It’s one of the most stressful dreams you can have: you lose control of your car and crash it into a ditch, or worse, someone else. It may be a small bump to someone’s car, or a fatal car crash; regardless of the severity, you want to find out what it means.
So, what does it mean to dream of a car accident? Dreaming about a car accident or car crash means that you have lost control over an important part of your life. It may be related to a change in a job, relationship or financial situation. Or it may be a spiritual message asking you to give up control, but your subconscious expressing fear of losing control over your life. It is a dream about learning how to trust the universe.
Depending on the context, your car wreck dream could have different meanings. This article will go over the most common situations that people have when they dream about car accidents, and what they mean.
〰️
Spiritual Meaning of Dreaming About Driving A Car
Car dreams are representative of the control that you have over your life choices. They symbolize the vehicle that we have to make changes in the direction of your life: your free will.
Cars are a very spiritual symbol and are often a way for your higher self to communicate the importance of making good decisions. Spirit is all about self-realization and evolution, and anything that helps you move closer to the highest version of yourself is celebrated.
Dreams will appear as warnings if you are not paying attention to your choices, not making good choices, or letting someone else make your decisions for you. In this way, you are not realizing your true power or letting other people take your power away from you.
If you think about how valuable driving is, it makes sense. It is what gets us to where we want to go. We place a lot of value on cars in our waking life because it represents a lot about who we are as people.
Cars are very symbolic of you and your life as a whole. What you want to do with that life is up to you.
〰️
Dreaming About Driving Your Car in a Car Accident
Driving and crashing your own car can be an alarming dream to wake up from. It can leave you feeling anxious and vulnerable even after the dream is over.
What does it mean to dream of crashing your own car? Dreaming of driving your own car in an accident is a warning dream telling you to pay attention to your choices. The path you are on currently may be leading you to a destructive or unhappy outcome.
These could be subtle choices, like making unhealthy lifestyle decisions, or large ones, like buying a house. Depending on the severity of the car accident, it could be a large life choice or a small one.
The moral of a car crash dream that you are responsible for is just that: your accidents in life are your responsibility.
The message of the dream is to own up to the consequences of your own choices. It may be time to start facing the results of bad choices you made. Do you not like your job? Are you unhappy in your relationship? Are you making decisions that are hurting your health? These are all questions to ask yourself when analyzing your dream.
For example, I once had a dream that I rear-ended someone on a bridge. The bridge I crashed on was the same bridge I drove over every day to get to work in my waking life. The reason I crashed was due to the brakes not working. The dream felt so real that I was anxious driving over that bridge for the entire next week.
When I analyzed this dream, it became clear to me that the dream was about how I felt regarding my work. I loathed my job at the time and realized that every time I crossed that bridge I would think about how much I hated that job.
The message from that dream was this: I thought my brakes weren’t working, but in reality, I could brake at any time. The story I told myself was that I had to keep that job, and couldn’t stop. However, it is always in our power to leave something that isn’t serving us. And guess what? Shortly after that dream, I did quit that job.
〰️
Dream About You Driving Someone Else’s Car in an Accident
Dreaming about crashing someone else’s car can be confusing and disorientating. Why were you in their car? Who were you driving with? And how did you end up in that situation? These are all questions that might come up even in the dream.
So, what does it mean when you dream of crashing someone else’s car? Dreaming of crashing someone else’s car is about how your choices also affect others. As much as we like to think that our own decisions only impact us, we are all connected to each other by the choices everyone makes around us.
Crashing someone’s car is a message saying that you are being reckless with your choices, and they are impacting others.
The question to ask yourself in this dream is: are your choices impacting someone else’s life? Are you taking the power away from them?
Perhaps you have taken over a project or took the responsibility for something that others could do. Maybe you are a parent that is enforcing rules that limit your child’s ability to learn and grow. Perhaps you are a manager or boss that is enforcing too many strict working conditions.
The takeaway for a dream about crashing someone’s car is to be mindful of how your own life journey can hijack other people’s journeys, leading to a clash in life directions.
〰️
Dreaming About Someone Crashing Your Car
One of the scariest accident dreams is if you are not in control of the car when it crashes. Either you are being held against your will, or the driver is someone you trust. It might be that the driver is someone completely unknown.
What does it mean to dream of someone else driving you and getting into a car accident? To dream of being in a wrecked car driven by someone else represents somebody who has taken over your ability to have control over your life direction.
It is like that quote from Tony Wilson: “I’m a minor player in my own life story.” Those who feel that other people make key decisions in their life can have this dream.
This is a warning dream about the dangers of not being in control over the direction in your own life. The message is to get back into the driver’s seat.
A dream about someone else crashing your car can also be about another part of your personality that is destructive to your growth.
Once I had a dream that Ben Affleck was driving me around in my car and got in a car accident. I needed to get somewhere with limited time, and he kept taking a wrong turn. I was frustrated because I knew I could get where I needed to go in way shorter of an amount of time. Then he crashed the car, and I didn’t make it to my appointment on time.
Because Ben Affleck is an actor, the dream meant that I was not being myself. The person I was pretending to be was making it impossible to get to my destination. The message was to take off my mask and be genuine to get quicker results.
〰️
Dreaming About a Car Accident In the Snow
Another common car accident dream is to be in a car while it is snowing. The snow makes it difficult to drive, so you crash the car.
What does it mean to dream of getting in a car accident in the snow? Dreaming of wrecking your car in the snow means that you feel left out of key decisions that make you feel powerless. It can mean that you literally feel left “out in the cold.”
Because humans evolutionarily need to be accepted in order to feel secure, this can be a scary dream. It means that you are being left out and feel that you are not conforming to the “group” mentality. You may feel that being left out of the inner circle is causing you to drive in treacherous conditions.
Crashing in the snow means that you have lost your direction without the approval of the group you once belonged to. It may be time to find a new community where your opinion is heard and valued.
〰️
Dream About Car Accident in Water
Crashing your car in water is a common dream and a very scary one. Often, the car drives off a bridge into a river or drives into a lake. Regardless of how the car ends up in water, this dream is frightening.
Water usually represents emotions in dreams. To dream of your car crashing into a body of water usually means that you are being consumed by your emotions and not seeing a situation with clarity.
The best thing to do when dreaming of crashing into water is to think about situations that you are feeling very emotionally triggered by. This could be causing you to make irrational decisions, leading you down a path that you may regret.
Step back from the situation, meditate on it for a while, and seek out a friend to discuss the situation with who can help you get an outside perspective. This might help steer you away from the water and back onto dry land.
〰️
Summary
Dreams about cars are really about our journey through life. If you are dreaming about a car accident, it is symbolic of a bump in the road on your journey. The investigative part of you should tune into your inner wisdom and ask why.
I don’t believe that car accident dreams should be taken literally, and I don’t think it is a premonition of a car accident that will actually happen. But, if you just can’t shake the dream, it wouldn’t hurt to take your car to get the oil changed and have it looked at, just to ease any fears.
〰️