Last Updated on July 20, 2023 by Avia

Meaning Behind Dreaming of Birds

What’s Taking Flight When We are Dreaming of Birds?

-Doesn’t seem like a big deal, really. A bird in our nighttime reveries might even be overlooked…but dreaming of birds can be a revolutionary deal.

This article about bird meaning in dreams and dreaming of birds is a product of years of encountering birds in my own dreams and interpreting bird dreams for a bunch of clients over the years.

What’s Taking Flight When We are Dreaming of Birds?

At their core, birds remind us of essential things crucial to living solid, sustainable lives. Stuff like feeling free, being capable, taking care of our own, protecting what is sacred to us. Birds are also symbols of creative expression.

So it makes sense when we dream of birds, we’re going to have these kinds of themes crop up in our interpretations. Just keep this in mind as you process your bird dreams, as as you read further into this article. Birds…almost 100% of the time, are beckoning for your attention in these essential areas…

1) Recognizing personal freedom

2) Defending what is Sacred

3) Getting a broad view of a situation

4) Spreading our creative wings and expressing ourselves.

Here are a few other key points dreaming of birds offers us…

Focus
Vision
Travel
Freedom
Direction
Creativity
Transition
Opportunity
Transformation
Communication

These are just a few prime keywords when it comes to interpreting dreams with birds.

The true interpretation action to take about birds in our dreams is to hone in on the idea of being lifted out of our routine lives. When you dream of birds, ask yourself: “What’s going on in my life that I need to get a birds-eye view about?” or “What can I do to lift myself above this situation?”

“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

meaning of dreaming of birds — Meaning of dreaming of birds

Of course, there are bunches of other interpretations. A lot about bird meanings in dreams depends on:

Type of bird
Colors of the bird
Condition of the bird
Number of birds (one or a whole flock?)
Environment of the bird and other circumstances taking place in the dream

I cannot stress this enough…if you truly have a goal to interpret dreams, please be mindful about the process. Keep a journal. Set an intention to have a juicy dream, and also set in your mind to remember it as best you can upon waking up. Doing so will allow you to capture crucial details about birds in your dreams (and everything else you’re dreaming about for that matter).

Flying into Interpretations about Dreaming of Birds

There are a few elementary paces we can take into the bird-dream realm to gain insight. Firstly, birds are notorious for coming to us in dreams when we are in dire need of a message. In all my experience of interpreting dreams, it almost always comes down to birds showing up when my clients need an ‘in-your-face’ message or ‘special delivery’ of some kind about what’s going on.

Because birds are symbolic of higher vision, communication, and freedom…that message in dreams is often about the same kind of ideas. So let’s say you’ve been dreaming about birds. What’s in your life that speaks to you about your liberties? Your freedom? How you communicate? Your perspective on your current position in life? THAT my friend, is what the birds in your dreams are going to point out. It is our responsibility as the interpreter of our dreams to cull out the important info and relate it to what the birds are trying to communicate to us.

Of course, if you’ve had a dicey relationship with birds in your life, the interpretation is going to have a different spin.

I’ll give you an example. I had a friend who was attacked by a flock of blue jays. She was young. The whole ordeal was quite traumatizing for her. To this day, she still has dreams about blue jays attacking her. But you know what!??! When she has those dreams, she knows something is up. She has a connection with those birds…even though it is uncomfortable. For whatever reason, the blue jay chose her, and continues to visit her in her dreams. She swears to me that every time she dreams of a jay, she knows something big is in the works. We’ve talked about it at great length. I’ve mentioned the blue jay is territorial, and really intense about communicating its wants and needs.

Sure enough…when the blue jay comes in my client’s dreams, it is a dead-on sign she needs to stand up, take charge of her territory, and communicate her needs to others.

So, even though birds might be an unsettling occurrence in your dreams…they will still come with a profound meaning and message.

Interpreting Bird Dreams
Helpful Pointers When Dreaming of Birds

When delving into the meanings behind dreaming of birds, it’s good to be grounded before taking flight. While interpreting your bird dreams, keep these tips in mind…

What’s up buttercup?

That bird in your dreams…what’s it doing? Flying? Nesting? Scurrying on the ground? Hunting? All these actions are vital in interpreting your bird dreams.

Each action a bird takes in your dream can give you insight into the meaning of these lovely creatures in your dreams. For example, if a bird is hunting, that might be a great message for you to broaden your vision, spread your wings, and hunt down better opportunities for yourself.

Time for a checkup?

Be sure to pay attention to the condition of the bird or birds in your dream. Healthy? Wounded? It’s a big deal. The bird and your subconscious often join together to send you a message about your health. If birds are symbolic of freedom (and they are)….what’s more crippling to your freedom than health problems?

Sometimes (depending on your feeling, conditions and interpretations of your dreams) your deeper self and the universe are coming together to encourage you to get a check on your health. Just sayin’.

What’s your 20 speed racer?

Well, forgive me…it’s cheesy…but once upon a time, I worked in the trucking industry. “What’s your 20” means: What is your location?

Very often we move so fast in our lives. We are submerged in this plan, launching this action, or just overwhelmed by the daily details to get through the week. With all this fast-paced hullabaloo, it’s hard to check in on our TRUE location. Dreaming of birds are often a reminder to check in on our location. I don’t mean where you situated on your couch or where your GPS has you going in your car…I mean your SOUL-location. Where is your heart? Where is your mind? What’s going on with you on a deeper level? Those are the questions birds in dreams tend to ask you.

Land HO!!!

If I had a dime for every time dreaming of birds meant getting a different perspective on our lives, I’d be a rich little lady. Seriously. Imagine Columbus, or any number of navigators who had no idea what the hell laid beyond the horizon. Sometimes that is US! We work, we plug, we plunder and we trudge on…and a lot of times we don’t have any guarantee about what we’re going to get once we reach our goal.

Have you ever been there? Working in the dark? It sucks! Not seeing the tree amongst the forest is not a pretty place when you’re working your ass off to see the light at the end of your vision. Birds in dreams give you an aerial view. When you pay attention to your dream-birds, they can lift you out of the bog, and show you what the heck is going on so you can shore up your plans and reach your goal more smoothly.

Well, I feel like this was a bit of a lecture, and I did not intend it that way. But I get a little jostled by the idea of these lovely messages and tiny miracles coming into our consciousness that go unnoticed.

You would not believe how many emails I get from well-meaning folks asking me: “What does it mean if I’m dreaming of birds?” That’s cool, and I love to help…but a lot of this work has to come from the dreamer, not me. I’ve got a lot of material on how to interpret dreams. Heck…I’ve even got a page on how to interpret different bird meanings in dreams (see below).

I adore the curiosity, and am willing to help…but truly at the end of the day, the only REAL and TRUE interpretation is up to the dreamer.

My, my, my…I might have gotten my soap box out. Ok…I’ll put it away (for now).

Just know I love you all dearly. Thank you, as always, for tuning in and reading. I’ll always try to answer any questions you have, and I’m certainly always cooking up new insights that might help you live this symbolic life with a little more ease and inspiration!

Brightly yours,

Avia