The Old Man
The old man appears in dreams as a teacher, a hermit, a grandfather or a stranger on the road.
What Jung wrote
Jung called this figure the wise old man and found him all through myth and fairy tale. He tends to appear, Jung wrote, when the hero is stuck in a situation he cannot think his way out of. The old man offers a question, a piece of advice or a magic object, and things start moving again.
The figure was personal for Jung too. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections he describes Philemon, an old man with the wings of a kingfisher who appeared in his fantasies and with whom he held long inner conversations. Jung felt Philemon knew things he himself did not.
- C. G. Jung, “The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales”, Collected Works, Vol. 9i
- C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962
What the world is logging
Logged with the mood
- Anxious33%
- Calm22%
- Happy22%
- Tired11%
- Awe11%
Where it is logged most
- United States4
- Azerbaijan2
- Canada1
- France1
- Indonesia1
Most common moon phase
First Quarter (3 entries)
Often logged together with
Snake (4) · Beer (2) · Willow Tree (2) · Tortoise (2)
Counted from anonymous Archetype Matrix entries. Updated October 8, 2026.
What we don’t do
We won’t tell you what your old man means. Jung himself distrusted fixed dream dictionaries and held that a symbol can only be read in the life of the person who dreams it. Archetype Matrix only counts: who logged the same image, where, and in what mood.
Other symbols
ForestSnakeOceanBoatAlienOld WomanShadowLionDogWolfWaterEagleMirrorFishHorseGold
