What Does Dreaming About Unripe Grapes Mean?

Ibn Sirin reads unripened fruit as work whose time has not come. Of the dreamer who eats unripe grapes it is told that they have hurried in a matter and will taste its sourness. Leaving the fruit on the bunch to wait he counts as patience and as a good that will sweeten in the end.

Al-Nabulsi ties out-of-season and unripened fruit to work whose delay is a blessing; waiting here is gain and not loss, he says. The sourness he reads as a grievance and the pressing of the juice as that grievance turned to use. Fruit spilled on the ground he counts as labor forced too early.

By Ja'far al-Sadiq's method unripe grapes are read in four directions: work whose time has not come, a decision taken early, a portion that patience will sweeten, and an experience whose sourness teaches. Leaving the fruit on the bunch is the most auspicious of these readings.

In the Jungian approach the ripening of fruit symbolizes the natural course of individuation; the unripe grape is that course forced. Dreaming of it shows the self trying to bring an unfinished side of itself to an early conclusion. Leaving the fruit on the bunch tells of trusting the process.

From the Freudian perspective the unripe grape is pleasure that could not be postponed and desire consumed before its time. Wincing at the sourness is the surfacing of the fact that a fulfilled wish did not meet the expectation. Fruit held out by another tells of decisions taken under outside pressure being taken inward.

Those who feel they decided in haste, those who began work before they were ready, and those who stepped forward under the pressure of their circle see this dream often. The question the symbol carries is this: is the fruit sour, or did you pick it early? The dream calls the dreamer to stop counting waiting as loss.