DreamloreDream dictionary › Common dreams › Rats and Mice
What does it mean to dream about rats or mice?
Rats and mice turn up in a lot of unsettling dreams. Miller has an entry for each; the lines below are quoted exactly.
What Miller wrote (1901)
To dream of rats, denotes that you will be deceived, and injured by your neighbors. Quarrels with your companions is also foreboded. … To catch rats, means you will scorn the baseness of others, and worthily outstrip your enemies. To kill one, denotes your victory in any contest.
Read the full entry for “Rat” →
To dream of mice, foretells domestic troubles and the insincerity of friends. Business affairs will assume a discouraging tone. To kill mice, denotes that you will conquer your enemies.
Read the full entry for “Mice” →
Your dream is not a dictionary entry
A dream about rats and mice comes with a place, other people and a feeling, and the old books read the same image very differently depending on those details. Dreamlore takes your whole dream, spoken or typed, finds the passages that fit it in Miller and Freud, quotes them word for word, and leaves you one question to reflect on. The journal stays on your phone.
Read your own dream in Dreamlore
Full dictionary entries
Questions
What does it mean to dream about rats or mice?
Miller's 1901 dictionary reads rats as being deceived and injured by neighbours, and catching or killing one as outstripping your enemies. Mice are his sign of domestic troubles and insincere friends, and killing them means conquering your enemies. These are old readings to reflect on, not a verdict on your dream.
Where do these quotes come from?
They are quoted verbatim from public-domain books: Gustavus Hindman Miller's Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted (1901). Each quote on this page is checked word for word against the source text before the page is served, the same check the Dreamlore app runs on every quote it shows.
Other common dreams
Dream about teeth falling outDream about snakesDream about being chasedDream about fallingDream about flyingDream about water or drowningDream about deathDream about being pregnantDream about spidersDream about a houseDream about a carDream about fireDream about a babyDream about your partner cheatingDream about a weddingDream about school or examsDream about a tornado or stormDream about a dogDream about being nakedDream about catsDream about hair falling outDream about moneyDream about ghostsDream about your ex
Dreamlore and these pages are for reflection and curiosity. The books quoted here are old — Miller wrote in 1901 and his entries read as omens, and many of Freud's ideas are disputed today. Take them as a starting point for thinking about your own dream, not as prediction or advice.