The mirror that lies is the dream asking who you have become. A strange, aged, or absent reflection is read as self-image out of register with self — in the East the face and the fate misaligned, in the West the gap between persona and person made visible, in Ibn Sirin's tradition the mirror showing one's state and standing truly.
Three readings
In Chinese tradition · 周公解梦
The Chinese frame reads the mirror as the examiner of the true state: classical lore held the mirror to show not the face but the fate — clarity toward good order, distortion toward affairs out of alignment. A wrong reflection marks the outer station and the inner person out of register: the title no longer fitting the man, the role outgrowing or outgrown. The tradition asks which is true — the face or the glass — and counsels aligning them before the world notices the difference.
The mirror-dream is identity's instrument check. A reflection that is older, younger, absent, or someone else stages the gap between who you are and who you're seen as — persona and person drifting apart. It clusters at identity's fault lines: aging, transition, recovery, fame or invisibility. The reflection's specific wrongness is the diagnosis: aged marks time-anxiety; absent, a self given away to roles; a stranger, a becoming not yet acknowledged. The dream asks you to look longer, not away.
Ibn Sirin read the mirror toward one's state, standing, and — by some entries — one's wife or intimate estate: what the glass shows is the condition as it truly is. A fair reflection read toward good standing; a distorted one, toward a state needing correction. As meaning: the dream-mirror is presenting the honest account — where it differs from the face you carry by day, the difference is the message.
Absence reads as the self mislaid in its roles — so much given to functions and others that the glass finds no one home. It is common in caretakers and the depleted, and asks where the person went.
What if the reflection moves on its own?
The autonomous reflection stages a split: a version of you with its own agenda — a becoming, a shadow, a life not being lived. It asks for negotiation with that version rather than fear of it.
What does a broken mirror mean?
Classically read toward a state or bond fractured — self-image or intimate estate cracked. Psychologically, it can be strangely hopeful: a false image breaking so a truer one can be assembled.
This is the general reading. Your dream is specific.