What does it mean to dream about courage?
Courage in a dream usually marks a willingness to face what frightens you, and what you stood up to is often worth weighing against a waking challenge.
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 courage as the ego asserting itself against a fear or a restraint, a wish to act winning out over the bar against it. He held that boldness in sleep can show a strength the waking self doubts it has. The act may mark a longing to face what one usually avoids.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.Jung
Jung would see courage as the self turning toward the shadow rather than fleeing it, the willingness to meet what has been feared. He treated such bravery as central to growth, the price of becoming whole. The act can mark a readiness to face a part of oneself.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Continuity research ties dream courage to waking challenges the mind rehearses, the situations we are gathering ourselves to face. Some accounts suggest dreaming lets us practice meeting difficulty in a safer setting. The boldness is worth reading against what you are working up to do.
Continuity hypothesis (our summary).Mythological
Myth made courage the mark of the hero, the one who walked into the labyrinth or stood against the monster while afraid. The bravest were rarely fearless, only unwilling to turn back. Across cultures such tales held that courage is acting with the fear, not without it.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Bulfinch; Brewer).