What Does It Mean to Dream of an Apple?

Apples are a common fruit, but their cultural associations run surprisingly deep. If you dream of an apple, you might be hungry for more than just food.
Apple Dream Summary
Apple Dream Symbolism
An apple is a nutritious and abundant fruit, so a dream about apples could simply be a reminder that you need to focus on your health and appreciate the resources you have around you. However, some of the cultural references to apples are more complex, and that too could play into the meaning of your apple dream.
Apples can be associated with a sentimentality that venerates innocence perhaps to an unhealthy degree. Apples can also be associated with the painful loss of one’s innocence. Your apple dream could therefore suggest that you are struggling to find your place between these two extremes.
Common Apple Dreams
- Dream of apple trees
- Dream of a worm in an apple
- Dream of a rotten apple
Apple Dream Symbolism
Temptation
In the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A serpent then talks Adam and Eve into eating the fruit anyway, and God responds by casting Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.
While the Bible does not actually say what the tree’s fruit specifically was, many popular depictions of the story portray it as an apple. Similarly, in the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White is tricked into eating a poisoned apple that puts her into the Sleeping Death until The Prince kisses her.
Dreaming of an apple could therefore symbolize that you are being tempted to do something that is not really good for you. However, another way to look at this aspect of apple symbolism would be more along the lines of the “red pill” in the movie The Matrix, where protagonist Neo is given the option of taking a red pill that will enable him to learn the truth about the world or a blue pill that will keep him innocent.
In this sense, your apple dream could show that you have an opportunity to trade your innocence for knowledge. Pursuing this may come with both benefits and disadvantages.
Sentimentality
The saying “motherhood and apple pie” refers to a sentimental view of American life, usually in an idealized past. Similarly, apples are stereotypical gifts for teachers, though the term “apple polishing” refers to students trying too hard to suck up to their teachers.
While the part of apple symbolism that has to do with temptation addresses the risks of losing one’s innocence, the other side of apple symbolism is that innocence preserved too carefully has the potential to rot into sentimentality and smarminess. Your apple dream may suggest that you need to find balance between these extremes.
Health
Apples are widely known as a healthy food, as in the saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Healthline notes that regularly eating apples can reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.
Dreaming of eating apples could therefore symbolize that you are, or should be, paying attention to your health. However, it may be important to take a balanced approach rather than doing something extreme.
Abundance
Apples grow abundantly, especially if you have an apple tree. Dreaming of a large quantity of apples could symbolize that you have a wealth of resources easily available to you. You may need to get creative about how you use your resources, though.
Common Apple Dreams
Dream of apple trees
A dream of apple trees that freely drop apples could symbolize abundance. You may get the resources you need, and you might not even need to do a whole lot to get them.
Sometimes apple trees drop more apples than you can easily use yourself. If your dream of an apple tree shows apples piling up on the ground and rotting, this could symbolize that you are not using the resources available to you as well as you could be.
If you dream of an apple tree in winter, when there are no apples on it, this could symbolize that you are aware of the potential for abundance in your situation, even if it is not active at the moment.
Dream of a worm in an apple
Dreaming of finding a worm in the apple you are eating could symbolize that a situation you think is innocent and wholesome has hidden problems. Though you may be focused on your own feelings of disgust and betrayal, you might also need to examine how you missed the signs that something was amiss, as a worm usually leaves a telltale hole when entering an apple.
Dream of a rotten apple
The saying “rotten apple” or “bad apple” refers to a situation where one person, the rotten apple, is making trouble for others, who are presumably good apples. Of course, how the rest of the group responds, or fails to respond, to whatever the rotten apple did can often be as big of a problem as the rotten apple.
Dreaming of a rotten apple could therefore suggest that this type of dynamic, where one person is being portrayed as the group’s bad apple, is active in your life. Whether people think you are the bad apple, or you think that someone else is the bad apple, the group may have broader problems than the identified scapegoat. Similar issues are addressed in demon dream symbolism.
Conclusion
Eating an apple can be one of the physical pleasures of life on Earth. To enjoy that physical pleasure, though, you must endure both the good and the bad of the human experience.
Your dream of an apple can encourage you to find a healthy balance in how you view the good and the bad of the human experience. While learning about the dark side of life can be upsetting, suppressing that knowledge can have problems of its own.