Dreaming about machine
Machines in dreams are reported through two failures that mirror each other: one that will not start, and one that will not stop. The second is considerably more common and more distressing.
Also searched as: a machine, machinery, a robot, something mechanical, a machine that will not stop
The unstoppable machine is the characteristic report. Something is running, the dreamer needs it to stop, and no control works.
That is the effort-without-effect finding with an object attached, and it is one of the purer expressions of it because a machine is supposed to obey.
Machines with no purpose, running and producing nothing, form a distinct and quite eerie group.
Robots and humanlike machines belong closer to the doll and monkey material, where the discomfort comes from near-humanness rather than from mechanism.
Common associations
- A process that will not stop, the characteristic version.
- Controls that do nothing.
- Purposeless operation, in the eerie reports.
- Near-humanness, where the machine resembles a person.
Positive readings
Little. The unresponsive control is a usable dream sign.
Difficult readings
The unstoppable version is distressing in a specific way: the dreamer is not threatened, they are simply unable to intervene.
That is a purer helplessness than most threat dreams produce and dreamers describe it as such.
Psychological perspectives
Motor commands are not executed, so a control that does not respond is the ordinary case rather than the exception. A machine gives that failure something to be about.
The purposeless-machine reports are interesting: a dream does not need a function to generate an operation, so a machine can run without doing anything, and the dreamer notices the absence.
Continuity is moderate and depends heavily on what somebody does for a living.
Cultural and historical
No tradition, and the entry says so.
A century of fiction about machines that cannot be stopped is available to everybody, and it is almost certainly supplying the shape of these reports.
What the sleep science says
Well established: motor commands are not executed during REM, producing unresponsive controls.
Reasonably supported: dreams generate operations without requiring a function.
Not established: any meaning for a machine.
Your own context
- Was it starting or stopping that failed?
- What was it for?
- Did any control do anything?
- Was it like a person?
If this recurs
Log with the other things-that-do-not-respond reports: phones, light switches, doors, brakes. It is one group.
Emotions often reported
- helplessness
- frustration
- dread
- urgency
- unease
- panic
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Was I trying to start it or stop it?
- Did any control work?
- What was it supposed to do?
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
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