Popular Dream Symbols

The color black is saturated with meaning. For one, because of its absolute darkness, it's often linked to evil or tied to negative experiences, such as depression and mourning. Often chasers in nightmares are wearing dark clothes or they're ambiguous, dark, threatening figures. In movies and TV, the evil character is usually easily identifiable by his black wardrobe. Nightmares, such as in dreams about being lost, can often be set in dark places or the dreamscape could bathed in a dark haze. Because whatever is cloaked in darkness is obscure, the color black is mysterious, which can have bad or good connotations, because in addition to being related to the unknown, mystery could also be connected to surprises and adventure. Furthermore, the color black is even more complex when considering the racial and ethnic differences among people. For example, in some African cultures, dreaming of a Caucasian individual could be frightening because of historical implications; and in China, the color white, not black, is associated with mourning.