What does it mean to dream about spider?
A spider can mean feeling trapped or manipulated, or the weaving of fate and creative work, depending on the web you are in.
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 noted that the spider could carry a fearful image of an engulfing or devouring mother figure, the web a trap of dependence. The dread it raises often points back to anxieties about being held or consumed.
Freudian reading (our summary).Jung
For Jung the spider and its web image the weaving of fate and the creative, ensnaring feminine: the maker of patterns who is also the trap. It can mark feeling caught in something one has partly spun oneself.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Modern readings treat the spider as a common fear image and as a picture of feeling trapped or manipulated in a web of circumstances. The web also reads positively as the structure of a plan or a network the dreamer is building.
Threat-simulation theory (our summary).Mythological
The spider is the cosmic weaver in myth: Arachne punished for her skill in Greek legend, the wise creator Anansi of West African tradition, and Spider Woman who weaves the world in some Native American cosmologies. Fate, craft, and the woven web are its through-line.
Bulfinch; Miller (1901).