Feelings and states
The emotions dreams actually produce, and what the dreaming self does. Fear is not the commonest, and a third of nightmares are not primarily about it.
26 records
- EmotionFearFear is the most commonly reported dream emotion in most content analyses. A frightening dream is not unusual and is not by itself a sign of anything wrong.
- EmotionShameShame dreams are unusually social. They nearly always involve being seen. Being naked in public is the classic form and one of the most reported dreams in every survey.
- 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.
- EmotionHelplessnessHelplessness is one of the most reported dream feelings, and it has an unusually strong physiological contributor: during REM sleep the body genuinely cannot act, and dreams frequently build a story around that.
- EmotionPeacePeaceful dreams are under-reported rather than uncommon. They are less memorable and less likely to be searched for. When they are reported, they are described with unusual warmth.
- EmotionDesireSexual and romantic dream content is common, normal, and a poor guide to waking preference or intention. Dreaming about someone is not a decision, a confession, or a wish you have to act on.
- EmotionConfusionConfusion in dreams is usually not content. It is the texture of dreaming itself. Dreams suspend critical judgement, and noticing that they do not make sense is the doorway to lucidity.
- EmotionAngerAnger is common in dreams and frequently directed at people the dreamer is not consciously angry with. It is not a verdict on the relationship and not something to act on.
- EmotionNostalgiaNostalgic dreams are usually about a time rather than a thing, and they cluster around transitions, as though the mind reaches back when the ground shifts.
- EmotionWonderAwe-filled dreams are rare, disproportionately remembered, and reported by people of every belief and none. They are one of the more interesting things dreaming does.
- EmotionGuiltThe clearest case in the database of an emotion arriving before its cause. Dreamers routinely report overwhelming guilt with no offence attached, and the offence is missing because there never was one.
- EmotionDisgustDisgust is not a variety of fear, and treating it as one loses the most useful distinction in this part of the database. It has different triggers, a different function and a different profile, and a large group of dream images produce it exclusively.
- EmotionLonelinessLoneliness in dreams is produced by absence where presence is expected rather than by being alone, and that distinction is what separates a peaceful empty beach from an empty city.
- EmotionJoyPositive dreams are under-reported rather than uncommon, because people record what disturbs them. That reporting bias distorts what everybody believes about their own dreams, including this database until it is corrected for.
- EmotionJealousyJealousy dreams are watching dreams. The characteristic structure is observing something the dreamer is not part of, with no ability to intervene, and it produces a feeling that persists into waking more reliably than most.
- EmotionReliefMost relief in dreaming happens on waking rather than in the dream, and that moment is worth understanding: it is the point at which the dreaming state ends and the emotion it produced has not yet caught up.
- EmotionEmbarrassmentThe emotion behind one of the few genuinely near-universal dreams. Social exposure appears in typical-dream surveys across countries and decades, and embarrassment rather than fear is what those dreams produce.
- EmotionAnticipationThe feeling of something about to happen, sustained indefinitely and never resolved. It is the emotional signature of a large share of dreams and it is produced by a structural feature rather than by anything in the dream.
- ActionKnowing you are dreamingLucid dreaming is one of the few things in this entire database that has been demonstrated in a laboratory rather than inferred from reports. Sleepers have signalled from inside a dream with prearranged eye movements, on cue, while verifiably asleep.
- ActionBeing a child againDreamers regularly report being their childhood age with their adult mind, and accepting it entirely. The age is usually one where a great deal was encoded: the settings and the people come with it.
- ActionTime behaving wronglyThe belief that dreams happen in an instant is wrong, and it has been tested. Time in lucid dreams runs at roughly waking speed, measured by signalling from inside the dream, though the narrative can still skip enormous distances.
- ActionWatching yourselfDreams relocate the point of view far more readily than waking imagination does, and dreamers report watching themselves without finding it strange at the time. It is common, ordinary, and not the same thing as an out-of-body experience.
- ActionDreaming you are asleepDreaming that you wake up, and then waking again, sometimes several times over. The false awakening is well documented, harmless, and one of the more reliable doorways into a lucid dream.
- ActionThe same dream againRecurring dreams are common, they are more often unpleasant than pleasant, and the useful thing about them is not their content but the fact that you have a repeated measure of something.
- ActionForgetting the dreamAlmost nobody does not dream. Recall varies enormously and is affected by things you can change, which makes this the most actionable entry in the database for anybody who thinks they have nothing to record.
- ActionHaving been here beforeThe sense of having dreamt something before, or of a waking moment matching a dream, is extremely common and is explained without anything unusual. The mechanism is well described and it is worth knowing.