The cat is the animal the classical books read as a document — a book of records, a ledger of what is owed and what is stolen — which makes it the cleanest counterpart to the dog on this site's queue: the dog entry prices a relationship (servant, enemy, child), while the cat entry prices an act (scratch, bite, steal, transform). The Arabic books run the same opening sentence five centuries apart; the Chinese book gives the cat exactly one line; and the modern survey layer measures neither documents nor acts but waking contact hours. Plain answers first — no Arabic or Chinese on this screen — every quote checked to its printed page.
The scratch, and the servant's betrayal
"The scratch of a cat in a dream means that one will be betrayed by his servant" (printed p. 72). The clause is one sentence, and it is the only clause in the Cat entry that names a human relationship by role: not an enemy, not a friend, but a servant — someone already inside the household who turns. The Tomcat entry sharpens it: "If a tomcat scratches someone or bites him in a dream, it means that he will fall sick for a full year" (printed p. 438). The scratch's cost is two-layered: the betrayal, and then the year of illness that follows it. Al-Nabulsi's cat entry (the Arabic headword qit, quoted in full in Sources) mirrors the same clauses — the scratch, the bite, the year — in Arabic, and the full treatment is referred to the letter Sin under the word sannur (also quoted in Sources) (shamela 282, printed p. 285). The books never let the cat simply scratch; they price the scratch by who did it and how long it costs.
The bite — a hoaxer, a crooked woman, or a year of illness
"The bite of a cat in a dream represents a hoaxer or a crooked woman. It is also said that a cat's bite in a dream means an illness that will last one full year" (printed p. 72). The clause carries the books' standard hedge — "it is also said" — which marks a second tradition loaded on top of the first, not a correction. So the bite has two faces: a person who deceives, and a sickness on a clock. The Tomcat entry then splits the bite by species: the tomcat's bite or scratch means a full year of illness; "the bite of a wildcat in a dream is more dangerous and has greater implications" (printed p. 438). And if you fight a tomcat and win, it is a long, debilitating illness followed by a complete recovery; if you lose and you are already sick, you recover shortly — but if you lose and you are not sick, the illness has reached its peak (same page). The cat's bite is not an event but a prognosis, read by who won the fight.
The theft, the sale, and the wildcat
"If a cat steels something from her master, it means that he may pay a fine, have a fight with his relatives or children, and it could mean a robbery" (printed p. 72 — the book prints "steels" for "steals," kept as scanned). "Selling a cat in a dream means spending one's money." "A wildcat in a dream means adversities, toiling and a wretched life." Three flat verdicts, and they are the cat entry's only economic clauses: the cat that takes from you costs you money or family peace; the cat you sell costs you money directly; the cat that was never domesticated costs you labor and wretchedness. The ledger is simple because the cat is not priced by breed or color (as the dog is) but by direction: does the cat take from you, do you sell it, or is it beyond domestication at all?
Transformation — the cat as thief's mask
"If one sees himself transformed into a tomcat in a dream, it means that he lives from stealing and seeks what is harmful" (printed p. 438). The transformation clause is the Tomcat entry's sharpest verdict: becoming a cat does not give you the cat's book-of-records wisdom but its theft. The same entry adds: "A tomcat entering one's house in a dream represents a robber. Whatever a tomcat takes from one's house in the dream will be looted by such a thief." And: "Killing or beating a tomcat in a dream means catching a thief or killing him." The cat-as-thief reading runs through both entries — the Cat entry prices the cat that steals from its master, and the Tomcat entry prices the cat that enters as a robber and is caught by being killed. The books read transformation as confession: if you become the cat, you become what the cat does.
The quiet clause — peace, profit, and the civet exception
"If one sees a tomcat sitting peacefully and quietly in his house in a dream, it means that he will have a comfortable, peaceful and a profitable year. Otherwise, a large wildcat in the dream represents a troublesome year" (printed p. 438). This is the cat entry's only unambiguously positive verdict, and it is conditional on posture: the cat must be sitting, peaceful and quiet — not scratching, not biting, not stealing. Beside it sits the civet cat, a separate clause: "A civet cat in a dream represents a man who may have a suspicious look, though his character and conduct are exemplary" (same page). The civet is the one cat the books exempt from the thief-and-deceiver ledger — a suspicious appearance over an exemplary character, the inverse of the ordinary cat's reading. And on page 188 of Al-Nabulsi's book, the sounds of animals are catalogued: "the yowling of the tomcat means uproar, backbiting, defamation and insinuations" — the cat's voice, like the dog's bark, gets its own clause (shamela 188, printed p. 191). The books read what the cat does, what it sounds like, and whether it sits still.
What Zhou Gong gives instead of a ledger
The received Chinese book carries the cat in exactly one verdict line across twenty-seven chapters. Chapter 25 (龙蛇 禽兽 等类): 猫捕鼠者主得财 — a cat catching a mouse means getting wealth. One line, and it does what the Arabic ledger never does: it prices the cat by its utility — a cat that catches mice is a cat that earns money. (The single Chinese character for cat appears exactly once in the whole 27-chapter corpus; it is in the line quoted above, and in Sources verbatim.) The Arabic books never mention mice; they read the cat as a document and a thief. The Chinese book reads the cat as a worker. No scratch, no bite, no transformation, no book of records — one flat verdict about what the cat is for.
The finding: one ledger, five acts
Set the compilation's Cat entry at printed p. 72 beside the Tomcat entry at printed p. 438, and beside Al-Nabulsi's (قط) headword at shamela 282 (printed p. 285), and the clause order runs as a mirror: the book of records opening, the shunning-and-adultery chain, the banal woman, the stealing cat's fine, the wildcat's wretchedness, the sale as spending, the scratch as servant's betrayal, the bite as hoaxer-and-illness. Then the Tomcat entry extends the ledger: the thief's mask, the peaceful year, the fight-as-illness, the fat as stolen money, the transformation as confession, the killing as catching a thief, the civet exception. Where the books part, they part in method. The cross-reference gap: Al-Nabulsi's قط entry is a single paragraph that says "the full treatment is in the letter Sin under السنور" — but that fuller السنور entry does not appear as a separate headword in this recension of the book. The Ibn Sirin compilation, by contrast, splits the cat into two full entries — Cat (p. 72) and Tomcat (p. 438) — and cross-references Siamese cat and Wildcat back to Tomcat. The Qu'ranic anchor: Al-Nabulsi grounds the cat-as-book-of-records reading in a verse — عجل لنا قطنا قبل يوم الحساب, "hasten to us our record before the Day of Judgment" (Qur'an 38:16) — where قط means a written record or a share. The compilation drops the verse and keeps only the verdict. The sound clause: Al-Nabulsi's book also catalogues the tomcat's yowling — uproar, backbiting, defamation — in a separate animals-sounds passage (shamela 188, printed p. 191), a clause the compilation has no room for. Then the cross-language collision: the Chinese book's single line reads the cat as a mouser that earns wealth — a utility verdict, not a document or a thief — while the modern layer, below, measures neither documents nor acts but contact hours and proximity at night.
The entries, briefly
The Arabic side comes from two books: the compiled English dictionary attributed to Ibn Sirin (Pearl Publishing House, 1992 — "Cat" printed p. 72 per the book's own end-of-volume index; "Tomcat" printed p. 438; "Civet cat" redirects to "Civet" at p. 85; "Siamese cat" and "Wildcat" both redirect to Tomcat) and the Arabic original of Al-Nabulsi's Ta'tir al-Anam, whose (قط) headword sits at shamela.ws/book/1217/282 (printed p. 285, باب القاف). The Nabulsi entry is a single paragraph that cross-references the fuller treatment to السنور in the letter Sin — a cross-reference whose target does not appear as a separate headword in this edition. The Chinese side is one verdict line from the received Zhou Gong text — chapter 25. One sample of each book, translated, then the full checked passages in the sources section at the bottom.
"Cat: A cat in a dream represents a book of records, one's share from a business, an inheritance, or his work. A cat in a dream also means shunning off one's husband, wife or children, or it could mean a fight, theft, adultery, disloyalty, eavesdropping, backbiting or bearing a child from adultery, a bastard child... If a cat steels something from her master, it means that he may pay a fine, have a fight with his relatives or children, and it could mean a robbery. A wildcat in a dream means adversities, toiling and a wretched life. Selling a cat in a dream means spending one's money. The scratch of a cat in a dream means that one will be betrayed by his servant. The bite of a cat in a dream represents a hoaxer or a crooked woman. It is also said that a cat's bite in a dream means an illness that will last one full year. (Also see Tomcat)" (elided; full entry in Sources)
- (قط) هو في المنام يدل على الكتاب لقوله تعالى: {عجل لنا قطنا قبل يوم الحساب} . وربما دل القط على الجفاء للزوجة والأولاد والخصام والسرقة والزنا وعدم الوفاء واستراق السمع والغمز والهمز وربما دل على الولد من الزنا أو اللقيط الذي لا يعرف أبوه ويدل على الإنسان الملاطف بالكلام والمتحبب بالنط والرقص إلى قلوب الناس وهو مع ذلك يرمق الأشياء فإذا وجد فرصة أفسد وسبق استيفاء هذا في حرف السين في السنور.
Zhou Gong, stated plainly: the received Chinese dream book this site quotes chapter by chapter carries the cat in exactly one verdict line — chapter 25 (龙蛇 禽兽 等类): 猫捕鼠者主得财 — a cat catching a mouse means getting wealth. The Chinese character for cat appears exactly once in the whole corpus; that occurrence is the line quoted here. The verdict prices the cat by its utility — catching mice — not by its acts toward the dreamer. Nothing else is claimed for the Chinese side.
What modern research adds — and what it doesn't
Of every animal in the dream literature, cats are the second — after dogs — to receive a dedicated empirical study, and the study comes from the same team and the same sample. Michael Schredl's group surveyed 1,695 persons (960 women, 735 men, mean age 53.84 ± 13.99 years) online and asked them to estimate what share of their remembered dreams include cats: on average about 5%, lower than the dog-dream percentage from the same team's earlier study. As with dogs, the split by waking contact is the headline: cat owners and people with close contact to cats report a much higher percentage of cat dreams, and proximity during sleep — whether the cat stays in the household and how close it sleeps — is also related to a higher cat-dream percentage. Cat dreams are very positive, much more so than dreams in general, indicating that waking-life experiences with cats are also mostly positive. A small percentage of participants reported negative experiences with cats in waking life, and this was related to dreams with threatening cats (Schredl, Bailer, Weigel & Welt, Dreaming 31(3):279–288, 2021, DOI 10.1037/drm0000176; abstract re-read today; the paper notes previous studies found cats in 0.4%–2% of dreams, and that the cat dream percentage was lower than the dog dream percentage elicited in the previous study — the same team and survey instrument as the dog-dream study). The broader UK Library Study confirms cats' rank: in 2,716 most-recent dreams from 4,849 participants aged 6–90, the most frequent dream animals were dogs, horses, and cats, and about 20% of the dream animals were the dreamer's own pets (Schredl & Blagrove, Imagination, Cognition and Personality 41(1):87–104, 2021, DOI 10.1177/0276236620960634; abstract re-read today: overall 18.30% of dreams included animals, children reporting more than adults, most dreamer-animal interactions negative, about 30% of dream animals showing bizarre features). The 2018 teeth-dream paper this site leans on elsewhere (PubMed 30319507) has no cat item and no animal item — its full text, re-checked today, contains no form of the words cat or animal. Against the classical layer the collision is complete: the Arabic books read the cat as a document, a thief, and a year-long illness priced by the bite; the Chinese book reads the cat as a mouser that earns wealth; while the modern record says the cat in the dream tracks the cat in the house, more pleasant than average, and rarely threatening unless the waking scratch happened first.
Sources (all passages checked against the cited pages)
Ibn Sirin compilation — "Cat," printed p. 72 (Ibn Seerin's Dictionary of Dreams, compiled by Muhammad M. Al-Akili, Pearl Publishing House 1992, ISBN 1879405032; a later compilation attributed to the 8th-century scholar, not his autograph text; the book's own page index lists Cat at 72, Catapult at 72, Cataract at 72). Full entry, scan verbatim including the printed "steels" for "steals": "Cat: A cat in a dream represents a book of records, one's share from a business, an inheritance, or his work. A cat in a dream also means shunning off one's husband, wife or children, or it could mean a fight, theft, adultery, disloyalty, eavesdropping, backbiting or bearing a child from adultery, a bastard child, or it could represent a gentle speaking person, a toadying person or someone who desires to be accepted by others, and should he find an opportune moment, he will spoil everyone's peace. A cat in a dream also represents a banal woman who likes herself. If a cat steels something from her master, it means that he may pay a fine, have a fight with his relatives or children, and it could mean a robbery. A wildcat in a dream means adversities, toiling and a wretched life. Selling a cat in a dream means spending one's money. The scratch of a cat in a dream means that one will be betrayed by his servant. The bite of a cat in a dream represents a hoaxer or a crooked woman. It is also said that a cat's bite in a dream means an illness that will last one full year. (Also see Tomcat)" — "Tomcat," printed p. 438 (the book's end index lists Tomcat 438, Siamese cat 389 with "See Tomcat," Wildcat 476 with "See Tomcat"), the full entry, scan verbatim including its joined words (Ifone, int o) and the page-439 running head printing inside the entry: "Tomcat: (Book of records; Cat; Reckoning; Siamese cat; Thief) In a dream, a tomcat means a thief or a servant. A cat in a dream also represents an evil and a treacherous woman. The same interpretation is given for anyone who compasses people, or guards them, or someone who harms the interests of his employer more than he benefits him. If a tomcat scratches someone or bites him in a dream, it means that he will fall sick for a full year. The bite of a wildcat in a dream is more dangerous and has greater implications. If one sees a tomcat sitting peacefully and quietly in his house in a dream, it means that he will have a comfortable, peaceful and a profitable year. Otherwise, a large wildcat in the dream represents a troublesome year. Selling a tomcat in a dream means spending one's money in various charities. Eating a cat in a dream means learning abou t sorcery. Ifone sees himself transformed in to a tomcat in a dream, it means that he lives from stealing and seeks what is harmful. A tomcat entering one's house in a dream represents a robber. Whatever a tomcat takes from one's house in the dream will be looted by such a thief. Killing or beating a tomcat in a dream means catching a thief or killing him. Ifone extracts fat from a cat in a dream, it means that he will receive stolen money or a share thereof. Fighting with a tomcat in a dream means an affliction with a long and a debilitating illness that will be followed by a complete recovery. If the tomcat loses the fight, and if the man is already sick, it means that he will recover from his illness shortly thereafter. Otherwise, ifhe loses in the dream, it means that his illness has reached its peak. A cat or a tomcat in a dream also represent reckoning, estrangement of one's wife, her roughness with her husband, or they could represent ill behaved children with their parents, fights, theft, adultery, lack of loyalty, eavesdropping, taunting, roaring, clamor, a bastard son, a foundling or an orphan. On the other hand, a cat in a dream could represent a toadying person, dancing, being playful and kind, though awaiting to jump at the first opportunity to spoil others' peace. If the cat, the tomcat and the mouse, or the lamb and the wolf become friends in the dream, it means hypocrisy, affectation and loss of moral standards. A civet cat in a dream represents a man who may have a suspicious look, though his character and conduct are exemplary. (Also see Cat)" — cross-references, as printed: "Civet cat: (See Civet)" · "Siamese cat: (See Tomcat)" · "Wildcat: (See Tomcat)" — and the dictionary's own index also lists, under the Sounds passage: "The yowling of a tomcat in a dream means uproar, backbiting, defamation and insinuations" (the Sounds passage is a separate entry in the compilation, not part of the Cat or Tomcat headword).
Al-Nabulsi — (قط), shamela.ws/book/1217/282, printed p. 285 (Ta'tir al-Anam fi Ta'bir al-Manam, Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi d. 1731 CE, Dar al-Fikr edition; باب القاف; translation ours). The full قط entry, verbatim: "- (قط) هو في المنام يدل على الكتاب لقوله تعالى: {عجل لنا قطنا قبل يوم الحساب} . وربما دل القط على الجفاء للزوجة والأولاد والخصام والسرقة والزنا وعدم الوفاء واستراق السمع والغمز والهمز وربما دل على الولد من الزنا أو اللقيط الذي لا يعرف أبوه ويدل على الإنسان الملاطف بالكلام والمتحبب بالنط والرقص إلى قلوب الناس وهو مع ذلك يرمق الأشياء فإذا وجد فرصة أفسد وسبق استيفاء هذا في حرف السين في السنور." (a cat indicates the book, per the verse "hasten to us our record before the Day of Judgment" — Qur'an 38:16; it may also mean shunning one's wife and children, quarrels, theft, adultery, disloyalty, eavesdropping, backbiting; a child of adultery or a foundling who does not know his father; a person who flatters with words and endears himself with dancing to people's hearts, yet watches things and, if he finds an opportunity, spoils — the full treatment follows in the letter Sin under السنور). The cross-reference target (السنور) does not appear as a separate headword in this edition of the book — the قط entry is the cat entry. The yowling clause appears in a separate passage cataloguing animal sounds, at shamela 188 (printed p. 191), verbatim within the sounds list: "وضغاء الهر صحب ونميمة وهمز ولمز" (the yowling of the cat: companionship, backbiting, insinuation and fault-finding — translation ours; the passage lists sounds from many animals, the cat clause is one sentence within it).
Zhou Gong Jie Meng — received 27-chapter text (corpus checked line by line; 猫 occurs exactly once). ch. 25 (龙蛇 禽兽 等类): "猫捕鼠者主得财" — a cat catching a mouse: getting wealth. No other chapter carries a cat line.
Modern research. Schredl M, Bailer C, Weigel MS, Welt MS. "Dreaming About Cats: An Online Survey." Dreaming 31(3):279–288, 2021. DOI 10.1037/drm0000176 (abstract re-read today from the publisher page: 1,695 participants — 960 women, 735 men; mean age 53.84 ± 13.99 years; Germany, online survey — the same team and survey instrument as the dog-dream survey in Animals 10(10):1915, 2020; cats appear on average in about 5% of remembered dreams, lower than dogs; percentage much higher in cat owners and persons with close contact; proximity during sleep and whether the cat stays in the household related to higher cat-dream percentage; cat dreams very positive, much more so than dreams in general; small percentage reported negative waking experiences with cats, related to dreams with threatening cats; results support the continuity hypothesis; previous studies found cats in 0.4%–2% of dreams). Schredl M, Blagrove M. "Animals in Dreams of Children, Adolescents, and Adults: The UK Library Study." Imagination, Cognition and Personality 41(1):87–104, 2021. DOI 10.1177/0276236620960634 (abstract re-read today: 4,849 participants aged 6–90, 2,716 most-recent dreams; 18.30% included animals; most frequent animals dogs, horses, and cats; about 20% of dream animals were the dreamer's own pets; about 30% showed bizarre features; children report more animal dreams than adolescents and adults; most dreamer-animal interactions negative). Rozen N, Soffer-Dudek N. Frontiers in Psychology 9:1812, 2018. PubMed 30319507 (full text re-checked today: no form of the word cat or animal appears anywhere in the paper — no animal item on its theme list; stated on this page, not papered over).
This page reports what two classical Arabic texts, the received Chinese dream book (whose single cat line reads the animal as a mouser that earns wealth, not as a document or a thief), and one online survey of 1,695 persons can see about dreams of cats. It is not a prediction, a medical or religious ruling, and no dream book — classical or modern — settles what a dream means for the person who had it. If this dream unsettled you, note the move every source on this page makes in its own form: the books do not ask whether the cat was friendly; they ask whether it scratched you, whether it bit you, whether it stole from you, whether it sat quietly and whether you became it — while the research asks whether you live with a cat and how close it sleeps at night. For the other animal the classical books read as a person in disguise — the dog — see dog dreams; for the animal priced by its bite across traditions, snake dreams; and for the animal the books read as a trial and a prepared fear, spider dreams.
Related questions
- Dog dreams — the other domestic animal the books price by relationship, not by act
- Snake dreams — the other animal priced by the bite the dreamer feels
- Spider dreams — the animal the books read as a deceiver, like the cat's thief mask
- Teeth falling out dream — this site's main subject, where the dictionary routes Canines