What does it mean to dream about cowardice?
Cowardice in a dream often marks a turning away from what you feel you should face, and what you fled is usually worth weighing gently against waking life.
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 dream of shrinking back as a fear winning out over a wish, the impulse to act checked by something stronger. He held that such retreat can mark a conflict the waking self has not settled. The flinch may point to a fear that runs deeper than the dream's occasion.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.Jung
Jung would see the turning away as the ego refusing to meet the shadow, the part of the self it is not ready to face. He treated such avoidance without scorn, as a measure of how much is being asked. The retreat can mark where courage is still being gathered.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Continuity research ties dreams of backing down to waking situations we feel unequal to, which the mind keeps turning over. Some accounts read such dreams as rehearsals of a difficulty not yet faced. The retreat is best read against where you feel unready, not as a verdict on your worth.
Continuity hypothesis (our summary).Mythological
Myth marked the one who fled the field, the soldier who broke before the line, and weighed the shame it carried. Yet many tales let the timid figure find courage by the end. Across cultures such stories held that turning back was rarely the last word in a life.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Bulfinch; Brewer).