What does it mean to dream about butterfly?
A butterfly is one of the clearest images of transformation, the self emerging changed, and it usually carries lightness and hope.
Four ways to read it
Each reading below comes from a named tradition and a cited source, so you can see where it came from and decide what fits your dream.
Freud
Freud paid less heed to the butterfly than to the change it pictures, a movement from one state of being to another that the dreamer senses in themselves.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.Jung
For Jung the butterfly images the psyche itself and the process of individuation, since the Greek word psyche means both soul and butterfly.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Continuity reads the butterfly as a sign of a felt change or release, often after a hard period. Its fragility can also mark something new and not yet steady.
Continuity hypothesis (our summary).Mythological
From the Greek Psyche to many folk beliefs, the butterfly carries the souls of the dead and the promise of rebirth, the caterpillar's tomb becoming a wing.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Bulfinch; Brewer).