In the interpretation of dreams, Car is among the recurring images that traditional dream-books and modern depth psychology have alike tried to read. It is commonly interpreted as control and direction of one's life journey, and who is driving.
Common readings
A vehicle is frequently read as the course of the dreamer's life; who holds the wheel, and how the car handles, are taken to show how much control the dreamer feels.
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 operative questions are who is driving, whether the controls answer, and where the car is going. Being a passenger while another drives, brakes that fail, a wheel that will not steer and a car that runs away downhill are the standard variants, each read as a different relation between the dreamer and the course of things. The car's condition and ownership are weighed too, a borrowed car, a childhood family car or a vehicle in ruin each shifting the sense. The road it travels borrows besides from the older symbolism of the way.