What Does It Mean to Dream of an Elevator?

Traveling upward or downward in your dream can be blatantly symbolic of the path you feel your life is on. When there is an elevator in your dream to help you move up or down, the opportunities for finding meaning in your dream can expand further.

Elevator Dream Symbolism

Movement

An elevator’s job is to go places. If you dream of an elevator, this can therefore symbolize a situation where you are going somewhere.

If something is wrong with the elevator in your dream, however, this can symbolize that your capacity to progress in your life is correspondingly blocked in some way.

Oddly, while people tend to talk about events in their lives moving forward or backward, elevators don’t move forward or backward – they move up and down. An elevator dream can therefore symbolize a shift in your perspective of a situation. Instead of just moving forward along the path you have planned, you might dig deeper or climb higher to get a different view of what is going on.

Assistance

An elevator can make life much easier than it would be if you always had to climb many flights of stairs to get anywhere. For some people with physical disabilities, climbing stairs is impossible, so elevators are necessary for them to get around.

Dreaming of an elevator can therefore symbolize that things don’t always have to be hard. It is possible for you to have an environment that makes things easier for you.

Enclosure

An elevator is an enclosed space you are trapped in, sometimes with strangers, for the duration of your ride. Dreaming of an elevator can therefore symbolize a situation where you have accepted certain limits as part of the necessary path to reach a goal in your life.

For example, you might be consensually trapped in a school program with classmates you are not crazy about in order to earn a degree that you need.

Of course, everyone who is born is enclosed in a womb for a while before they come out. Dreaming of an elevator could therefore symbolize an enclosure with this sort of security.

Seclusion

Though the elevator is definitely part of society, as elevators are not found in the wild, it is also set apart from society. This seclusion at times tempts people to engage in antisocial behavior such as passing gas, urinating, and having sex inside the elevator.

Dreaming of an elevator can therefore symbolize what you would do if you thought you were not being watched.

Common Elevator Dreams

Dream of being in a falling elevator

If you dream of being in an elevator that is falling as if it is broken and cannot be controlled, this could symbolize that you feel like your life is out of control.

A falling elevator dream can also represent a descent into the subconscious. Going into the subconscious can be fruitful however it comes to happen, but it’s a less disruptive experience if you intentionally push the elevator button to go to the basement.

The more time you spend on this website studying your dreams, the more you are likely to intentionally push the elevator button to go to the basement – that is, the more you are likely to regularly explore the contents of your subconscious in a way that you have control over.

Many people, however, don’t pay much attention to their subconscious, so tension builds up over time until it explodes. Then, it seems like something as crazy as winding up in a falling elevator happens out of nowhere.

In your falling elevator dream, did you actually hit the bottom? If so, this could have a good interpretation similar to that of the infamous Tarot card Ten of Swords, which depressingly shows a man face down with swords stuck in his back: if you have already hit the bottom, you can’t fall any further. From this point, renewal is therefore possible.

Dream of being stuck in an elevator

If you dream of being stuck in an elevator, this could symbolize that you feel trapped in your life. As discussed in What Does It Mean to Dream of Being Trapped?, the larger symbolism of being trapped anywhere generally has to do with feeling powerless.

The difference between a dream of being trapped in an elevator and a dream of being trapped in a natural disaster like an earthquake or a flood is that elevators are normally found in civilization – in tall apartment buildings and office buildings. To dream of being trapped in an elevator specifically could therefore symbolize that you feel oppressed by the structures of society like having to go to work in an office.

Dream of an elevator going to the wrong floor

If you dream of an elevator going to the wrong floor, this could symbolize that you feel out of control in your life. Maybe you had a plan for how things were going to go, and circumstances took you in a totally different direction.

Sometimes getting diverted somewhere other than where you intended to go in life has a good result, though. When you wound up at the wrong floor in your dream, did you get out and explore at all?

If you remember the particular number of the floors you meant to go to and wound up at, you might look those up in What Does It Mean if You Dream About Numbers? For example, if you were trying to go to the fourth floor and wound up on the fifth, you might be consciously looking for stability as indicated in the symbolism of the number four, but something else in you wants the chaos associated with the symbolism of the number five.

Also, did you know in the dream why the elevator went to the wrong floor? If it was obvious that the problem had to do with another person in the elevator pushing the buttons, you might feel that another person in your life is holding you back from your goals.

If the elevator went to the wrong floor due to mechanical failure, however, this could symbolize that you feel like circumstances are against you – there’s no one you can confront, because the bad situation can’t really be pinned down as any one person’s fault.

Dream of a broken elevator

If you dream of a broken elevator, this could symbolize that you have trouble getting where you need to go in your life. The better version of this dream is if you get to the elevator and find an “Out of Order” sign, as opposed to discovering there is something wrong with the elevator once you are inside. Even in that better version, though, you feel like your environment does not have the resources you need.

When you found the broken elevator in your dream, were you able to take the stairs instead? This could symbolize a situation where you feel resentful that others seem to have advantages you don’t. Even if the stairs got you where you needed to go, you feel like you have to work harder than others to achieve the same result.

Dream of riding in an elevator

If you dream of riding in an elevator that just gets you where you need to go, and nothing crazy happens, this symbolizes that you feel like you have the support you need to get where you need to go in life.

If your dream of riding in an elevator is more like joyriding, like there is a component of just doing it for fun, this is great for getting out of whatever rut you might be in. Especially if you take the elevator to a very high floor where you can get a great view, this could symbolize getting a higher perspective on some problem that has been troubling you.

Dream of elevator buttons

If you dream of pressing an elevator button that has a particular number, you might look up the symbolism of that number in What Does It Mean if You Dream About Numbers?

For example, if you dream of taking an elevator from the third floor to the fourth floor, this may symbolize that you are going from a situation where the symbolism of the number three is important to a situation where the symbolism of the number four is important. Alternately, a more concrete explanation may be that you have had a family of three for a long time, and you are now expecting another child to make a family of four.

You might also dream of pressing an elevator button that is not a numbered button, like a button to open or close the elevator doors. A dream of opening or closing the elevator doors could be symbolic of situations where you let people into your life or shut them out of it.

If the elevator button meanings in your dream are very different from what might be expected in an elevator in waking life, like if the elevator in your dream has a button that turns on a bubble bath inside the elevator, this could symbolize that you have the ability to create a unique environment that meets your needs.

Dream of farting in an elevator

If you dreamed of passing gas in an elevator, how did that make you feel? If you felt embarrassed, this might symbolize that you feel out of control, especially of your body.

If you felt proud of stinking up the elevator, this might symbolize that you have a desire to make others in your life suffer. Maybe you feel resentful of something or someone, and you feel that you are therefore entitled to strike back.

If you dream of being in an elevator that someone else farted in, this might symbolize that you feel disrespected in your environment.

Dream of having sex in an elevator

Victoria Milan reports that the number one place female members of their website, which is for people seeking adulterous affairs, fantasize about having a fling is in an elevator. Having an adulterous affair is generally regarded as taboo to begin with, so dreaming of having sex in an elevator could symbolize that you want to break society’s boundaries.

The Aerosmith song “Love In An Elevator” meaning refers to an actual sexual incident that took place in an elevator, as reported at Society Of Rock. The lyrics, however, talk about the elevator going up and down, and something like this in your dream could be symbolic of the trajectory of your romantic relationship.

If you are having sex while the elevator is going up, this could symbolize that things in your relationship are getting better and better. If you are having sex while the elevator is going down, however, you could feel like things in your relationship are going downhill. Alternately, a dream of having sex while the elevator is going down could symbolize that you and your partner are deepening your commitment to each other.

Conclusion

You can use an elevator to actually get somewhere, or you can use it as a place to hide while you do something crazy – or you can do both at the same time. Your elevator dream may similarly combine the varied symbolism of elevators.