What Does Dreaming About a Hummingbird Mean?

Psychologically, the hummingbird is an image of joy, lightness, and the savoring of life's sweetness. Tiny, vibrant, and seemingly made of pure energy and delight, it sips nectar (the sweetest essence of flowers), so it most often mirrors joy, lightness of being, and the savoring of life's small, sweet pleasures — finding and drinking in the sweetness of life, delight in the moment.

It carries other remarkable notes. As agility and the seemingly impossible, the hummingbird can hover in place and even fly backward — uniquely able to do what seems impossible — touching agility, the achieving of the 'impossible,' and a free, nimble movement. As living in the moment, its quick, present, flower-to-flower flight touches presence, savoring the now, and not lingering. As energy in a small package, its tiny size belies astonishing energy and speed, touching big vitality in a small form. As beauty, its iridescent colors touch vibrancy and beauty. Whether the hummingbird hovers, sips nectar, darts swiftly, dazzles with iridescent color, or seems to do the impossible usually mirrors joy and lightness, savoring life's sweetness, agility and the seemingly impossible, living in the present moment, and vibrant energy and beauty in a small, bright form.

A Freudian reading would attend to the hummingbird as the tiny, vibrant sipper of sweetness — drinking the nectar, hovering and darting with astonishing agility, evoking the pursuit of sweetness and pleasure, lightness, and a quick, present delight. The hummingbird can embody the savoring of life's sweetness and the nimble, light pursuit of the pleasurable and the present.

Its sipping of nectar and its hovering flight carry the charge of savoring sweetness and of nimble, present lightness. What the hummingbird evokes — the delight of its vibrancy, the sweetness it drinks, the marvel of its hovering — tends to point at the dreamer's relationship to joy and the present: the savoring of life's sweetness and small pleasures, the light and nimble pursuit of delight, and the vibrant, present lightness the little bird embodies.

While the hummingbird is not named in Scripture, it embodies themes the tradition celebrates — the small creature cared for ('not one of them is forgotten before God'), the call to joy and to 'taste and see that the Lord is good,' and the savoring of the sweet ('how sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey'). The hummingbird's joy and savoring of sweetness touch this theme of delight, the sweet, and the small creature cherished.

A hummingbird dream, read this way, can touch joy, lightness, savoring sweetness, or the small cherished by God. A biblical sensibility might weigh the hummingbird as an image of joy and the tasting of sweetness — an echo of 'taste and see that the Lord is good' and the sweetness 'sweeter than honey' — reading the tiny, delighting creature as a prompt to joy, to savor the sweetness and goodness in life, and to trust that even the smallest is cherished and 'not forgotten before God.'

In Islamic sensibility the hummingbird, a tiny and beautiful creature of God's creation, touches the wonder and delicate beauty woven through the made world (even the smallest creature a sign of God's artistry) and the savoring of God's good and sweet provisions with gratitude. The hummingbird evokes the beauty of small creation, joy, and grateful savoring.

A hummingbird dream, in this frame, might point to joy and lightness, savoring the sweetness of life, agility, or the beauty of small things. Held with humility, the hummingbird can invite gratitude for the beauty and sweetness of God's provisions (savored with thankfulness), wonder at the delicate artistry of even the tiniest creature, and a light, joyful, grateful presence — finding and savoring the sweet and good in life as blessings to be enjoyed with thankfulness.

In a Hindu frame the hummingbird's savoring of nectar and its light, vibrant joy evoke the theme of drinking the sweet essence (nectar, amrita, the sweet and the blissful) and of lightness, beauty, and present delight — the savoring of sweetness and the nimble, joyful presence. The hummingbird evokes the savoring of sweet essence, joy, and light presence.

A hummingbird dream, in this frame, can point to joy and lightness, savoring the sweetness of life, agility and the seemingly impossible, or living in the present. The tradition's note attends to sweetness and presence: the hummingbird sipping the sweet nectar as an image of savoring the sweetness and bliss of the moment — an invitation to lightness and joy, to savoring the sweet essence of life with present awareness, and to the nimble, vibrant delight of the small bright creature.