The Curious Connection Between Insects and Dreams

Abstract

A majority of humans spend their waking hours surrounded by insects, so it should be no surprise that insects also appear in humans’ dreams as we sleep. Dreaming about insects has a peculiar history, marked by our desire to explain a dream’s significance and by the tactic of evoking emotions by injecting insects in dream-related works of art, film, music, and literature. I surveyed a scattered literature for examples of insects in dreams, first from the practices of dream interpretation, psychiatry, and scientific study, then from fictional writings and popular culture, and finally in the etymology of entomology by highlighting insects with dream-inspired Latinate names. A wealth of insects in dreams, as documented clinically and culturally, attests to the perceived relevance of dreams and to the ubiquity of insects in our lives.

Keywords

• cultural entomology
• ethnoentomology
• dreams
• dream interpretation
• Lewis Carroll
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• The Metamorphosis
• psychoanalysis
• Sigmund Freud
• entomophobia