Dreaming of oil : what can this symbol evoke?

A mark that does not show

A king, a priest, a sick person is anointed, and nothing changes in appearance : the oil enters and disappears. Liturgical texts insist on that penetration, and the sacraments using it are precisely those conferring a definitive character.

Dreams often use this figure for a change of status without visible change. Becoming a parent, inheriting a function, being acknowledged by a group : nothing shows, and one is no longer the same person. Nobody can remove it, and nobody notices it either.

The question it poses is precise : what in you changed without showing? Those who dream of anointing often live through a passage their circle did not register.

What can no longer be gripped

Wrestlers in antiquity rubbed themselves with oil, and the practice was not decorative : an oiled body is more supple and above all impossible to hold. The grip slips, and the opponent loses his means of action.

Dreams sometimes use this dimension, very different from the first. A protection consisting not in resisting but in offering no hold : not answering, giving no purchase, staying ungraspable in a conflict. It is effective, and it requires letting nothing be caught.

What to remember is therefore what the oil allowed. Consecrating, soothing, lighting, or escaping — four uses of the same liquid, and dreams almost never show two at once.

What the oil does changes the reading

• An anointing on the brow or hands — a change of status nothing makes visible.
• Oil soaking in and disappearing — an inner, lasting mark nobody will notice.
• An oiled body that cannot be held — a protection consisting in giving no hold.
• A lamp being fed — the oldest use, where oil becomes light by consuming itself.
• Spilled oil — a precious thing lost, and a stain that will remain.
• A perfume in the oil — the presence of someone neither seen nor heard, in the liturgical formula.

A psychological reading, not a ready-made box

Depth psychology takes an interest in passages accompanied by no outward sign, because they are the hardest to integrate : nothing attests them, and those around continue treating the person as before. Anointing rites serve precisely this function — making official what would otherwise stay invisible. Other readings retain the penetration of oil and the indelible character the texts attribute to it.