What does it mean to dream about telephone?
A telephone pictures connection and communication, and a call that will not go through a wish to reach or be reached.
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
A Freudian reading takes the telephone as a channel of communication and connection, often to someone charged with feeling. A call that cannot be completed pictures a wish to reach, or to be reached by, that person.
Freudian reading (our summary).Jung
For Jung a call can image a message from the unconscious trying to reach the conscious mind, an inner summons. A line that fails or a number that will not dial pictures a connection the psyche wants but cannot yet make.
Jungian concept (our summary).Modern
Cognitively the phone pictures connection and communication. A clear call tracks contact the dreamer wants or fears; a dropped, jammed, or impossible call is a common frustration dream tracking a felt failure to be heard or to reach someone.
Continuity hypothesis (our summary).Mythological
The telephone is the modern messenger, heir to the divine herald who carries word between realms, like Hermes or Iris bearing messages between gods and mortals. The motif of the message that must get through, and the one that is lost, runs through myth.
Bulfinch; Miller (1901).