Dreaming of Parrots

What does it mean to dream about parrots?

If a parrot visits your dream, it brings words, repetition and communication with it. Parrots imitate what they hear, repeat words without knowing what they mean, catch the eye with their colours and love company. So the dream parrot describes something that was said to you, a pattern you repeat without noticing, or talk circulating around you.

The parrot is also a long-lived bird that bonds with its owner and may stay in one household for decades, so in some dreams it carries a family memory. Its speech can delight or grate. A parrot that made you laugh and a parrot repeating your words in a mocking voice are two faces of the same bird. If you remember what the parrot said, write that sentence down: the real subject of the dream is often sitting right inside it.

A talking parrot, a parrot in a cage and other common parrot dreams

A talking parrot

A talking parrot is a dream of words that stayed in your ear, or advice you have been given over and over. If it repeated your own sentences, you need to hear yourself from the outside and notice how you speak. If it said someone else’s words, you may have taken on that person’s views too readily. If its words made you laugh, it is time to lighten up about something you take too seriously.

A green parrot

A green parrot is a dream of vitality, healing and cheerful novelty. A green parrot moving freely through the branches shows a season when communication flows and your words are answered. If it came close and landed on your shoulder, a new friendship or a new source of inspiration is at your door; if it was eating fruit, your effort is earning a sweet return.

A colourful parrot

A parrot with bright, many-coloured feathers describes the wish to be noticed, the need to express yourself and the liveliness of social life. If the colours made you happy, you are enjoying being seen. If they tired your eyes, the noise and show around you are wearing you out.

A parrot in a cage

A caged parrot shows your words or your talent squeezed into a narrow space. If it talked in its cage and nobody listened, you feel that what you say goes unanswered. Opening the cage door shows you deciding to express yourself more freely.

A parrot flying away

A parrot escaping from its cage or your hand describes words spreading beyond your control, or someone who brought you joy moving away. If it came back, the break is temporary. If you chased it and could not catch it, you need to accept that words once spoken cannot be taken back. If it flew out of the window and landed on another house, your words have reached people you did not expect.

A parrot biting you

A parrot bite shows a sweet-tongued person hurting you with an unexpected remark. A bite on the finger shows criticism of something you did or promised. If the parrot was a beloved pet, a close friend’s hurt has become visible through this little nip; stroking it calm afterwards shows you can ease the tension gently.

Teaching a parrot to talk

Teaching a parrot words shows you trying to pass your ideas on, or to make someone speak the way you want. If it learned, your words carry weight. If it learned nothing, trying to change the other person is exhausting you.

A parrot on your shoulder

A parrot perched on your shoulder describes an inner voice that keeps whispering, or an adviser who never leaves your side. If its words guided you, that voice is helping. If it chattered without stopping and confused you, other people’s opinions have pushed ahead of your own decision.

A dead parrot

A dead parrot is a dream of a voice that has gone quiet, a broken line of communication or a relationship that has lost its cheer. It describes a silence more than a loss. If you felt relief where the parrot fell silent, you are free of a noise that wore you out; if you grieved, you miss a voice you can no longer hear, perhaps an elder’s turns of phrase.

A flock of parrots

Parrots flying together and screeching describe a busy social scene, many voices talking at once and a crowded agenda. If the flock gave you joy, your social life is lively and nourishing. If the noise grated, you need some quiet and room to hear your own thoughts.

The emotional meaning of parrot dreams

The parrot is a symbol about finding your own voice. All of us repeat, parrot-like, words we heard from others, phrases inherited from family, patterns we never chose. A parrot dream tends to come when you notice that repetition and want to start forming your own sentences.

Waking confused shows you struggling to pick out your own thoughts among the voices around you. Joy shows a season when you are enjoying talk and company. Discomfort or anger shows that something said, or a rumour going round, has hurt you. Tenderness towards the parrot shows you noticing the worth of someone close who has kept you company with their words for a long time.

Today, notice one phrase you use a lot, something like “it’s always like this” or “that’s not for me”. Write a new sentence of your own in its place; a parrot’s repetition is broken only by new words.

Parrots in folklore, literature and dream tradition

The old Turkish tabir books give the parrot two faces. Some take it as a graceful, well-spoken person or as cheering news; others as a liar, a gossip, someone who does not keep their word. A parrot in a cage is likened to that person falling into your hands, and a parrot flying off to words spreading. Turkish, like English, uses “repeating like a parrot” for speaking without thinking about the meaning.

Western dream books tied the parrot to talk as well. Writing in 1901, the American dream dictionary author Gustavus Hindman Miller read chattering parrots as frivolous occupations and idle gossip among friends, a parrot at rest as a peaceful pause in family quarrels, and teaching a parrot as trouble in your private affairs. Literature has made the parrot a companion of loyalty and loneliness: in Flaubert’s A Simple Heart the servant Félicité pours all her love into her parrot Loulou, and in Treasure Island Long John Silver’s parrot, Captain Flint, made the bird a lasting emblem of the sea and adventure.

Tarot and Katina cards linked to parrot dreams

For the Eight of Swords Smith drew a woman blindfolded and bound standing among eight swords, her feet in muddy water and a castle rising behind her, which is exactly how a caged parrot feels; yet the swords do not fully surround her; the way out is hidden beneath the blindfold. If your parrot was caged, or you felt your voice was not being heard, the card says part of what holds you is in your own mind, and loosening the bonds starts with opening your eyes.

The parrot’s social side belongs to Katina’s Gardens, the card of invitations, open tables and the talk that travels round a circle of people. If the parrots in your dream were chattering in a busy setting, the card follows who passed the words on to whom.

If voices are tangled in your head, write the parrot dream into the Dreams section of the Larisa app and mark Confusion among the feelings; add the words the parrot kept repeating to your note.