In the interpretation of dreams, Bear is among the recurring images that traditional dream-books and modern depth psychology have alike tried to read. It is commonly interpreted as strength, introspection, protection, and the mother force.
Common readings
The bear, which withdraws to hibernate, is read as strength joined to introspection and retreat, and often as a powerful protective or maternal figure.
The reading of dream symbols has a long documented history, from the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus in the second century to Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and the archetypal psychology of C. G. Jung. Such meanings are interpretive conventions of those traditions, offered here as ways the image has been understood rather than as fixed or established fact; in practice a symbol takes much of its sense from the individual dreamer and the setting of the dream.
What changes the reading
The bear's posture governs the sense: a bear at a distance, a mother with cubs, a charge, and a bear that simply shares the dreamer's path are read as separate images. Threat readings dominate when the bear pursues, while a calm or sleeping bear pulls the dream toward the older senses of strength held in reserve. Interpreters note the season the dream implies, since a bear met in its winter den carries the hibernation symbolism of withdrawal and return, and they ask whether the dreamer's fear was of the animal or of what waking it would mean.