What does it mean to dream about earthquake?
An earthquake usually points to a shake-up of your foundations, when something you relied on as solid suddenly proves unstable.
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 would read the shaking ground as a disturbance reaching the base of the self, something long buried forcing its way up. What feels solid in waking life may be in question. The tremor shows where the strain lies.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.Jung
Jung would see a profound upheaval of the psyche, the ground of the personality shifting before a deep change. It can be frightening and also necessary, clearing what was built on weak footing. What stands after is what was true.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Threat-simulation theory reads an earthquake as the mind rehearsing the collapse of something taken for granted. It often appears when a relationship, job, or belief feels suddenly unsure. The dream lets you face the instability safely.
Threat-simulation theory (our summary).Mythological
Earthquakes were the work of the earth-shaker in Greek myth, Poseidon striking the ground, and elsewhere the stirring of a great beast beneath the world. They signaled the anger of the gods or the turning of an age. The very ground was no longer to be trusted.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Bulfinch; Frazer).