A police officer
Public order — and your relationship to the rules.
A police officer in a dream is the dictionary's image of public order. The dream often appears around situations where you have been operating near or against the rules — sometimes literal, sometimes social. The reading depends on whether the officer in the dream is helpful or threatening; both are honest readings of different situations.
Where you often see it. A police officer at the edge of a crowd. A police officer who stops you on the road. The dream uses the police for public order — and your relationship to the rules you have agreed to live under.
What it is not. A police dream is rarely about literal trouble. It is about the internal rule-keeper and what it is asking of you.
Related in the dictionary. Read police with uniform, judge contexts (in the broader sense), and any scene where you are caught between two rule-sets.