Dreaming About Candles

A candle in a dream is a small light that somebody has to tend. That fragility carries the whole of its traditional meaning, which is hope, memory or attention surviving only as long as it is protected. This is why the state of the flame counts for more in the old readings than the candle itself.

Lighting, burning, going out

Lighting one is usually taken as the start of something deliberate, an intention put into the world modestly rather than announced. A steady flame suggests clarity that is holding. A candle guttering in a draught has long been linked to attention being pulled at from several directions at once. A candle that goes out has the gloomiest reputation of the lot, generally as the end of an effort or a phase, and it should be said plainly that no tradition worth quoting treats it as information about anyone living or dying.

Vigil and memory

Candles are lit for the dead, the missing and the waiting in almost every culture that has candles at all, quite apart from any single religion. Because of that, dreams of them cluster around anniversaries, around illness in a family, and around the weeks after a loss. Many people describe carrying one through a dark house, and that version is usually taken as looking after something delicate while everyone else sleeps, rather than as anything ominous.

Before you take the general meaning

The candle is loaded so heavily by upbringing that the general reading is nearly useless on its own. For one dreamer it is a birthday, for another a power cut, for another a rite they were raised inside and may or may not still keep. Whichever of those your sleeping mind reached for is the version that counts.