Cards
Cards in dreams often point to the social masks we wear and the strategies we deploy when outcomes feel uncertain. Whether played for pleasure or stakes, they ask: what are you risking, and with whom do you feel safe enough to show your hand?
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See what’s rising tonight →What the old dream-books say
These are the entries the historical dream-books record for cards, in their own words. They are period voices, not predictions, and they do not always agree with one another.
Gustavus Hindman Miller, 1901
If playing them in your dreams with others for social pastime, you will meet with fair realization of hopes that have long buoyed you up. Small ills will vanish. But playing for stakes will involve you in difficulties of a serious nature.
If you lose at cards you will encounter enemies. If you win you will justify yourself in the eyes of the law, but will have trouble in so doing.
If a young woman dreams that her sweetheart is playing at cards, she will have cause to question his good intentions.
In social games, seeing diamonds indicate wealth; clubs, that your partner in life will be exacting, and that you may have trouble in explaining your absence at times; hearts denote fidelity and cosy surroundings; spades signify that you will be a widow and encumbered with a large estate.
Fontaine, 1862
Playing at cards, dice, or any other game in a dream, shows the party will be fortunate in love affairs; for the tables and cards allude to love.