What are devil 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 devils 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 devils in dreams. See how you feel about devils now, in your waking life.

A good discussion of the general symbolism of devils and demons is covered in these entries: Demon, Evil. However, some things can be said separately about a devil dream character—or the devil, aka Satan or Lucifer. These characters can come with religious overtones, but unless you have a religious bent they’re likely to be pure symbolism and have little to do with religious ideas of the devil. This is important to mention off the bat because many people assume that a powerful dream featuring an evil character such as Satan means they’re confronted by spiritual evil, and that’s just not the case.

Then again …

If you strongly believe you can be influenced or tempted by the devil, the theme is more likely to pop up in your dreams. However, it’s not a requirement, it just means that the idea is already planted in your mind.

The difference between demons and devils is that demons are understood as minions or soldiers, whereas devils tend to have more personal distinction and authority. Demons are many, the devil is singular, though the terms are used interchangeably.

That idea applied to your dreams can be used to differentiate between many and one. For example, demons can be used to describe many temptations, and a devil is used to describe one especially bad one. Demons can be used to describe something general such as fear, and the devil can be used to describe fear of something specific. Demons can be used to describe many thoughts plaguing you, and the devil can be used to describe one thought plaguing you. See: Demons

The devil as a character appears in dreams as a singular figure. It might symbolize something in your life causing real problems, something dangerous. But dreams exaggerate, and the devil can represent something relatively harmless. For example, a mischievous child is described as a “little devil.” A troublesome temper can be described as “a devil inside.” Compared to a real encounter with the devil itself, a troublesome temper is easier to handle!

Satan and Lucifer are specific devils. When they appear in a dream it can mean something is not just bad, it’s really bad. It’s awful.

For example, a young woman dreams that Satan crawls into her bed. At first she thinks it’s her boyfriend and she welcomes the presence. Then she realizes it’s ... Satan! And he has her in his clutches. She feels his erection enter her from behind and she can’t do anything to stop it. It has a strange pull on her—she even starts to enjoy it, but at the same time she hates it and is scared out of her mind that she’ll get pregnant. The dream symbolizes her fear of getting pregnant. It’s a thought that terrifies her, but she enjoys sex with her boyfriend so what’s a girl to do? Satan is used to dramatize the story because she doesn’t just fear accidentally getting pregnant, she’s terrified. It would make her life a living hell.

A young man dreams about being anally raped by Satan. He reaches around, pulls out excrement and rubs it in Satan’s face. Satan returns the favor by rubbing it in his face. Satan laughs and says he will never be free. The dream dramatizes an awful situation. The young man is locked in a nonstop war of words with a classmate. They say the nastiest things to each other, as symbolized by rubbing shit in each other’s faces. The dreamer sees no end to the situation; he’ll “never be free” of it. In an exaggerated way, it feels like anal rape, and Satan represents “my tormentor.”

A woman dreams that she’s pregnant with Satan’s baby and desperate to get an abortion. The dream symbolizes evil thoughts that have wormed into her head. She’s in a really dark place and is desperate to get out of it before it changes her for the worse.

A woman dreams that she’s at Lucifer’s wedding. The scenery is decorated in black, but otherwise there’s nothing else dark or malicious about the scene. The dreamer is in the wedding party, waiting for Lucifer to arrive. The dream then flashes to the kitchen, where she helps to decorate the wedding cake. It’s shaped to look like a ruined building, and the dreamer puts on the icing.

Quite simply, this dream is about the dreamer changing, and the new direction she’s going is symbolized as participating in Lucifer’s wedding. Wedding can mean “wedded to” in the sense of bonding or uniting, and that’s a great analogy for new beliefs, values, and ways of thinking that become part of you. They bond with the ego. The cake in the shape of a ruined building shows that her belief structure is changing, and putting icing on the cake is a way of saying the process is close to completion.

The key clue is found in the dreamer’s associations with Lucifer as accepting of everyone, in stark contrast to her experience with intolerant religious people. The Lucifer of the dream is not the Lucifer of the Bible. This Lucifer is a projection of the dreamer’s perceptions, a contrast of everything she perceives about religious people. She’s moving toward becoming more accepting of everyone and that’s symbolized as a wedding with Lucifer. Being the bride in that scenario has a different connotation, so the dream shows her in the wedding party.

As seen in the above example, the key to deciphering the symbolism is to connect the dream devil with what it means to you. This is a very important point, especially with characters like Satan and Lucifer, because while they can represent religious associations with them, that doesn’t automatically mean they do.

Of course, always consider the possibility that a dream character is part of the scene, not a central actor in it. For example, if your life is hell and your dreams create a metaphor for it, a devil or demon might just go with the territory. It depends on the role the character plays. Usually, though, every detail of a dream is meaningful and connects with the story.

See also: Death, Demons, Dragons, Enemies, Evil, Hell, Infesting, Nazis, Possessing, Shadows

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.