What are army dreams about?

You can gain insight from thinking about any dream, no matter how strange. Only you, as the dreamer, have final say on what your dream may or may not mean. Each dream is unique.

The DreamWell dictionary provides information on how each dream symbol appears in dreams in general. Finding how experience armies in dreams can be a key to understanding its meaning.

Our emotions in dreams can help us understand its meaning. Pay attention to how you felt in the dream. Pay attention to how you feel about armies in dreams. See how you feel about armies now, in your waking life.

Dreams have a lot of common associations to work with when creating symbolism based on an army, or army-related subjects such as soldiers, battles, and weapons.

Armies are associated with order and discipline, with leadership and strategy, and that only scratches the surface.

You can battle against your workload, or struggle with a homework load. You can battle with your spouse, or struggle with an authority figure. You can battle an addiction, or struggle to maintain an exercise routine. You can battle against doubt, or struggle with your emotions. You can battle with your neighbors, or struggle to stay afloat. The symbolism shows in the actions.

Your dream storyteller can pull out themes related to the army or military whenever order or discipline is given to groups of people such as co-workers, classmates, neighbors, friends, and family members. Or you give yourself discipline or bring order to your life, leading your inner world like an army.

An army in a dream can refer to correction and punishment. For example, a teenager disciplined for staying out too late dreams about being a soldier punished for breaking curfew.

The ego is supposed to lead the psyche, and you can lead your life and people within it, or not. Or you can be led in any area of life: school, work, church, social, relationships. Leadership and authority of all sorts are a daily part of most people’s lives, readily comparable to an army. The idea of authority includes internal authority, not just external, and how you lead your life. See: Egos

Planning a war or battle can symbolize other ways you strategize, such as dating strategies, parenting strategies, strategies for advancement, problem-solving, or getting what you want. When you strategize you can be like a general who devises a plan and marshals resources.

Being in an army can symbolize being part of someone’s plan or under some sort of authority.

Dreams begin with an idea or association like the ones listed above and branch out to make connections with other ideas and associations. An idea only has to fit comparably in some way for a dream to make the stretch and use it to tell a story.

Another major association with an army is that it’s a group organized around a mission, purpose, or cause. Life is full of groupings of people, and armies can symbolize them: work groups, school groups, church groups, social groups, professional associations, neighborhood watch. Any group organized as a hierarchy, formally or informally, is readily comparable to an army. See: Family, Groups

For example, a young woman dreams about being in an army and resenting being told to clean the barracks. It symbolizes her resentment about her chores around the house.

Many words used in sports are also used in association with armies, such as “reserves,” “advance,” “target,” “front lines,” and “battle.” It’s ready-made for analogies and comparisons. See: Games, Sports

To dream about being part of an army can symbolize strength in numbers, or the feeling of belonging. For example, your family or social circle is like a small army, and exhibits army-related qualities such as a defensive mentality and esprit de corps. It can represent the desire to be challenged, to “be all you can be,” to have more discipline and structure. Or it can suggest that you like rules.

People pondering a choice of actually joining a military or police force can dream about an army as a way of thinking through the decision.

To dream about facing an army can symbolize overwhelming odds or overwhelming force arrayed against you. Facing an army alone or with a much smaller group can symbolize being outnumbered, or something that seems insurmountable. For an example, see: Fight.

Marching in an army can indicate harmony or “being in step” with a group of people or parts of your psyche.

Deploying with an army suggests big changes are coming. It can mean you’re going to be apart from loved ones for an extended period, or you’re taking a risk that can put you in danger, physical or otherwise.

To see an army marching past can symbolize observing big events.

Dreaming about being in the military, or in military-like conditions, can have symbolism based on efficiency and teamwork, on punctuality and sacrifice, and on struggling through adversity.

It can reflect a tendency to approach situations as if you are fighting battles, or to follow a strict regimen.

Soldiers are associated with taking orders. In dreams this idea can be stretched to include doing something involuntarily. For example, when you’re “volunteered” to help, or you carry a big load of unwanted work, duties or responsibilities.

It can mean you have no choice, like a soldier who takes orders.

Soldiers are associated with war zones, and a war zone is used to describe environments or situations that are hostile, harsh, or grueling.

Dreams about soldiers can come in response to situations that require massive effort, extensive training, and discipline. For example, a workaholic might dream about herself as a soldier who is always deployed and never home.

A woman dreams about soldiers pointing guns at her and forcing her to fly a plane, symbolizing the approach she’s taking to transforming herself from couch potato to go-getter. She knows the situation is do-or-die, so she forces herself into action. The soldier is apt symbolism because part of her new routine is regular exercise, and soldiers stay fit through regular exercise.

And now, after all that, you have personal associations to consider, especially if you or someone close to you has been in the military or police. They’re too numerous to even attempt to list, but a few of the common associations that are likely to be known only from an insider view are:

Armies are bureaucracies and can symbolize inflexibility. Armies are full of hypocrisies, claiming to care about their soldiers but failing to put their money where their mouth is. That association applies to corporations that claim to care about their employees, but it’s all talk. And armies can be the tools of the rich to oppress peoples and invade countries for their natural resources.

When dreams branch out to subjects related to combat and war, many more possibilities come into play. See: Fighting, War
Subjects such as ethics and honor potentially come into play. See: Warriors

See also: Ammunition, Armor, Egos, Fighting, Games, Groups, Guns, Heroes, Invading, Knives, Nazis, Opponents, Rockets, Sports, War, Warriors

This interpretation is from ""The Dream Interpretation Dictionary: Symbols, Signs, and Meanings" and is provided by J.M. DeBord aka "RadOwl". He is the author of several acclaimed books about dreaming, the host of The Dreams That Shape Us podcast, and is a moderator of r/Dreams, one of the largest dream sharing communities on the internet.