What does it mean to dream about doppelganger?
A doppelganger in a dream often pictures a double of yourself, a disowned side made visible, or unease about identity and who is truly you.
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 wrote of the double as something once familiar that returns made strange, a part of the self split off and met as another. The uncanny copy can carry the wishes the waking self denies. Ask what your double did that you would not.
After Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Brill trans., 1913), public domain.Jung
Jung would see the double as the shadow given a face, the rejected self standing opposite you. Meeting it can be unsettling but also a chance to own what you have cast out. The dream may ask you to recognise the double as your own.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Threat-simulation theory suggests the dreaming brain can stage a copy of the self as a danger, rehearsing a fear about identity or rivalry. It can follow times you felt at odds with yourself. Notice whether the double opposed you or simply mirrored you.
Threat-simulation theory (our summary).Mythological
In many traditions meeting one's double is an ill omen, a sign of division or of death foretold. The figure marks the dread that the self can be split or replaced. The image tends to ask which version of you the dream took to be real.
Rosmerta Publishing editorial synthesis (after Brewer; Frazer).