Dreaming about crying
Crying in a dream is one of the few dream actions that reliably continues into waking. Dreamers report waking with real tears, and that physical continuity makes this entry different from most here.
Also searched as: weeping, crying in a dream, waking up crying, tears
The most reported feature is not the crying but its cause being absent or trivial. Dreamers describe weeping intensely about something that would not warrant it awake.
Waking in tears is reported often and is one of the clearest instances of a dream state carrying across the boundary.
A second pattern involves being unable to cry: the feeling is present and nothing comes, which belongs with the wider group of things that will not work.
Crying about somebody who has died is a distinct and important group, and it is a recognised and generally healthy form of grief dream.
Common associations
- Emotion without proportionate cause, the characteristic mismatch.
- A physical state that survives waking.
- Release, which dreamers frequently report feeling afterwards.
- Grief, in the bereavement reports.
Positive readings
Many dreamers report waking from a crying dream feeling better rather than worse, and describe it as having needed to happen.
Grief dreams involving crying are widely reported as part of ordinary mourning rather than as a problem, and their frequency typically declines over time.
Difficult readings
Waking in tears is disorienting, particularly where the dreamer cannot identify a cause.
The cannot-cry version is more distressing than the crying and belongs with the frustrated-action group.
Psychological perspectives
REM sleep involves emotional processing, and one influential account is that it revisits charged material with the noradrenergic system substantially quieter than in waking. Crying without proportionate cause fits that: the emotion is being handled with the alarm turned down.
The physical carryover is the notable part. Very few dream actions produce a real bodily state on waking, and this is one, which is a reminder that dreaming is not sealed off from the body.
The grief material is well documented and dreams of the dead are common, usually ordinary in content, and generally reported as comforting.
Cultural and historical
Weeping in dreams is treated as significant in a number of interpretive traditions and, unusually, several read it as relief or as a good sign rather than a bad one.
What crying means socially varies enormously, and a dreamer who does not cry awake often reports the dream as more significant for that reason alone.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: REM sleep involves processing of emotional material, with a distinctive neurochemical profile.
Well documented: bereavement dreams, their frequency and their generally comforting character.
Observed: the physical continuation of crying into waking, which is unusual among dream actions.
Your own context
- Were you actually crying when you woke?
- Did the cause match the feeling?
- Did you feel better or worse afterwards?
- Who were you crying about?
If this recurs
Worth logging with the mood on waking rather than only the content, because the reported pattern is frequently that these dreams help, and that is only visible over time.
Emotions often reported
- grief
- sadness
- relief
- melancholy
- longing
- tenderness
Specific crying dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Was I really crying when I woke?
- Did the reason match the feeling?
- How did I feel an hour later?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
No sources are attached to this page yet. It has not been through editorial review. How we review material
Related records
- EmotionGriefGrief dreams are a normal and well-studied part of bereavement, and a large proportion of people who have them describe them as comforting rather than painful.
- PersonDead relativeDreams of the dead are extremely common in bereavement, are frequently reported as comforting rather than distressing, and are taken seriously by grief researchers as part of how mourning proceeds. What they are not is evidence of contact.
- EventFuneralA funeral in a dream does not predict a death. It is one of the most reliable images the mind has for an ending, and it appears far more often around change than around bereavement.
- ActionBeing unable to speak or moveBeing unable to move or make a sound is extremely common, and it sits on the boundary between an ordinary dream and sleep paralysis. Working out which one you had is the single most useful thing this page can help with.
- ActionBeing chasedBeing chased is the most reported dream theme in most surveys. What matters is almost never the pursuer. It is that the dreamer is going away from something, and what happens if they stop.
- ActionBeing watchedThe sense of being watched is one of the most consistently reported dream experiences and one of the hardest to describe, because the watcher is usually never seen. In sleep paralysis it has a specific, well-documented physiological basis.