What does it mean to dream about alien?
An alien often pictures what feels foreign or beyond your grasp, whether a part of yourself, another person, or a situation you cannot read.
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 alien as the strange made outward, an unknown drive or fear projected onto a figure from beyond. What is most foreign in the dream may be closest to home. Ask what part of yourself feels unfamiliar.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.Jung
Jung might see the alien as the wholly other, a contact with what the conscious mind cannot yet name or place. Such encounters can mark the arrival of something new in the psyche. The dream may ask whether the stranger threatens or brings a gift.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Threat-simulation theory suggests the brain rehearses unknown dangers, and an alien is a flexible figure for whatever feels strange or out of control. Recent media shapes the image. Notice whether the alien came to harm, to study, or to make contact.
Threat-simulation theory (our summary).Mythological
Older traditions filled the same role with sky beings and visitors from other realms, messengers from a world beyond the known. The modern alien inherits that place at the edge of understanding. The dream may carry the old awe and fear of the truly other.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Frazer; Brewer).