Dreaming about rainbow
Rainbows are reported rarely and almost always positively, which makes them unusual. They are also frequently wrong: in the wrong place relative to the sun, doubled oddly, or persisting far longer than one can.
Also searched as: a rainbow, rainbow in a dream, colours in the sky
The reports are few and consistently pleasant. Dreamers describe noticing one and feeling better, with very little narrative attached.
Impossible rainbows are common among the reports there are: at night, in a clear sky, or in the same part of the sky as the sun.
Colour saturation is frequently mentioned and belongs with the vivid-colour material.
There is not much else, and this entry is short because the reports are.
Common associations
- A reliably positive image, which is rare here.
- Impossibility, in the placement reports.
- Promise and covenant, in the biblical tradition.
- A bridge between worlds, in several others.
Positive readings
Almost uniformly positive reports, which is worth writing down precisely because so little in this database is.
An impossible rainbow is a clear dream sign.
Difficult readings
Effectively none reported, and inventing some would be dishonest.
Psychological perspectives
There is no optical model in a dream, so a rainbow does not need a sun behind the dreamer or rain in front of them. It is generated as an image, which is why the placement is so often impossible.
Why the reports are so consistently positive is not established. The cultural loading is uniformly positive, which is the obvious candidate, and it is a suggestion rather than a finding.
Cultural and historical
The rainbow as a covenant after the flood is one of the most widely known images in the Hebrew Bible and is available to a very large number of dreamers.
Bifröst in Norse tradition is a bridge between worlds, and rainbow bridges and paths appear in a number of other traditions independently.
The Rainbow Serpent is a major and specific figure in a number of Aboriginal Australian traditions, and it is not a generic rainbow symbol; the snake entry in this database already holds to that distinction and this one does too.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: dreams generate images without modelling the physics that would produce them.
Observed: the emotional consistency of these reports.
Not established: any meaning for a rainbow.
Your own context
- Where was it relative to the sun?
- Did it last longer than it should?
- How saturated were the colours?
- How did you feel?
If this recurs
Rare enough that any recurrence is unusual and worth recording in detail.
Emotions often reported
- wonder
- joy
- awe
- calm
- peace
- surprise
Specific rainbow dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Where it happened
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Where was it in the sky?
- How long did it last?
- How did I feel when I saw it?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
4 references. What these labels mean
- 1.The dream narratives of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (Genesis 20, 28, 37 and 40 to 41; Daniel 2, 4 and 7; Matthew 1 to 2 and 27; Acts 10 and 16)Religious or philosophical text
Various, compiled
Cited for: What the biblical texts themselves record about dreams: that they are treated as a channel of divine communication, that interpretation is presented as a gift rather than a technique, and which specific dreams and readings appear. Cited for what the text says, never as evidence about dreaming.
- 2.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
- 3.Lucid Dreaming Verified by Volitional Communication During REM SleepPeer-reviewed research
Stephen LaBerge, Lynne Nagel, William Dement and Vincent Zarcone (1980) · Perceptual and Motor Skills
Cited for: The eye-signalling experiments that established lucid dreaming as a verifiable state rather than a self-report.
- 4.Sleep Paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind-Body ConnectionAcademic book
Shelley Adler (2011) · Rutgers University Press
Cited for: How culturally specific interpretations attach to a physiologically consistent sleep experience, and what happens when they do.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of rainbow have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- SymbolRainRain is one of the most common weather conditions in dream reports and one of the least dramatic. It usually sets the tone rather than driving the dream, and the reported feeling ranges from cleansing to grim with no consistent pattern.
- SymbolSkyThe sky is the single best reality check in a dream, because it is large, always present, and almost never right. Dreamers who learn to look up report noticing more inconsistencies there than anywhere else.
- ColourColour in dreamsMost people report dreaming in colour, and most dream reports never mention it. Both are true, and the gap between them is why a colour you remember clearly is worth a line in the journal and a colour you had to think about probably is not.
- SymbolBridgeBridges are transition made literal, and they are almost always reported with a decision attached: cross, turn back, or find that the bridge will not hold.
- SymbolA crackCracks are one of the few things dreams reliably show growing, which is unusual: dreams produce states far more readily than transitions, and a spreading crack is a transition being watched.
- SymbolA holeA hole is an absence with edges, and dreams handle it the way they handle every absence: the edges are generated and what is beyond them is not. Dreamers report being unable to see in, and being certain about what is there.
