Dream meaning Dreaming of a peacock

A peacock in a dream fans its tail in a blaze of colour, the colour of beauty that wants to be seen, of pride, and of the thin line between confidence and vanity. Watch what the bird does: display, hide, cry out or shed its feathers. The peacock has worn many meanings. Early Christians took it as a sign of immortality: Augustine wrote that he kept a piece of peacock flesh for a year and found it had not decayed.

In India it carries Kartikeya, and Krishna wears its feather in his hair; the Yazidis honour Tawûsê Melek, the Peacock Angel. In some old stories of the prophets, the peacock guarded the gate of Paradise and was expelled with Adam, and in Attar's Conference of the Birds it declines the journey because it longs only for the garden it lost.

Rumi tells of a peacock tearing out its own splendid feathers, saying they only brought hunters to it. A peacock in full display is beauty, wealth or honour that is seen, and a blessing if it is carried without pride; a peacock blocking your way is pride standing in your path, your own or someone else's, and the lost garden of Attar's story is its cost.

A peacock plucking its feathers is beauty or wealth that has drawn envy and danger, and the dream counsels guarding it with remembrance rather than display. A peacock's harsh cry is beauty that brings trouble with it; a white peacock is a quieter grace; a single feather is a gift that should be kept modestly.