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]
Joe Bob
I was a cop for 28 years. I seem to always dream about being somewhere in my blue suit doing something, either chasing someone, or being stuck out in the middle of nowhere trying to figure out how I am going to get back to the station house. Many times it is just rambling like a tour of duty with no real theme or purpose. Sometimes I am missing part of my uniform, my gun, bullets etc. It also seems I can't write, or sign any forms etc.
Sometimes people are in the dreams who have been dead for many years, including friends, family and coworkers who have passed-on as well as pets I have had, and at previous places I have lived over the years.
Karen
I'm no expert but it sounds like you might miss being a police officer. ~ karen!
Sophiee Morten
I keep having this reoccurring dream about me going out to the hallway to have a cigarette, I hear police sirens so look out the window and I see this face staring back at me, it's a half cast man with afro curls, brown eyes and a really angry look on his face, he was just staring at me, as I got up to run back into my flat, he chases me, I try and shut the door but he just keeps pushing it open, I'm calling out for my husband and he wont answer or wake up, it's like I'm there on my own, even my kids wont wake up, after a few minutes I cant keep the door closed anymore so I run into the room with my husband and kids and lock the door. Hes banging on the door and trying to kick it open, he finally gets in, and tries to go for my 3 year old, I throw a picture frame at him to distract him and I grab my son and run to my other son so I can protect them both, he comes at us with a knife and tries to grab my 1 year old. Which he eventually does, my husband is asleep right next to us but wont wake up even with all the screaming, he tries to stab my 1 year old until I grabbed a knife and launched myself at him until he dropped my son on the bed. I told him to leave and I would pretend I never saw his face but he says to me how do I know I can trust you so I said to him that I dont want to put my kids in anymore danger. So he said to make sure I dont that he was going to do something to make sure so he lunged himself at my husband and stabbed him and then stabbed me in the stomach.
I've had this dream now for 3 nights in a row, and every night there are added moments and details. What does this mean?
Joan Linville
(Real young childhood incidents - my mother used to have me flatten the tin food cans with my feet [shoes on, of course] during World War II for the war effort because they were needed by the government to build war airplanes. I never could understand how the plane could be sturdy and safe if my 3-year-old feet could flatten the metal used to make the planes). Now I frequently dream I can levitate and fly without plane or other support!
Other disturbing dreams: not being prepared for exams, b/c I never attended classes; can't run away when threatened and being able to run really between towns; having to pee and no restrooms available.
run really fast between towns I worked in; having to pee and no restrooms available.
st between towns for my job; having to pee and no
restrooms available in building where I worked
Joan Linville
Sorry for the extra typing - my NOOK was misbehaving, buts old and probably has some dementia!
Sarah
I am not even in school, but I still have the dream that I have an exam and I have never gone to class. I figured it to be a clear anxiety related dream.
My bathroom dreams are yuck, filled with clogged toilets. I always figured it was my brain's way of forcing me to wake up when I had to pee.
Joan Linville
I'm really happy when my mom comes home, even if she doesn't stay long. I never saw her body after she was killed by a train, and she's been gone so long now. I stil don't completely trust her because she refuses to tell me (or us) where she works or anything about her life out west when she leaves us again. I just know she has another life, identity and family wherever she is now and loves them as much or more than us and it makes me sad. I worry over when she'll go away again and try to persuade her to stay. But I'm tired of the chaos for the past 40 years.
Beth
I'm really, really late to the comment party but I'll mention this anyway. I've been happily married for nearly 20 years, but I frequently have dreams in which I'm REALLY mad at my husband for something. It's always something minor, like he laughs at my shirt in the dream, but for some reason, I get furious in the dream and can't get over it. Often, I'll wake up cranky with him, and be snippy for a while first thing in the morning, he finds that funny. Which makes me mad. Sometimes, I even yank out the pillow from underneath him while he sleeps and I'll wake up with a wall of pillows in between me and him. I don't know why. He's actually a pretty nice guy.
Laura Bee
I walked back to my car after work & someone had taken the snowtires & left it up on blocks. There went any value that car had. I was hoping to scrap it in the spring, but keep the tires.
whitequeen96
LOL! What a very reality-based dream!
Dagmar
Wow, Karen what a great topic. This is tree days after you wrote it, and much like myself people continue to leave messages.
Most common dream: didn't finish the final project at school; didn't make it to the final exam or just still owe no work and papers , thesis etc to graduate .
Second common dream: I am being hurt by someone ; whether someone is trying to rape me, or trying to fight with me about something to swindle me ect. BUT I am speaking or yelling and I have no voice.
Third common: my favourite, it's me flying over cities and countries life a falcon.
kristin
I am always getting on an elevator thea hospital where I work (but never THE hospital where I work) and something bad happens. Either it falls uncontrollably, or launches upward way too fast, or gets stuck in such a way the riders can't get out. Last week, I was riding with my family on an out-of-control elevator trip, and a woman from church was riding with us, and she was needing a bathroom in an emergent way. I woke up just before she lost control. Very scary (and gross)! It always makes my next shift at work all the more interesting.
Teddee Grace
My sister (who had just survived major major back surgery in real life) and I were in total agreement the time had come to bail out of our test jet, following the instructions we had been provided, and, confidently deciding we'd take a chance on not being sucked into the engines, floated serenely down into a very shallow lake in which many happy families were playing and easily walked out onto a very green grassy bank.
Laurie
Dreaming of drowning can mean you stop breathing at night and need a sleep study. Constant nightmares can mean your brain does not develop enough serotonin and can be remedied by taking paxil. How do I know this stuff? When I got my c-pap I stopped dreaming of drowning. When I started paxil I stopped having nightmares. Just sayin'
Karen
Hi Laurie. I just wanted to make a note that Paxil hasn't been shown to reduce nightmares in other people and can in fact induce nightmares. (I don't actually take Paxil, but whenever someone mentions something about a drug and what it can or can't do I try to look into it for the sake of readers). Also, nightmares are more likely caused by having too much seratonin. Sorry. I'm sure it feels like I'm picking on you but I'm not. I'm just making sure the information everyone reads is correct especially when it comes to drugs. ~ karen!
Sherrill
I used to have the most Violent, gory, blood filled dreams when I was taking Paxil. Just terrible stuff, but they never bothered me in the dream. Horrible things would be happening, but I never felt a thing. That’s what I think Paxil did, It just turned off my emotional side so you don’t feel any anxiety. I stopped taking it because I started reading about bad side effects with prolonging use.
Safetydog
My recurring childhood dream was that I was with family or friends who would start talking in slow motion, like a record played at the wrong speed. I could talk fine, and would ask them what was going on, and they became more and more threatening, leaning into me with those drawn-out words. Frightening.
Now I just dream that one of my kids is missing.
caryl hodgdon
This is so much fun. People have really opened up. Anyone else ever experience thinking you're awake and your actual surroundings are in the dream. It's called hypnopompic reverie and once i learned the term i stopped having them...
Kat
I'm cleaning up from a party, washing the frosting off the cake plate, when the username of a fun person on an almost NSFW site I don't admit to visiting (that I really do, in real life, visit all the time), appears in the frosting. A guy I'm interested in sees it and asks me if that's me, but I wake up before deciding upon a) no, but I wish; b) I have no clue what you're even talking about; or c) a wink of the eye...
But my recurring dream is teeth flaking off, falling out, growing out my elbows and knees, and my inability to keep track of them
Nancy Blue Moon
I am in bed napping..it is daylight..I hear a knock at the door..I go downstairs to see who it is..I open the door slowly to find out..it is me..I have had this dream so vividly that I have believed I actually heard knocking and got up to go answer the door..no one is ever there..
Bonnie
I am violating the rules because I had this dream years ago when I was pregnant: I was home alone and heard someone trying to break it. I ran and was able to lock the door before he opened it. Then, I had to run through the house, getting to each window and door seconds before he did to lock them. Finally, I ran to the kitchen door and was able to see the culprit's face in the window--my obstetrician. Clearly anxiety.
Karen
LOL. Clearly. ~ karen!
LazySusan
There's a T-Rex attacking the house! My husband and I desperately scramble for a place in the house we can tuck ourselves into that's too small for its head to fit into, and far enough tucked in that it's little arms can't reach us!
Louise
Another dream I often have is that I am somehow skating, beautifully! However, it's over regular floors in the mall, the library, all sorts of places. I think I'm in socks and I'm able to dance and slide and skate, and it's so wonderful! I wonder why others don't do it; perhaps it's some special talent only I have.
Belinda
Hi Louise.
I have been having exactly the same dream for years. It is the most amazing feeling to move around like that between all the other people and knowing they can't do it.
Were you able to find the meaning of it?
whitequeen96
I think it means we're special! ;-)
Perhaps we're capable of lyrical happiness, if not in our daily lives, in our dreams.
Belinda
Thanks for that, but at the moment I feel everything but.
I read the following on ice skating when searching skating. It seems that no one except us dreams about skating without actual skates:
Ice skating is symbolic of graceful, free motion and the power and importance of inertia and balance. If you dream that you are ice skating proficiently, this is an indication of a deep confidence in your ability to accomplish your goals. Furthermore, you will accomplish them well and with ease, as long as you can keep your balance. Each action you take will push your project farther than you anticipate.
I like your name. I used to think my name should be RaineQueen, but changed it to Raine. Seems we think we are or perhaps we used to be queens in another life. :-)
Happy dreaming.
Debbie
There is a book in all of this!
LazySusan
I'm on a first date with a tall Japanese guy, and we've walked up a mountain to a clearing on the top that's ringed with rocks and the center is sand, where we find a place to sit and then start catching the eggs that rare birds are laying in the air and are dropping over our area, where we then bury them in the sand to preserve them. Punk Chinese guys on motorcycles come roaring up the mountain and into the sand area going around in circles trying to chase us away and steal the eggs we've buried.
Louise
My brothers and sisters and I are children again. We are swimming in our pool with our pet killer whale and having a wonderful time. Suddenly, the whale grabs one of them and rips him/her to shreds right before our horrified eyes! We scramble out of the pool and look at the blood in the water in absolute shock. But after a while, the whale gets playful again and my sibling decide to go back in the water. I scream and try to prevent them from doing so, but they say the whale is sorry and they are determined to give him another chance. Unfortunately, the scene repeats itself, yet they keep going back in.
Nancy
My calculus final is in a few hours, and I haven't been to class all semester. Trying to get someone's notes to look at.