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 ...
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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]
Nancy
So SORRY DanniS, that's awful. My dreams are so boring and repetitive. I'm being chased and try to scream and no sound comes out or I'm in quicksand and can hardly run away or I forget about baby animals and I never remember if they are ok when I find them. My life is lovely nowadays so I don't know why I stress dream.
I always wanted a black eye but never pain. Perhaps I should get a face scrubber? How do you explain that one?
Langela
Another dream I have is of feeling drugged. I go about my day with my eyes closed, unable to open them regardless of how hard I try. The dream varies in what my day consists of, but I can never open my eyes.
Kristin Ferguson
This was a big one for me as well--I'm somehow incoherent and don't feel mentally alert, and keep making dumb mistakes like forgetting where I left my child. I end up begging someone to tell me what's wrong with me. I don't have these dreams much anymore, but they were big when I was about 22.
Langela
I wake up to find a giant spider lowering itself to my head. I quickly pull the blanket over my head. Aware that I often see this and it is actually a dream, I ask myself if I'm awake. Yes, I'm actually awake this time. I move my head around to see the dark room. Yep, awake. Sure I am awake and need saving, I start to scream to wake my husband. He awakes, terrified (or excited) that I'm being murdered. He assures me it is a dream. I look around again for the giant spider and it's nowhere. It WAS a dream. I feel horrible for waking my husband. I was so sure I was actually awake!
Sboo
The animatronic wolf from The Neverending Story slowly creeps out of my closet. He bites off any part of my body hanging off the edge of the bed or sticking out from the covers. My head is exempt from these rules because I have to be able to breathe.
That was my reoccurring childhood nightmare. It got to the point where I would instantly wake up if my foot slid off the edge of the bed. Don't remember my dreams most times, but have had very intense ones in the audition (I'm a singer), water, cheating, being chased, and sex categories.
Kristin
I'm building an elaborate prop of the Vasa (old Swedish ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 or so) and I almost fall overboard, realizing that if I did fall overboard, I couldn't be rescued because the ship is going too fast to turn around and fetch me. Sometime during its construction my model ship has set out to sea with me on it and it doesn't seem strange.
DanniS
My husband was sleeping with my best friend and I caught them. I was very angry when I woke up....5 years later I found out it was true.
Jess
More dreams than I would like are centered on my need to use the restroom. Often, I dream I have to go #1 very badly, but all the bathroom stalls are completely open to the room, or have meager dividers that leave you open to the gaze of others, and often its a room that men can go into also. Usually its a locker room with bathroom facilities, or just a large restroom like you would find at a sports stadium, so lots of toilets and sinks and ppl. I spend the whole dream trying to find a toilet with a little more privacy, or trying to wait for a moment when no one else is in the room. Which is funny, because in real life I'm not super shy about bodily functions, and happily they work fine. Another common dream about urinating is that in the dream I'm waking up to go use the restroom, but I never quite make it out of bed or the room, and then fall back asleep again (in the dream). Maybe I need to cut back on the amount of water I drink before bed!
Kristin Ferguson
I have this exact dream. And while I'm trying to find privacy, I often think I've found it and start to pull my undies down and sit on the toilet, but then someone walks in or comes around a corner or whatever. These dreams never seem to correlate with actually having to go to the toilet.
tiffany
I have this one often. Usually signals that I need to get up and go.
julie
I'm trying to catch the ferry...but I haven't gotten ready. I need to pack but I can't decide what to take...time is going by.. I have had this one for years....
Sarah
Same thing, but airplanes, not ferries. lol
Jennie Lee
I dreamed that I could jump really high, like maybe 100 feet, in slow motion. I'd squat down and jump up, rising slowly up, then down, in a smooth parabola. The landing was soft, with very little impact. During the jumps, I'd see people through their windows, and we'd wave at each other. When I woke up, I almost believed that I could really do that.
naomi
I'm from The Netherlands, so I apologize for the bad English. My reoccurring dream:
I'm on my way to get to bed, but than I remember I've forgotten something. I go downstairs and open about ten big boxes with baby guinea pigs I got a couple of weeks ago. They're fine, by the way. There's also a puppy version.
Kathy Hartzell
Until I was about fifty, I would regularly dream that I was at a lake in Washingtin State, and as I waded I to the depths, I found a child's wheelchair embedded in the mud and gravel, with a girl in leg braces, dead, of course, trapped in it. It first occurred after a trip to a lake near Spokane with extended family....in early 60's. I was twelve. Perhaps my mother and her sister were talking about kids who had had polio? Or perhaps there had been a drowning at that lake, and I overheard the conversation? I never knew why, but it tortmented me for decades.
My current common dream is that I forget I have rented an apartment, forget to pay rent, get evicted, don't even remember which apartment it is.....and I have owned my own home for forty years!
Ami Ruiz
For at least 40 years every one of my dreams includes a child of about 2 to 4 years old. I don't know who that child is. I vacationed in Sedona, AZ and while walking to town a woman on a bike stopped me and asked what I dreamed last night (this is normal for people in Sedona). I started to tell her and she interrupted me and finished what I was saying. We both had the exact same dream the night before. Then she asked me, "Who is the little kid?"
Karen
Sooooo that's disturbing.😳~ karen!
Oracle
Kathy, your rented apartment dream symbolizes a part of yourself that you have forgotten or abandoned.
Oracle
Oriah
I wanted to sit down on the couch next to a friend but his pit-shund (pit bull mixed with dachshund) wouldn't let me. Every time i tried to slip on to the couch, his pit-bill head would growl and his dachshund feet would stomp and claw). He was a terrifying dog in his big-small meanness.
Oracle
Oriah, your pit-shund dream represents a person who is getting/standing in between you and your friend in waking life.
Oracle
Allison
I'm being chased through the neighborhood where I grew up by a giant excavator (yes, the construction equipment, no joke). I keep just out of reach and hide behind stuff, but it keeps catching up until finally I fall down and can't get up to run any more. I try to crawl to keep away from it until it almost catches me. Then I wake up.
I've had this dream since I was little, although less frequently in adulthood.
julie
We sell excavators at my job...they are pretty slow (even the big ones)!
Allison
HA! I guess that says how slow I run!
lizzy
OMG, the movers are here and I am not ready. I feel frantic in my rush to ensure the items are put in the correct boxes, or nothing ends up getting broken. I am all over the place like a a caged tiger. What am I going to do-I am not ready, this has to be done. My hair is literally standing up!
Bonnie
That really happened to me…!!
Lucie
Recurring dream : I wake up in the middle of the night and I realize this terrible thing is going to happen. I can't move - not an inch. Something else has control. My body flies up to the ceiling and stops when my face is inches from the ceiling. I hover there a few seconds then BAM! I fall back down on the bed. Repeat - a different speeds. I've had this one since I was five. Yuck.
Karen
Very exorcist. ~ karen!
dessy
hey karen what could my dream mean okay i kept seeing ghosts and they were telling em i was getting ruined and i was called a drug addict and really fat ( btw i was a meth head for 4 years ) what does this mean
Allergy Solace
Please I had a dream where I and someone close where in a hurry at a location that is unknown to us and we were looking for a bus to take us back home so like immediately I found a bus and it was going our exact location so in a haste to pick us up and still not waste time the bus hit a frame headlong and everything and everyone in the bus turned a bit upside down but we entered and everything later became smooth as we drive along...the person with me was a lady seem to be the cause of the slight delay and accident for not being smart like me in the dream but I still had to wait for her to enter the bus like I took her out at the first place...
Kara
I had a dream where I saved a drowing baby boy while everyone else was just standing and staring, he was in a car in a port and I jumped in but struggled a bit to get myself out, like I knew there was something else I had to do before getting out, weather that was save someone else or something I'm not sure but once I got out I had this terribke feeling I'd left someone behind
Bonnie
Because I am a scholar of creativity, I feel that I can say with some authority (since I even did a TEDx talk on creativity), that your vivd dreams are a sign of your creativity. Steven King has said that he has very vivid nightmares.
lizzy
Oh boy - I certainly can believe Stephen King has nightmares - or night terrors! How else could he be so creative in his writing.
BethH
The operating room, though extremely brightly lit, is no larger than a doctor's exam room. As the anesthesia kicks in someone places a large heavy radiation blocking pad over me and I begin to struggle to move, even to breathe, fighting off slumber. But it's no use, I'm fading, fading...maniacal laughter in the background...can't move,...can't breathe...must be dead...
whitequeen96
Oooh, dreams where you can't breathe might mean you have sleep apnea, where you actually stop breathing for a short time. This can be bad for your heart.
I used to have dreams where I was holding my breath under water or couldn't breathe. Then I realized that when I lay on a flattish pillow, my breast tissue sort of slid towards my neck and half-strangled me. (Also not good for the heart.) See if you sleep better on a wedge that holds up your upper body as well as your head. That worked for me. I
Kim from Milwaukee
There he stood in front of me...Dennis Leary with a shofar for a *%$#. What was I supposed to do with that?
Kelly
Hi Kim. Well, Shofars are ceremonial horns that get "blown" ...so hard to say what you're supposed to do with it. (Wink). Lol
I'd chalk it up to "you're hot for Denis Leary". I totally get that.
Meghan
The car just wouldn't stop. No matter how much I pulled on the steering wheel and jammed my foot on the break, it just wouldn't stop.
Julie
pregnancy dreams are da bomb!!!! you know that point in the dream you realize you're dreaming and then you're all, "no! wait!…." and then you wake up? didn't happen for me. i'd realize i was dreaming and then continue on in this super-lucid crazy-arsed imaginary world where things were so real!