Yup, we're all unique flowers who are special and individual in every way. Except when it comes to our dreams. However different we might seem as humans, how similar we really are all shows up in our dreams. The top 10 dreams everyone has and what they mean.
Skip right to the dream meanings.
In the great tradition of people who bore other people by recounting their dreams, I … am going to recount my dreams to you. Don't worry. You're gonna get the chance to bore everyone else, including me, later.
Since I was young I've had nightmares. Lots of them. Death, destruction, chasing, kidnapping, murderous heart pounding dreams. You name the nightmare and I've had it. Oftentimes over and over again.
In the past few years I've switched over to general anxiety dreams that are still very disturbing but not quite as death filled. I've never thought much about these nightmares of mine. They're just who I am and believe it or not, and this will sound really insane, but … I find them kind of comforting now.
I'm sure it's some sort of subconscious appreciation of how my dreams are dealing with the real life problems I have. Not that I feel like I have any at the moment, but my dreams know better - they know we're all dealing with something.
That's generally what dreams do. They deal with all the stuff you aren't dealing with in your waking life because you're too busy paying bills and wondering where you hid the vodka.
According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders only a small percentage of people have nightmares on a regular basis. Nightmares aren't just scary dreams, they're terrifying. They can wake you up and the fear will stay with you.
About half of all people who suffer with nightmares also suffer from psychiatric disorders. I don't think I have a psychiatric disorder, at least not one fierce enough to cause nightmares every night so I'm more inclined to go with the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorder's other rationale for people with nightly nightmares which is the fact that artistic or creative people are at a greater risk of nightmares. Mainly because they have better imaginations.
5 or so years ago, around the time my fella of 11 years ran away from home, I was having nightmares that revolved around cloudy, scary, turbulent water. And I was in the scary water. I wasn't afraid of drowning, that wasn't the feeling - it was just dark and ominous. The dreams were me finding my way.
1 year ago, just after I had the relief of finding out that I *didn't* have breast cancer (I really encourage you to read that post here), I started having anxiety dreams.
It's amazing that there are so many of us with such different brains and personalities - yet we all have the same themes in dreams. Don't believe me? Here's a look at 10 of the most common dreams. I'm guessing you've experienced at least half of them.
If you're looking for a little more information on dream interpretation get The Dream Dictionary for Dummies.
Table of Contents
Dreams Analysis
Being Chased
Having a person chasing you in a dream can mean you feel threatened by something in your life or you're avoiding something. You are running from something in your conscious life; emotions, a relationship, worries or even your taxes.
It's a classic anxiety dream.
If you're being chased by someone who is trying to to kill you, you can take that as a pretty direct translation. That something or someone that has to do with you is bad for you. It doesn't necessarily mean it will literally kill you, but could kill parts of you. Your creativity, your happiness or your sanity for instance.
It could be a direction you yourself are going in that isn't healthy like hard drug use or other bad habits like eating a pound of butter for breakfast every day.
NOW, if you're the one doing the chasing it can mean a couple of things. You're possibly trying to run off that morning pound of butter orrrr you're running towards something (an ambition, person or goal).
Water
If the water is calm and clear, you're at peace obviously. If the waters are murky or turbulent you're struggling with equally turbulent emotions.
THIS is the dream I had a lot after my breakup. Murky, turbulent, violent water. I had no idea it was such a common dream because I don't remember ever dreaming about it before.
Teeth falling out
It's surprising how your teeth falling out in a dream can be every bit as horrifying as it would be in real life. You're in your dream, walking down the middle of a highway with your new florist Jeff Goldblum, as one does in dreams, and you feel something in your moth. A tooth. Then another and another and soon you have no teeth.
This seems like a bad sign.
BUT as with a lot of dreams, something that seems negative in a dream isn't necessarily bad. There CAN be a positive interpretation.
When you lose your baby teeth in real life it's a step towards growing up. The meaning of the dream about your teeth falling out could be that you're maturing and growing as a person.
On the other hand, it can have a negative connotation too. (Weirdly, dream science isn't very sciency. Actually, that's not weird at all)
The negative analysis of dreaming that your teeth fell out of your head is that you're afraid that you're losing control over something. It's a symbol of powerlessness and insecurity.
Flying
You live in Canada where pot is legal and you're super high. No wait, that's not right. Flying dreams represent experiencing a newfound sense of freedom or control. The next time you dream about flying make a point of thinking about whether you are experiencing either of these things in your life. You know. Just for dream analysis fun.
The most reasonable explanation for dreaming about flying is that you got a new cape, so ...
Exam time/Audition time
Dreaming about missing exams or suddenly realizing you haven't studied for a test make sense for someone in high school or University. But these dreams continue into adulthood.
The ubiquitous "I have an exam or test and I never went to class and never studied" dream can happen through your whole life. The test could be in another language or you can't get into the exam room … whatever the case it's a test and you're anxious about it. This is a classic anxiety dream and usually means you feel like you're being judged or evaluated by someone in your life.
I have both exam and audition dreams. Audition dreams happen more often than test dreams in people who went to performing art schools or studied music and acting. I have them because of my career as a television host.
omg i'm naked
You're feeling exposed or ashamed of something if you dream you're naked in public. It can also mean you're feeling vulnerable. Or you're just a hippie.
Death
Dreaming that you die means you actually died while sleeping. Just kidding. My 12 year old self couldn't resist saying t hat.
Dreaming of your own death signifies starting over. So it's not a bad thing, it's the chance to start over. New job, new relationship, or a new you after coming out of a relationship.
Dreaming of a parent's death can mean a couple of things. Well, a million really, but I'm trying to keep these interpretations to what most experts believe is the most plausible explanation. Dreaming of a parent's death is often literal. You're literally afraid of your parent dying either because they're sick or it's a deep seeded fear of yours.
It can also mean that you're finally a grown up - the dream is like a rebirth. Dreaming of a parent dying can mean you're personally at the point where you can live your own life. Your own mature life where you can survive and take care of yourself without any parenting. For women this kind of dream is typical around the age of 10. For men, it's around 73. Just kidding.
Dreaming of a sibling's death generally means you miss them.
If the death of the person in your dream doesn't make you sad do you feel like that person betrayed you in real life? Having them die in your dream is your retribution. It doesn't mean you actually want them dead, your dream is just giving you a chance to punish them so you can get over it.
Cheating
Cheating dreams are another common anxiety dream. If you dream your husband/wife is cheating it can mean you're actually worried about them cheating. It can also mean you have trust issues with them or are feeling insecure for some reason.
Sex
Dreaming about sex means you want to have sex. Seriously. Well sometimes it does.
Gay Sex (when you're not gay) means you're secretly gay. No it doesn't.
Same sex dreams often mean you need to get in touch with your feminine side (if you're a gal) or your more masculine side (if you're a dude). So break out the nail polish or start swinging that hammer.
Falling
Dreams where you're falling are also classic anxiety dreams. They usually mean a situation in your life is spiralling out of control. It could be your job or a relationship.
If you're falling but aren't afraid, it means you're in control of your situation and will easily get through it.
Some interesting less common dreams??
Poop. Dreaming about poop is NOT common. Butttttt, it's the 3rd most Googled dream, lol. So I guess even if it doesn't happen often, dreaming about poop is alarming enough that everyone who does it searches for the meaning of it.
So what does it mean if you dream about poop? That your life stinks? That you feel like crap? No. Shockingly, dreaming about poop is kind of a good (albeit disturbing and gross) thing. It means you're letting go of negativity and positive changes are ahead. But maybe buy some Immodium, just in case.
Alligators. Dreaming about alligators means you're feeling vulnerable about something. It can also mean that you're worried about a decision you're having to make in real life.
Keep in mind dreams can be interpreted in a few different ways. Also keep in mind some people think dream interpretation is a bunch of hoodoo. By nature, I'm a skeptic who always wants to be proven wrong. So my inclination is to scream HOOEY about all of this.
But if that was the case, if dreams and dream interpretation was hooey, then chances are we wouldn't all be having the same dreams as each other. A dream may mean one thing for you and another thing for someone else but as long as you know what you're going through in your real life you should be able to figure out what your dream means to you.
If you don't know what you're going through in your own life you're very, very dead so it doesn't matter.
If you want to delve a bit further into your dreams (and who doesn't) I can recommend 2 books to keep on your bedside table.
The Dreamer's Dictionary which as published in 1986 with the majority of hundreds of readers on Amazon giving it a 5 star review and The Dream Dictionary for Dummies which includes not only dream interpretations but also techniques for dreaming more and remembering the dreams you do have.
If you want to keep track of your dreams, you need to keep a journal beside your bed to write them down immediately when you wake up. You think you'll remember them, and you might for a few hours, but then they're gone.
THIS is the most fun dream journal I've ever seen. I mean, it has a strangeness meter at the top of every page.
It's now time for you to bore everyone with your dreams!
Can you remember what you dreamed about last night? Lay it on me!
[ratings]
Karen
Last night I had a bad dream, I was in the house I left 44years ago, I was in bed in the attic my 2year old granddaughter was with me, a blonde haired man was trying to get me out of bed, I managed to fight him off and pushed him down the stairs but he just kept coming for me.
Mini Tigga
My 6month old puppy died yesterday night after 3 days of suffering from health... we burried him at our yard at night... but i had dream that i dug up his grave and he was still breathing in it.. what to do please someone tell me.. m already in lot of pain... plz
Siahara Shyne Carter
Now I dreamed about me in office I'm clueless about it
Dudz
May 1, 2020
10:55 am
Woke up from weird dream. It was quite long so i will cut it short. I dreamt that i was with my boyfriends friend (girl), strolling around the place where a huge event was happening which I think its a church event, anyway it was a huge place. So while waiting for my boyfriend and her boyfriend as well, we had to explore the place. I once saw my ex though and didnt actually mind him at all, however he ran away from me as soon as he saw me. It was getting kinda crowded in the place so we had to go to the bathroom. Afterwards we had finally met with our boyfriends, and decided to go home. But the twisted part is my boyfriend, his friend, and the friends boyfriend turned into cats and ran away from me to do cat stuff??? I got so mad because they left me, well mostly because my boyfriend left me. And that was the end. I trued searching for meanings about boyfriend or a friend turning into a cat. Most of it were negative, few were positive. And i dont know what to do anymore.
Nikki Choudhary
I dreamt of my late father he was having his food and when I reached out to him to hug him he was puking. What does it mean ?
Makoena
More than 12 years back I did abortion, since then I have never been pregnant, I never told my current boyfriend about it, so now he saying that everytime we have sex he always dreams of baby crawling and crying. Or during sex he hears baby crawling and crying inside me
Christopher
I'm float/flying in air as i have since a child but in year 2012 i was 33 yrs old. And this time 3 astronauts pulled me down somehow. I was terrified of astronauts.
Around 2008-2013 i had horrible nightmares yet it was also my most obsessive and prolific creative writing times in my life. And i have mental disorder (childhood trauma).
One more...two cops in patrol car swing it sideways skiding at me ...closest officer points gun out window and shoots me twice in same exact spot (solarplexus) and kills me thus i wake up. Turbulent time 2012 was, Mayan calender affected my life tremendously.
Olivia
lately i keep having a reoccurring dream where i’m going into the ocean with a group of people and we keep going in it but i don’t know why we’re there or what we’re looking for. there is the big wall in the ocean. a barricade? but there are holes in between the wall and if you get caught up in the holes you die. and in my dream a person even showed me a video of a group of people going and dying from it. i’m really not sure what this means or if it means anything, but i keep having it so i’m just not sure.
Eunice Noah
It was like a film-trick to me when Dr Edede bring back my husband within 24hours i have try many ways to get my man back but i always meet with the wrong people not until i meant Dr Edede i advice anyone who have same problem to contact him on Ededetemple @ gmail. com
ashlyn
so i’ve had this dream a couple of times and it always makes me wonder what it means. So i’m at maybe a gas station? And i find a 100$ bill and i grab it. i buy what i’m getting and leave. on my way out a man idk who starts yelling that it is his and starts chasing me.I run into woods while he is following me and then i eventually fall through a hole right before he catches me. when i fall through the whole i see a building and i hide behind it. i’m not sure if they guy has fallen in the hole too and i’m waiting for him to find me behind the building. then some man comes up behind me and when the guy chasing me passes the man behind me hits him with something and then i wake up.
Catherine Michaels
I have had a few reoccurring dreams that aren't as regular now that I am practically a therapist for my friends. Anyway, the first dream is I am trying to do something, whether its get dome water or fixing my blankets. Suddenly, everything gets rough in texture and shrinks, I have no idea how. Then, when I am walking back to bed or am about to fall asleep, everything expands and goes inhumanely smooth. I felt like I was going to puke every time. I couldn't touch anything smooth for years.
The second dream was I was in my old elementary school. All of my friends (and enemy's) were there and the first time, a few people I hadn't know yet were there as well (like, people that were in my 6th and 7th grade only). There would be people exclaiming and screaming i outside one of the classrooms so me and my friends would run over. A tall person dressed in black wsa stealing stuff from the classroom. None of the people who had tried to fight him could and he was about to make a run for it. I would stand in the door way and fight him until he would grab my hands then wrists and I would knee him in the stomach area. He would step back and then disappear into the ceiling. This would happen a few more times before he began kidnapping my friends. I woke up before I could figure out where he took my friends. The dream always made me feel like it would mean something in real life. I spent so much time trying to figure out who The Bandit, as I have forever deemed him, was. It has gotten to the point where I am writing it in different stories to see how many puzzle pieces I can get together from my creativity trying to draw away details from it. All I've got is that they are tall, have brown hair and brown eyes.
Felecia Mcelreath
This blog The 10 Most Common Dreams and What They Mean.The Art of Doing Stuff has helped me a lot with my
dog. Also, I used this training course https://s96.me/dog-training-course and now my dog follows everything I ask.
Kiss you All!
Sakangsha
I had a dream that I was running for my life from someone chasing me (i don't remember who) on a narrow bridge. I run, run and run... It was a hilly area and i can't look down as i hava acrophobia. Suddenly the bridge ends and I'm running on a high building's terrace. I run for my life and end up jumping off the roof to save myself. And I could feel falling down as if it was really happening. Suddenly all my senses go numb when i fall with a thud. I could as if just feel my body breaking into two parts from my pelvis. The last thing i remember from the dream is many people picking me up from a bloody place and taking me somewhere in a stretcher.
I'm 17 and have been having terrible nightmares lately, almost every night.
Kathern
I wake up screaming everytime. It's a women with long black hair coming around my bed turning into a child as she coming towards my face I can't move or anything, as she gets closer to my face as I'm laying on my side her face is contorting like 90 miles a hour she grabs my arm and it starts turning black and then I will see a big bright light to the left and something pulls me towards it and I wake up jumping up in the bed scream.
The other when I'm not having this one. It's something getting on top of me in the bed having sex with me, and I can't describe it. It's so cray looking but it didn't scare me.
The next one 3 men chasing me and I find out that I'm 4 months pregnant but I didn't find out until they were chasing me.
Olivia
the first one is sleep paralysis
J Leung
Everyone once in a while my dreams come in tableau/living comic book format. It's always annoying cuz the characters are clearly capable of full on interaction, but just don't. People don't talk enough about the format of their dreams
Patricia Hane
I dream every night. I believe I remember the ones from when I wake in the morning and fall back asleep. I've have had the teeth falling out one when I am in a public bus. Also that I am naked from the waist down and don't know it for a while I am in a public place. Then quite a few where I have to go to the bathroom and either can't find one or when I do it is over flowing. Then I used to dream I was back in school and can't remember what classes I have or in what order or even how to find the room. I get lost a lot of times in my dreams. Also I can fly that feels so real when I think about it awake. The ones that I have most the time and that are the most frustrating to me are where I am some large building of some kind with lots of different people, usually a few I know. And I always am disappointing those people in some way. Often they are all waiting for me to get ready and I can't find anything to wear that looks good etc. Or I am going thru stuff that is on sale or is going to be thrown away that ends up being boxes and boxes that I can't get home by myself. I have many different versions of that. I'm sure that is because I do have a lot of stuff that drives my daughter crazy and I love all of it though I've gotten rid of tons of it. I say I am a pack rat but I am somewhat organized. I don't have filthy piles of stuff everywhere like you see on TV. I've been told by a therapist that I have low self esteem though most people don't know if but I do. One more, pretty often a guy will like me but no sex, just talking, sitting close and I never recognize them. Sorry this is so long!
Abigail
For years I dreamed I was going blind. I'd walk into a room and turn the light on and somehow I would know (as in dreams) that the light was on but everything was dark and blurry. As the dream continued my vision would get darker and dimmer and I'd be running around in a panic trying to turn the lights on and just losing more sight. Ironically this is around the time I went for glasses and even though I have 20/20 vision, I have matching astigmatisms in each eye so without glasses, things seem blurry at a distance and I get headaches without my glasses.
J Leung
This is interesting to me. I have also had issues with what really feels like my brain is not working properly in this kinda way. Do you have sleep seizures maybe or have any family history of neurodegenerative disease
mimi
What does it mean if you can’t remember your dreams?
June Reiter
My dreams are very vivid and unusual. Never about flying or being naked. None of that normal stuff for me. During certain bad periods in my life, I've had some horrific nightmares which I won't even try to describe.
When I was much younger I had a most amazing dream that sticks with me to this day. Jimi Hendrix and I composed a sort of celestial symphony. It was beyond description, not really music. When I awoke with a smile on my face I thought that if there's a heaven that's what I will hear.
Lately, due to my obsession with US politics this too is coming in my dreams. The other night Bernie Sanders started smacking Amy Klobuchar on the debate stage, but it was hilarious because they both had long, skinny arms that flopped around like spaghetti.
I doubt anyone is able to interpret my dreams.
whitequeen96
U.S. politics has been giving me nightmares too, even while I'm awake! {{SCREAM!}}
Karen
Yup. I'd have a difficult time untangling the dream of the spaghetti arms. ~ karen!
J LEUNG
The spaghetti arms is exactly the same as while awake.... They just (barely) pretend attack eachother. The candidates are doing these pointless stage events. Hopefully hearing Sen. Warren say "horse faced lesbian" at Bloomberg will cure you of that if it's a repeating motif.
June
So funny and that just may be a valid interpretation. Thank goodness it was not a recurring dream.
Marilyn
40 years ago my mom came to me in a couple of dreams after her death. The last one showed her at the top of a stairs, she was only a bright light really, but clearly my "mom" and she looked GREAT! I said that in my dream. Such comfort.
5 years ago my dad came to me in several dreams after he died and the last one showed him in a manner similar to how we had found him at his hour of death. I was telling him that it was okay for him to go. That was a necessary thing for me to acknowledge in my non-dream state. So I view dead parents coming to our dreams as a communication when we need such communication. I welcome those dreams with great love.