What Does It Mean to Dream About Meat?

Meat Dream Meaning

Meat is a big part of many people’s diets, though not everyone partakes. The ethical challenge of taking another creature’s life in order to eat can be upsetting, but hunger often wins out. Dreaming about meat may reflect that you have these difficult issues on your mind – or just that you crave certain nutrients.

Meat Dream Summary

Meat Dream Symbolism

Meat is a form of nourishment, so a dream about eating meat could symbolize that taking care of yourself physically is a concern for you at this time. It may show that you crave meat for specific nutritional reasons.

However, eating meat requires taking the life of an animal, so a meat dream could reflect your conflicts about the aggression inherent in life. Meat can also be dangerous to eat if not prepared properly. Many religions therefore have beliefs that address both the ethical and safety aspects of meat, so your meat dream could refer to your religious or ethical beliefs.

Common Meat Dreams

  1. Dream of eating meat
  2. Dream of raw meat
  3. Dream of cooking meat
  4. Dream of eating meat when you are a vegetarian

Meat Dream Symbolism

Meat Dream Symbolism

Nourishment

Meat is a good source of protein that nourishes your physical body, so a meat dream might symbolize that your physical body needs fuel. Meat can also be more expensive than other types of food, so a dream of meat could symbolize that you are proud of your ability to provide for your family.

Many gatherings for holidays or other special occasions feature meat on the menu, like a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. If you don’t eat meat at every meal, dreaming of meat could symbolize that you are looking forward to an upcoming celebration that will nourish you not just physically but also emotionally.

Sexuality

Sometimes people who are upset about others looking at their bodies in a sexual way lament being treated like “a piece of meat.” Dreaming of meat could therefore symbolize that you feel like someone else is ogling you. The emotional atmosphere of the dream could show whether or not you find this attention welcome.

Alternately, a dream of meat could symbolize that you are looking at the bodies of other people in a sexual way. The emotional atmosphere of your dream could show whether you feel nourished or embarrassed by this habit.

Aggression

Even if you don’t kill the animals you eat yourself, someone has to kill an animal for you to eat meat. Dreaming of meat could therefore symbolize that you are forced to deal with the aggression that is inherent in life.

While many animals kill other animals to eat their meat, humans often wish they were better than the rest of the animal kingdom. You may feel conflicted about a situation where circumstances seem to prevent you from being as kind to others as you would like to be. A meat dream could also symbolize that you feel like your very survival comes at a cost to someone else.

Physical World

People who spend a lot of time on the Internet sometimes refer to the physical world as “meatspace,” as opposed to cyberspace. A dream about meat could therefore symbolize that you need to pay more attention to your physical body or physical surroundings.

Beliefs

Some religions have regulations surrounding meat. They may prohibit members from eating some or all types of meat. They may also mandate that meat be prepared in a particular way, as in the Jewish system of kosher or the Muslim system of halal. Many people also abstain from eating some or all types of meat due to other personal beliefs.

If any of these situations apply to you, a dream of meat could symbolize a situation where you feel different from others because of your beliefs. For example, if you avoid cow meat due to your religion, seeing cow meat in your dream could reflect that remaining true to your religion is an ongoing concern for you. You might also be upset that others seem to be insulting your religion.

Common Meat Dreams

Dream of eating meat

Dream of eating meat

Dreaming of eating meat could symbolize that you need to nourish your physical body. Your body might specifically crave meat due to deficiencies of nutrients like iron.

People who menstruate sometimes crave meat around their periods due to the iron lost in menstrual blood, as reported by SuperfoodSanctuary.com and Mashed. The cookbook Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice also has interesting insights on the topic of meat and menstruation, if you want to pursue it in more detail.

A dream about eating meat could therefore mean your period is coming, even if you don’t see other obvious features of period-related dreams like blood.

If you don’t think your dream of eating meat is related to an unusual craving because you already eat meat all the time, your dream of eating meat might just be processing your routine activities. However, if your dreams seem to draw attention to your habit of eating meat in a negative way, it might be time to add some diversity to your diet.

Dream of raw meat

Dream of raw meat

Dreaming about raw meat could symbolize that life has become chaotic for you lately. You may feel like the people around you are acting like aggressive wild animals and that you must sink to their level to not get destroyed.

On the other hand, you might feel like too much civilization is what is wrong with the people around you. In that case, a dream of raw meat could symbolize that you would like to cut through pretentiousness and get at what is real, even if doing so seems dangerous.

People generally avoid eating raw meat due to the possibility of contamination, so a dream of eating raw meat could symbolize that you fear some other kind of contamination in your life. This could be something like a contagious disease, or it might be more of a cultural taboo.

If your dream of raw meat emphasizes blood dripping from the meat, any dream featuring blood can be a sign that your menstrual period is coming. If you don’t menstruate, your blood dreams could refer to the menstrual cycle of your partner or another significant person in your life.

Dream of cooking meat

Dream of cooking meat

A dream of cooking meat could symbolize that you are confident in your ability to use the resources that come to you. More broadly, it might show that you see your world as a stable and functional enough place that you can live a predictable life.

If you are new to cooking, cooking meat can be one of the more challenging things to learn. It is more dangerous than learning to cook vegetables or pasta because there is a risk of food poisoning if you don’t get the meat cooked enough. Chicken can be especially hard to get right in this regard, so a dream of raw chicken could reflect anxiety about this issue.

However, if your journey of learning to cook meat is going well, a dream of cooking meat could symbolize that you are proud of your ability to take care of yourself.

If the overall vibe of this dream is more about your routine responsibilities, it could reflect that you are preoccupied with just getting through the basic necessities of life. See also dreams of washing dishes and dreams of laundry.

Dream of eating meat when you are a vegetarian

If you are a vegetarian, dreaming of eating meat willingly could symbolize that something else you rely on for security in your life has been shaken. The logic goes along the lines that, if you can no longer take this other thing for granted, what can you take for granted anymore?

A vegetarian dreaming of eating meat could find this dream unsettling in the way a straight man might find dreaming of sexual intimacy with a man unsettling, or a gay man might find a dream of sexual intimacy with a woman unsettling. In any of these cases, the meaning of the dream is probably not so much about the food or the sex itself. It is more likely about boundaries.

If you are a vegetarian and dream of being forced to eat meat, this could symbolize that someone in your life is being totally disrespectful of your boundaries. If you abstain from only a certain type of meat, like beef or pork, due to religious reasons, dreaming of being forced to eat the meat you avoid could symbolize a situation where you have been mistreated on account of your religion.

Conclusion

Eating meat is a situation where wild nature and controlled civilization intersect in a strange way. Though the practice of killing animals to feed ourselves is a practice borrowed from the animal kingdom that we might sometimes like to forget we still belong to, our civilizations are often full of rules that govern the way we use meat.

Your dream of meat might reflect a simple need for nourishment, but it could also acknowledge that needing nourishment is not as simple as we might like it to be.