What are car 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 cars 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 cars in dreams. See how you feel about cars now, in your waking life.

Cars have tremendous potential for use as dream symbolism. They transport you to places, and in your life you “go places.” A car moves, and your life moves—forward, backward, sideways, in circles, quickly, slowly, not at all. Movement in a car can show you where you’re going, where you are, and where you’ve been in your life. It shows your personal journey, the road you’re on, and the people who share in it. See: Journeys, Maps

Many other subjects can be addressed through the symbolism of cars, but movement, progress, and direction of your life are where to begin decoding it. Further, cars are used in many metaphors, giving dreams a deep well from which to draw.

Dreams create physical representations of personal situations, and what better way of creating a physical representation about the movement of life than with the symbolism of driving in a car or other vehicle.

Unless a car is towed or moves on its own, movement means it is driven, and how it is driven and by whom presents many opportunities for use as symbolism. For example, driving with someone you know can symbolize a relationship, sharing the road of life. The person behind the wheel calls the shots or leads. Driving together is a common theme in the dreams of couples and families.

Driving too fast can symbolize life going too fast or being too busy. You are too busy or have too much to do. This use of the symbolism is often acted out as someone’s continuing to press the gas pedal even when the car is already going too fast. The symbolism is found in the action. See: Qualities

Driving from the back seat can indicate a need to be in control, as in a “back-seat driver.”

Driving without knowing where you’re going, or without knowing which direction to go, is an obvious metaphor for not grasping how to do something, or not knowing where you’re going personally. In some way you feel lost, either specifically about something, or generally in your life. See: Lost, Maps

Driving a fast sports car might symbolize thriving on excitement and pushing the limits, or that you are a “go-getter, “revved up.” For example dreams, see: Colors, Mountain.

Driving in reverse can symbolize life going the wrong direction, or a setback. You’re headed in reverse.

Driving the car of someone you know can mean you are somehow responsible for that person, you make decisions for her, or she provides the means and material support to move your life forward.

Details about control of the car show control—or lack of it—of yourself, your life, and the situations in it. For example, driving on snow or ice can symbolize no control, bad decision-making, or a slippery situation. The symbolism can show in steering the car. Steering a vehicle or vessel in a dream can symbolize the way you direct your life. It speaks to your ability to control yourself and go in the direction you intend. See: Ice

Driving off the road can mean your life is out of control—or your desires, emotions, thoughts.

Driving off a ledge is a popular metaphor for taking a big dive in your life. See: Cliffs

Drive means motivation, hunger for success, or just energy. What drives you? See: Gas

Driving a rental car can symbolize a temporary situation, such as a temporary job. Since a car is related to movement and a job is related to progress in life, the symbolism works on two levels.
Spinning your wheels is a way of showing efforts getting you nowhere.

Lack of movement can be symbolism, too. The car in your dream is parked in a garage, broken down, has a flat tire, or you press the gas pedal and nothing happens, for example. That imagery says “going nowhere.” You’re idle. Waiting for things to happen. Between places in your life. Underutilized. Passed over. Tired. In poor health.

In simplest terms, a car driving on its own means no one is leading. “No one behind the wheel” means no one is calling the shots. Then again, with self-driven cars, the same imagery can symbolize convenience or allowing technology to make your decisions.

A ghost of someone behind the wheel or in the car can symbolize being haunted by the past. Or someone not physically present is influencing decisions. For example, if you dream that the ghost of a deceased grandparent drives your parent’s car, it can mean you think your parent is making decisions based on what his or her parent—your grandparent—wants or would want. See: Ghosts

People riding with you in a car can symbolize things you are responsible for and people you protect. The riders can symbolize aspects of yourself, even when they look like people you know. For example, your artistic side can be symbolized as an artistic person in the car with you. A scientist in the car can symbolize your logical side.

To dream that you’re in the back seat can symbolize feeling like you aren’t making your own decisions. You aren’t in control, not in the driver’s seat. This is a common dream theme for children who feel controlled by their parents—including adult children. You “take a back seat” when someone else monopolizes the limelight or is “out front” of a situation. See: Passengers

Colliding with another car can symbolize a “run-in” with another person. Your paths, personalities, values or priorities collide or conflict. The severity of the run-in is symbolism for the severity of the situation. For example, bumping into the car driven by a co-worker can symbolize that your schedules conflict. But colliding head-on at high-speed implies a major conflict.

Crashing a car is classic symbolism for suffering a big setback or coming to a sudden end. You can’t get to where you want to go in life. See: Crashes

Brakes are connected with bringing something to halt and ability to control the pace of your life. Malfunctioning brakes can mean you can’t slow your life down, or a situation needs to slow down and you can’t stop it. For example, you rocket headlong into a new romantic relationship and a point comes when you want to slow it down.

A woman dreams about driving 100 mph toward a wall and slamming on the brakes, but they don’t work. Her boyfriend in the passenger seat pulls the emergency brake, but they still slam headlong into the wall. She has the dream at a time when her life is going 100 mph and there’s nothing she can do to slow down. The wall is a personal breaking point quickly approaching.

A car that won’t start can connect with difficulty getting yourself going or motivated. Or you feel powerless in some situation, or just in general.

Similarly, if you run out of gas, you might be out of energy. Filling up a car with gas or plugging it into an electrical outlet it can symbolize recharging your energy. See: Gas stations

Stealing a car can mean hitching a ride on someone’s effort or energy. It can mean you don’t want to do the legwork. Or you lack confidence in your ability to move your life forward or provide for your material needs. See: Thieves

A stolen or lost car can connect with the loss of something important that contributes to your identity, such as a job. Cars are important to most people—major investments—so the loss of whatever is symbolized by the car is likely to be a big one. And it’s likely to be a personal loss, not a material one, such as a relationship, prestige, health, youth, opportunity, or reputation. For example, see: Deceased Loved One.

Washing your car can symbolize cleaning up your self-image or preparing for something important, like a job interview or date.

Car keys can be a symbol of freedom or starting something new.

Losing car keys can symbolize missing an opportunity. See: Keys

Locking your car can symbolize securing yourself in some way. See: Locks

Parking your car can mean you have found a place in your life where you want to stay for a while. For example, you’ve been dating someone and think the relationship is going to last, and dream about parking in that person’s garage. Or if the relationship is not going to last, it can be symbolized as an inability to find a place to park. Getting hired by an employer can be symbolized as parking your car in the company garage. The garage is a structure, and structure can mean “corporate structure” or something similar. If the company collapses, it can be symbolized as the parking garage collapsing.

Parking a car in a garage is a metaphor for intercourse. Also, cars are places where people can have sex, creating many possibilities for sexual references and metaphors.

A car can represent your body, and the actions involving the car can symbolize something related to your body. For example, a car overheating can indicate a need for hydration, or fever. See: Fevers

A car that needs fixed implies the need to fix something about you—health, motivation, direction in life.

A woman dreams that she drives through a tunnel to the entrance of an underground parking garage and stops at the gate. The attendant tells her that to go any further she must put hot sauce on her tongue. The dream is a clever metaphor for her reproductive system. The tunnel symbolizes her vagina, and the parking garage symbolizes her uterus. The gate is her cervix, and putting hot sauce on her tongue refers to a LEEP procedure the dreamer had done. It’s a procedure to burn off precancerous cells from the cervix. The cervix is soft and wet like the tongue.

Dreaming about a specific car you used to own or drive can be a reference to that time of life, or the symbolism can be based on personal associations with the car. For example, if you once owned a car that was a real headache to maintain, and presently you’re in charge of a project and everything with it is going wrong, it’s just like your old piece of junk. Or perhaps the car in the dream is pricey and you are in a situation that’s costing too much personally.

Beyond symbolism, dreams can warn of mechanical problems with your car. You might have detected something amiss like a pinging in the engine or softness to the brakes, but it didn’t register consciously, or you didn’t give it attention because you were distracted. Consider possibilities for symbolism, and if nothing rings a bell it might be a good idea to check out the mechanical soundness of your car.

Dreams are known to warn about car crashes just before they happen, and to give information needed to prevent a crash. For example, if you drive a lot in heavy traffic and find yourself getting frustrated or driving aggressively, you might dream about a crash as a way of saying that your driving habits could lead to trouble. Or even if you drive normally and calmly, you might dream about another car crashing because there is something you can do to prevent it. For example, give some extra room for merging traffic. See: Precognitive dreams

See also: Backwards, Bosses, Buses, Chasing, Colors, Crashes, Seeing a dead relative, Dead ends, Detours, Elderly people, Embarking, Escaping, Fevers, Gas, Gas stations, Ghosts, Highways, Keys, Limousines, Locks, Lost, Maps, Mountains, Passengers, Precognitive dreams, Rightness, Roads, Qualities, Thieves, Trucks, Winter

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.