Sundial
A clock that reads the sun's shadow — time told by what the day itself is doing.
A sundial in a dream is the dream's image of time read directly from what the day itself is doing. The sundial does not run by a hidden mechanism; it tells the hour by where the sun has reached. The dream brings the sundial when something in your life — a sense of the season, a pace of work, a reading of where in a relationship you are — is being measured by direct observation rather than by a managed clock. A sundial read accurately on a clear afternoon is the dream affirming the honest method. A sundial consulted under a covered sky, with no shadow to read, is the dream noting that the natural signal is currently obscured, and the time will have to be guessed at by other means.