Miller wrote: “To dream of handling oars, portends disappointments for you, inasmuch as you will sacrifice your own…” Compare 4 historical dream books.
Compare the historical accounts
These are the authors’ historical interpretations. Their forecasts and period judgments are preserved as source material, not as predictions or established meanings for your dream.
Gustavus Hindman Miller
Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted; Or, What’s in a Dream · Gutenberg #926; bibliography identifies the 1901 original and subsequent reprints
Oar · Heading 1410; source lines 16106–16115 · Text transcription
Original source (English)
To dream of handling oars, portends disappointments for you, inasmuch as you will sacrifice your own pleasure for the comfort of others.
To lose an oar, denotes vain efforts to carry out designs satisfactorily.
A broken oar represents interruption in some anticipated pleasure.
Felix Fontaine
The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller · 1862
Oar · Heading 518; source line 3430 · Text transcription
Original source (English)
If you dream of sailing in a boat, and losing one or more of the oars, it is a sign of the death of your father, mother, or guardian, or of some one to whom you look for protection: if an engaged young girl or a married woman dreams this, it foretells the death of a lover or husband.
Astra Cielo
Fortunes and Dreams · New York, George Sully, 1917
Oars · Dream section, heading 289; source lines 4557–4560 · Text transcription
Original source (English)
Indicate a safe enterprise.
Katherine Taylor Craig
The Fabric of Dreams: Dream Lore and Dream Interpretation, Ancient and Modern · New York, E. P. Dutton & Company, 1918; original US edition
Oars · Printed p. 238; NLM OCR lines 11110–11113 · OCR transcription
Original source (English)
To dream of losing one, death of the father, mother or some one to whom the dreamer looks for protection (Gypsy).
Take a question into your day.
These journal questions are DreamFolia’s invitation to reflect on your experience.
Save it before it slips away. No account needed.
Also indexed as: oars
Attributed historical writing. Historical claims are not established predictions or universal psychological meanings. Updated 2026-10-12. Read our approach and sources.