What it usually means
Money is one of the few dream images that can be entirely literal. If you are worried about rent, a debt or a job, dreams will often replay those worries in plain terms, and there is no hidden layer to dig for. Start there: if money is on your mind during the day, the dream may simply be carrying the same load at night.
Beyond the literal, money in dreams tends to stand for value in a wider sense. It is a measure — of what something is worth, of what you are worth to others and to yourself, of how much energy and time you have left to spend. Dreams use it the way language does when we talk about paying attention, spending time, or not being able to afford a feeling.
The direction of the money matters most. Money coming to you, leaving you, being counted, hidden or given away are different dreams, and the emotional tone — relief, shame, greed, panic — is usually the clearest guide to which one you had.
What changes the meaning
Finding money. An unexpected resource: a talent, an opportunity, energy you did not know you had. The amount often matches how much the discovery feels like it matters.
Losing money or a wallet. A loss of security or confidence, or the fear of one. A lost wallet also carries identity — cards, documents, proof of who you are.
Having money stolen. A sense that someone is taking more than their share of your time, credit or effort.
Not having enough to pay. One of the most common money dreams. Usually about being asked for more than you can give, in any currency — patience, attention, presence.
Giving money away. Generosity, or over-giving. The feeling on waking tells you which.
Counting money. Taking stock. Often appears when you are weighing a decision, or measuring whether something was worth it.
Winning a lot of money. Rarely a prediction. More often a wish for release from a specific pressure, and worth asking which one.
Coins rather than notes. Small, scattered value: many minor things that add up, or worth that is easy to overlook.
Foreign or unreadable money. A value system that does not match yours. Common in new jobs, new countries and new relationships, where the rules of exchange have not yet been learned.
When it keeps coming back
Recurring money dreams usually follow real financial stress, and they ease when it does. If they continue after the situation has improved, the worry may have become a habit of mind rather than a response to circumstances — worth noticing in its own right.
If money is not a pressure in waking life, a recurring theme of loss or scarcity tends to point elsewhere: a sense that your effort is undervalued, that a relationship takes more than it gives, or that time is running through your fingers. The dream borrows the currency everyone understands.
It can also help to notice who else is in the dream. Money changes hands between people, and the person you owe, pay or lose it to often points to the relationship where the imbalance is actually felt.
In Jungian terms
Jung described the energy of the psyche — which he called libido, in a much broader sense than Freud — as something that flows, can be invested and can be withdrawn. Money in dreams often maps neatly onto that picture. Where the money goes in the dream is where your attention and vitality are going, or failing to go.
In that reading, a dream of being robbed or running out is less about poverty than about energy leaking into places you have not chosen. A dream of finding money points to energy that has been lying unused in some neglected part of the personality.
The image leaves a practical question. Where is your energy actually going, and would you choose to spend it there if you were deciding afresh?