Old Crab in dreams
Defensive sideways motion — protection by indirectness.
How old changes the reading
The base reading of Crab
A crab in a dream is the dictionary's image of defensive sideways motion. The crab approaches and retreats indirectly; the shell does the heavy lifting on protection. The dream often appears when you have been handling a sensitive situation by going around rather than at it — which is sometimes the right call and sometimes the dream noting that you have not addressed the thing directly.
Where you often see it. A crab in a tide pool. A crab moving sideways across sand. The dream uses the crab for defensive sideways motion — protection by indirectness.
What it is not. A crab is not always evasion. The dictionary reads it as the dreamer's chosen oblique defence.
Related in the dictionary. Read crab with sea, beach, scorpion (its sharper cousin), and any scene of indirect protection.