What Does It Mean if You Dream About Numbers?

Numbers in Dreams

Numbers are a language humans use to understand their world. Even people who use very different alphabets often agree on the same numbers.

Numbers in your dreams can therefore communicate clearly. This article will address what specific numbers in dreams symbolize as well as where numbers might appear in your dreams.

Numbers Dream Summary

In general, numbers in your dreams ask you to look at the facts and figures. In the same way that complex life situations with many moving parts often get reduced to the numbers in your bank account, numbers in your dreams can cut through the muck and simplify something that has gotten more complicated than it deserves to be.

The dream symbolism of Specific Numbers

The symbolism of the specific numbers one through twelve is common to many divination systems including astrology and Tarot, as well as other cultural and religious traditions.

Where Numbers Might Appear in Dreams

  1. Streets
  2. Highways
  3. Date and time
  4. School
  5. Sports
  6. Lottery
  7. Money

The Dream Symbolism of Specific Numbers in Dreams

One

Number One Symbolism

The classic Three Dog Night song “One” states, “One is the loneliest number.” Seeing the number one in a dream can indeed refer to loneliness, but not everyone who is alone is lonely.

One can also refer to independence and solitude. Sometimes you have to be alone to get in touch with what really matters.

Another big area of symbolism associated with the number one is new beginnings, which you do often have to start alone.

Two

Number two symbolism

Two refers to partnership, including but definitely not limited to romantic relationships.  Seeing the number two in your dream can mean people are or soon will be coming together to make something happen in your life.

The number two can also refer to opposites like light and dark, or night and day. A more difficult dream involving the number two could therefore refer to a situation in your life that has been set up in the form of two opposite perspectives – whether or not that is the only way or the most accurate way that the situation could be viewed.

For example, some people try to convince you that you must be either an extreme conservative or an extreme liberal in politics, or that your only two options in terms of religion are the most traditional interpretation of dogma possible or hardened atheism. Strangely, the people at opposite extremes of this sort seem to have a lot in common with each other.

Three

Number Three Dream Symbolism

Three is where things get complicated. Think of a group of three siblings or three best friends, which often ends in two of them ganging up against the third.

In general, odd numbers like three are more unstable than even numbers like two. Odd numbers, however, are more likely to make things happen, while even numbers can be complacent.

In a romantic context, dreaming of the number three can refer to an unwelcome interloper – a rival for your partner’s affection, or even your partner having an affair. However, people who are polyamorous sometimes intentionally seek out “a third” to join their couple, so not all love triangles are unwanted.

Dreaming of the number three can also symbolize a couple having a baby, especially a first baby.

Also, some people who are religious regard God as the third person in their marriage. This is one way that dreaming of the number three can refer to spirituality.

Many religions also see three faces of the divine. Christianity has the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while Pagan traditions have the Triple Goddess of Maiden, Mother, and Crone.

Four

Number four symbolism

Most cars have four wheels, and many houses come in the shape of a square or rectangle with four corners. The symbolism of the number four similarly refers to stable, practical, material assets.

The number four in a dream can therefore mean that finding and keeping material stability is a major concern in your life at this point. If the number four appears in your dream while your life is in material chaos, you may be on the road to solving your problems.

If you do have material stability when four appears in your dream, you probably feel that you have just enough, so you don’t want to take any risks. Sometimes avoiding risk is necessary, but sometimes the number four refers to a situation where you are more complacent and cautious than you need to be.

If you see the number four in your dream, you may need to follow the advice of hockey star Wayne Gretzky, as reported by Forbes: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Five

Number five symbolism

Astrological charts are divided into twelve numbered sections called houses, and each of the houses is associated with a different part of life. The symbolism of the fifth house includes gambling – the kind of potentially extreme risk that might be viewed as a reaction against the stable symbolism of the number four before it!

The theme song for this shift from the symbolism of four to the symbolism of five is “My Little Town” by Simon & Garfunkel. The singer recounts a childhood in a safe little town and explosively concludes,

Saving my money

Dreaming of glory

Twitching like a finger

On the trigger of a gun

Leaving nothing but the dead and dying

Back in my little town.

If the number five, or a variation on it like 555 or 5:55, appears in your dream, you have a big need for change in your life. If you don’t pursue this change by your own choice, change may be forced on you in not the way you would have chosen for it to happen.

Six

Number six symbolism

Six, like fellow even number four, refers to material security, but six is usually in a more secure place than four. For example, the image on the Six of Pentacles card in many Tarot decks is of someone who is wealthy enough to give to the poor.

The number 666, however, has a bad reputation because it is referred to as “the number of the beast” in the book of Revelation in the Bible.

Basically, the number six symbolizes money and power on Earth. Money and power can be used for good, but if you obsess over money and power to the point you lose all sense of perspective, you can have a problem worthy of the title of beast.

In astrology, the sixth house of an astrological chart refers to concerns of the physical world such as taking care of your health. It can include jobs, but the focus is more on your responsibilities at your job and your responsibility to earn enough money to take care of yourself rather than on becoming rich and powerful.

Overall, if you dream of the number six, you may be too focused on matters of the physical world.

Seven

Number seven symbolism

In the Bible’s account of the creation of the world, God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh day. Similarly, the image on the Seven of Pentacles card in many Tarot decks depicts a man pausing from his work to assess what he has done.

If you see the number seven in your dream, you may need to look at what you have done so far and see whether or not you are proud of the result. You are better off making such an assessment yourself before others have a chance to make one for you.

Discover reports that the Babylonians adopted seven-day weeks because they were aware of seven celestial bodies – Saturn was the most distant planet known until Uranus became the first planet discovered with the aid of a telescope in 1781, according to NASA – and because the cycle of the moon divided into four quarters of roughly seven days each.

Dreaming of the number seven may therefore show you that there is an order in the universe on a grand scale even if your own life feels chaotic at the moment.

Eight

Number eight symbolism

Eight, like other even numbers, has stability. It also carries a sense of abundance, especially in the variation 888 – some have noticed that the numeral 8 itself looks like a sideways infinity symbol.

Chabad.org reports that, in Jewish symbolism, the number eight is associated with miracles higher than nature. For example, the festival of Chanukah is eight days long, commemorating an event in which a small Jewish army fought off much stronger Greek forces and then got their remaining one day’s supply of lamp oil to burn for eight days.

The song “Eight Days A Week” by The Beatles speaks to the sense of abundance associated with the number eight, as they claim, “Eight days a week, I love you. Eight days a week is not enough to show I care!”

Dreaming of the number eight therefore speaks of good fortune, perhaps even to an exhausting degree.

Nine

Number nine symbolism

Nine is the last single-digit number, and nine innings make a complete baseball game. However, variations on nine like $9.99 or 999 seem to want to go to whatever is next.

One interesting use of the number nine is in Feng Shui. As shown on The Tao of Dana, the floor plan of a house or room can be viewed through a nine-square grid, three rows of three, called the bagua map where each square is associated with a different part of your life.

The bagua map is a case where the number nine seems complete without adding anything else to it.

If you dream of the number nine, therefore, maybe you have a choice as to whether you stay where you are or go to the next level. It’s not a case like the number five where you are being forced to change whether you want to or not, but you do have support to go to the next level if you are willing to do that.

In Tarot, both the Nine of Cups and the Nine of Pentacles show figures who are basically satisfied where they are, even though the Ten of Cups and Ten of Pentacles are both generally regarded as good cards too.

Ten

Number ten symbolism

The numbers in this list use the base-10 number system, as described by ThoughtCo. Were this list in the base-2 or binary number system that computers use, any number greater than 1 would be recorded in a mixture of 0s and 1s, so the number five would come out as 101 according to the Base Converter at jalu.ch.

It’s hard to get your mind around numbers without the set of digits 0 to 9. ThoughtCo theorizes that this comes from humans typically having ten fingers and learning to count on their fingers.

To dream of the number 10 therefore brings up the sort of basic structures that people tend to take for granted without really thinking about them. If you dream of the number 10, you should try to become more aware of the structures underlying your life and examine whether they are strong enough to support your needs.

On a deck of Tarot cards or playing cards, 10 is the last of the numbered cards or pips. To dream of the number 10 may therefore refer to having achieved completion in some matter.

Eleven

Number Eleven

11 is sort of a strange number to follow after the orderly number 10. 11 is a prime number, not divisible by any other numbers.

Sometimes people start to get curious about the more exciting things in life when they see 11:11 on digital clocks and the like while awake, as they have heard that 11:11 means something special. Many people on the Internet have attempted to pin down exactly what 11:11 means, but maybe part of the appeal is that, like a cat chasing a laser pointer often finds, it can’t quite be pinned down.

When you see the number 11 in your dream, you are similarly being called to go beyond the security of the known into the unknown.

Twelve

Number twelve symbolism

For an astrologer, the number 12 refers to a complete set, as there are 12 Zodiac signs.

Another complete set of 12 is the 12 tribes of Israel. Chabad.org describes the life path associated with each of these sons of Jacob in the book of Genesis.

Jesus Christ then had 12 apostles. Similar to the 12 tribes of Israel, each apostle made a unique contribution to the group.

When you see the number 12 in your dream, you might therefore be reminded that the world needs different kinds of people to be complete.

The number 12 in your dream might also refer to completion or graduation. In the United States, 12th grade is the last year of high school.

Where Numbers Might Appear in Dreams

Streets

Street Numbers in Dreams

Many cities use numbers to identify their streets. Numbers can therefore appear in dreams in the context of traveling along or looking for a particular numbered street.

If a numbered street appears in your dream, how familiar you are with that street can affect how significant it is to dream interpretation. If you were looking for an unfamiliar street with a particular number in an unfamiliar city in your dream, then that number would likely be very important symbolically.

However, if the main street in the city where you live is, for example, West 11th Avenue, and you travel on West 11th Avenue daily for work and errands, dreaming of West 11th Avenue may not mean much about the number 11. It might mean more about how you feel about living in your city, or how you feel about that particular part of your city, or how you feel about whatever activities you usually go to West 11th Avenue to do.

An exception might be if there were a plot twist in the dream about trying to get from your very familiar West 11th Avenue to a different numbered street. For instance, if your dream had you traveling on West 11th Avenue, where you regularly shop at strip malls in your waking life and trying to access 3rd Street, which doesn’t exist in your city in real life, it might mean you are trying to get away from materialism and live in a more spiritual way.

Highways

Highway numbers in dreams

Many states and countries use numbers to identify their highways – like street numbers but on a much larger scale. As with numbered streets, the significance of a numbered highway in a dream depends on other associations you might have with that highway.

For instance, the main north-south highway connecting the western United States is Interstate 5, and most stretches of it do not have other highways of that size nearby, as shown on ThoughtCo. If you live in a city where Interstate 5 is your main route out of town, dreaming of Interstate 5 is probably less about the number five and more about the general idea of travel.

If you live in the area of Interstate 5 and find yourself dreaming of an unfamiliar to you Interstate 77, however, you might look into the meanings of seven or 77. You might also Google Interstate 77 to see where it is and if you have any associations with that area.

Date and time

Date and time numbers in dreams

If the numbers in your dream indicate a particular date or time, of course the first place to look would be whether that date or time relates to any known events in your waking life. For example, if your dream highlights the date of your father’s birthday, it probably has more to do with your father than with the numbers involved.

If the date and time in your dream are unfamiliar to you, though, feel free to look at the symbolism of the numbers involved.

School

dreams about school numbers

Many people have school dreams long after they are done with formal education. Much of adult life is not as organized or predictable as the school system, and dreaming of school as an adult can be a longing for that sense of predictability.

How the school system provides that order and predictability often involve numbers. Students are separated into numbered grades, and the day is broken into numbered periods.

If you dream about showing up for fourth-period choir at your high school, maybe you did have fourth-period choir when you were in high school many years ago, but why are you dreaming of it now? Is some situation in your present life heading into a fourth period or fourth quarter?

Sports

Dream about sport numbers

Most sports are also full of numbers, so dreaming of sports is an opportunity to find numbers in your dreams. The final score that determines the winner of a game is usually given in the form of numbers, and the games are divided into numbered increments such as innings or quarters.

In many sports, players often wear numbers on their uniforms. If you dreamed of an athletic event, try to remember if you saw a number on the uniform of a significant player.

If you dream of a baseball game in the ninth inning or a football game in the fourth quarter, this might refer to a situation that is nearing its completion.

Lottery

Dreams about lottery numbers

Numbers can appear in dreams related to the lottery. For more information, see What Does It Mean When You Dream About Lottery.

If your lottery dream included playing specific numbers on your lottery ticket, you could look at the symbolism of those numbers. It might not hurt to try playing those numbers in your local lottery, either.

A lottery dream could also specify the amount of money that you won in numeric terms. That might be a symbolic number on its own.

Another possibility to consider when dreaming of a lottery jackpot of a specific number, whether or not this is addressed within the dream itself, is whether the jackpot number divides evenly into a smaller number. If you win a jackpot of, for instance, $64 million in your dream, is there a significant group of eight people in your life who could split that into $8 million each?

Fantasizing, whether in a dream or while awake, about what you would do with lottery winnings can be a way to gain clarity on which people and causes you value in your life.

Money

Dreams about money numbers

Numbers can appear in dreams related to money in general. For more information, see Money Dream Meanings & Interpretation.

Whether your dream has you spending, losing, stealing, or receiving money, look at the specific amount of currency involved if one is given. If it corresponds to any specific amount of expected income or expenses you are aware of in your waking life, that’s an easy answer.

If you can’t think of anything in your waking life corresponding to that specific amount of money, then move on to looking at the number symbolically.

Conclusion

Numbers are infinite and everywhere, so it makes sense that they find their way into our dreams at times. The smallest whole numbers tend to have the most symbolic associations, so that has been the focus of this article.

If you did dream of a less common number, however, use the strategies described throughout this article to think of personal associations for that number. The symbolic associations given in this article include things that many people may have picked up from mass culture, but ultimately the best interpretations for any dream are those that come from the dreamer’s unique personal experiences.

What Does It Mean if You Dream About Numbers