Elevator dreams are more related to strangers than dreams in general. They are less related to animals, less related to insects, and less related to family.

Elevator dreams are more related to fun than dreams in general. They are less related to sadness, less related to grief and sorrow, and less related to pain.

Dreams of elevators are more related to work, much more related to human-made places, and more related to magical places than dreams in general. They are less related to home.

Elevator dreams are less related to health events.

Elevator dreams are more related to recurring dreams than dreams in general. They are less related to sleep paralysis, less related to weird dreams, and less related to vivid dreams.

Dreams of elevators are less related to hearing.

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 elevators 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 elevators in dreams. See how you feel about elevators now, in your waking life.

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. The main way elevators are used as symbolism is through their function of going up and down. That movement can describe the ups and downs of life and anything that ascends or descends, rises or falls: blood pressure, fortune, opinion, reputation, desire, age. The movement is a physical representation. Going up is associated with a rise in status, similar to the idea of “climbing the ladder,” on your way up, successful. The people with you in the elevator could represent the parts of yourself primarily responsible for your success: your work ethic, ambition, skill, intelligence. Or they could represent people in your life who are rising with you. See: Ascending, Climbing Rising up is associated with personal development. The floors passed as you rise are stages of personal development—as a professional or student, as a parent, as a leader. It can symbolize elevated mood, thought, or feeling, or rise in skill, ability, or knowledge. It can symbolize aging or maturing. Upper floors and the roof of a building can represent the head of the body. So rising in an elevator can visually represent raising your intellect or going up into your thoughts. See: Attics Going down in an elevator can visually represent descending into your emotions, or movement into the depths of your being, especially if you end up in a basement. Those depths might include forgotten or avoided memories, receded aspects of yourself, or your heritage or family roots. See: Basements It can symbolize depression or sinking hope. See: Depression Going down in an elevator can mean loss of status or decline in health. This dream theme is particularly common in people who have peaked mentally or physically and are starting a slow decline, shown in the movement of the elevator slowly descending. Descending in an elevator can mean that your status, thoughts, feelings, opinions, or expectations are lowered. See: Descending Descending suddenly and crashing can symbolize feelings related to a sudden loss or trauma. It captures the sensation of a weightless stomach, that sick feeling you get when something goes horribly wrong or is really shocking. While descent can symbolize misfortune or setback, it can also mean grounded or down to earth. Use your feelings to tell the difference. Up-and-down movement can represent changes in mood. Fast movements in an elevator can symbolize mood swings. It can symbolize the rush of taking a drug, or the crash that happens as you “come down.” Dreams that feature elevators going to different floors of a building and the doors opening on various scenes can be like a survey of what various parts of you think about something. Down in the basement is where you might see your emotions. In the middle, you might see your gut feelings or instincts. And in the upper floors you might see your thoughts. The same imagery of stopping at floors in an elevator can symbolize times of your life, and the specific floor is an age of your life. Floor nine is age nine, and so forth. See: Numbers Another possibility is that the symbolism of the floors visited in a dream elevator are more important for the numbers used. For example, ten is how many cousins you have, or the number of days till an important event, or the number of people you are competing against. Dreaming about avoiding floor five can symbolize avoiding thinking about how early you have to wake up—5 a.m. If the elevator won’t open, it might symbolize an opportunity that won’t open for you, or you are unable to access a particular area of yourself. For example, if you ride an elevator to a basement and the doors won’t open, it might mean that you are closed off to your emotions or instincts. An elevator that doesn’t arrive at your floor can symbolize an opportunity that doesn’t materialize, or an event canceled. An elevator door closing as someone tries to get on can symbolize cutting off a person, or ending a situation or relationship. For example, you decide to fire a contractor who has been repairing your house, and in a dream you shut elevator doors on a construction worker trying to enter it. See also: Ascending, Attics, Basements, Buildings, Climbing, Descending, Numbers, Skyscrapers