prophet declared that there is no evil augury in birds, so a Muslim reader weighs an owl dream by its details and by the feeling it leaves, as with any other image.

A calm owl watching you is read as vigilance and discernment: a call to notice what others miss, or counsel arriving at a late hour. An owl calling near your house is news reaching the household, and the dream asks that it be met with remembrance, not dread. An owl that keeps you company through the night is watchfulness and insight in a difficult season, and holding an owl is a trust to be kept.

The Qur'an says that rising in the night is firmer in its tread and truer in its word; the owl in a dream often marks such an hour of wakefulness.