Weather, water and the land
The sky, the sea, what grows and what is buried. The approach is reported far more often than the arrival, in storms and in waves alike.
44 records
- SymbolRainRain is one of the most common weather conditions in dream reports and one of the least dramatic. It usually sets the tone rather than driving the dream, and the reported feeling ranges from cleansing to grim with no consistent pattern.
- SymbolStormStorms are among the more emotionally intense weather reports and behave in dreams the way threats behave: the dreamer is looking for shelter, watching it approach, or already inside it. The approach is reported more often than the impact.
- SymbolFogFog is reported less often than rain or storms and is more consistent in what it does: it removes information. The reports are about not being able to see rather than about anything in the fog.
- SymbolSnowSnow is reported for silence more than for cold. Dreamers describe the quiet of it first and the temperature rarely, which is consistent with how weakly dreams reproduce temperature at all.
- SymbolWindWind is one of the few things in a dream that is felt as much as seen, and dreamers report force against the body more than they report anything visual. It is also the most likely weather to be a real sound in the room.
- SymbolLightningLightning is reported for its suddenness and for what it reveals rather than for danger. The characteristic report is a landscape briefly lit, and dreamers remember what they saw rather than the flash.
- SymbolSunThe sun is rarely looked at in dreams and frequently behaves impossibly: in the wrong place, more than one of them, or shining without lighting anything. That misbehaviour is more useful than any reading.
- SymbolSkyThe sky is the single best reality check in a dream, because it is large, always present, and almost never right. Dreamers who learn to look up report noticing more inconsistencies there than anywhere else.
- SymbolStarsStars are reported for scale and for wrongness. Dreamers describe a night sky as overwhelming rather than pretty, and constellations that do not exist are one of the more common impossibilities people notice afterwards.
- SymbolCloudsClouds are the part of a dream sky most likely to behave impossibly, because motion is expensive to generate and dreams do not bother. Clouds that do not move, or that move far too fast, are extremely common.
- SymbolRainbowRainbows are reported rarely and almost always positively, which makes them unusual. They are also frequently wrong: in the wrong place relative to the sun, doubled oddly, or persisting far longer than one can.
- SymbolEclipseReported rarely and remembered for years by those who report it. The characteristic feature is not darkness but wrongness of time: daylight failing at the wrong hour, which dreamers find more disturbing than night would be.
- EventEarthquakeThe one dream where the thing that fails is the ground itself, and dreamers report that specifically: not danger, but the loss of the one thing that is supposed to be reliable.
- SymbolTreeTrees are reported as fixed points. Dreamers describe a single tree in a landscape, remember its position precisely, and return to it across dreams more often than to almost any other object.
- SymbolFlowersFlowers are among the few dream images where colour is reliably noticed, which is unusual given how little colour is reported generally. Where a flower is remembered, its colour usually is too.
- SymbolFruitFruit is reported for its state rather than its kind: ripe, unripe, or rotten. Taste is almost never reported, which constrains what a fruit dream can be about far more than the traditions suggest.
- SymbolGrassGrass is almost never the subject of a dream and is reported constantly as ground. Where it becomes the subject, it is because it is too long, and that version carries a specific and quite mild guilt.
- SymbolLeavesLeaves are one of the few things dreams reliably show in motion, and falling leaves are reported far more than leaves on a tree. Motion is expensive for a dream to generate, so this is worth noticing.
- SymbolRootsRoots are reported for one thing above all: extent. Dreamers describe a root system far larger than the plant above it, and describe knowing that without seeing it.
- SymbolSeedsSeeds are reported through the act rather than the object: planting, scattering, or finding some. The dream almost never shows what happens next, which is the most consistent thing about them.
- SymbolWeedsWeeds are the plant version of the multiplication reports that run through the insect, rat and rabbit entries: they increase faster than they can be dealt with, and the dreamer never finishes.
- SymbolThornsOne of the few dream images that reliably produces pain, which is rare enough to be the most interesting thing about it. Dreams under-report pain badly, and thorns are an exception worth noting.
- EventHarvestThe subject of the single most famous dream interpretation ever recorded, and dreamers still invoke it unprompted. The seven fat and seven lean years is doing more work in these reports than anything about agriculture.
- PlaceGraveyardGraveyard dreams are reported as calm far more often than as frightening, which surprises most people. The distressing versions almost always involve a specific grave rather than the place.
- PlaceRuinsRuins are reported with curiosity rather than dread, and dreamers describe exploring them. What separates them from the abandoned-building reports is time: a ruin has been empty long enough that nobody is expected.
- PlaceCastleCastles are almost entirely supplied by fiction, which makes them a useful case: for most dreamers this is an image with no personal experience behind it at all, and the reports show it.
- PlaceTowerA tower is a height dream with an interior, and the reports divide by direction: going up is effort, being at the top is exposure, and going down is reported as worse than either.
- PlaceWellA well is a hole with water at the bottom of it, and the reports are about the looking rather than the water. Dreamers describe being drawn to look down, and describe not being able to see the bottom.
- PlaceCrossroadsThe road entry notes that forks are far less common in dream reports than dream dictionaries suggest. This entry covers what is actually reported, which is a junction where the decision is somehow already unavailable.
- PlaceFarmFarms are reported very differently by people who have lived on one and people who have not, which makes this one of the clearest continuity demonstrations among the places in this database.
- PlacePlaygroundThe empty playground is one of the more reliably unsettling images in the database, and it produces unease with nothing in it at all. A place built for children with no children in it is expectation violation in its purest form.
- PlaceA place of worshipThe church entry covers one tradition. This covers the rest, and the honest position is that these dreams mean something quite different depending on whether the dreamer belongs there.
- PlaceA borderBorder dreams are document dreams, and they run into the finding that makes them almost inevitable: a passport is a piece of text with a photograph in it, and dreams can render neither.
- PlaceLakeStill water is reported for its surface. Dreamers describe the flatness, the reflection, and a reluctance to disturb it, and the reports are calm in a way no other water in this database is.
- PlaceWaterfallWaterfalls are reported for sound as much as sight, which puts them in the small group of dream images that reliably produce audio. Dreamers describe the noise first and frequently describe not being able to hear over it.
- SymbolIceIce is reported for one thing above all: bearing weight it should not. Walking on a frozen surface and listening for it to give is the characteristic image, and the listening is the part dreamers remember.
- EventFloodWater where it should not be, and the reports are almost entirely domestic: it comes into a house, and the dreamer moves things rather than leaving. The rising-water material under `water` covers the sensation; this covers the event.
- SymbolPuddleA small amount of water that behaves impossibly. Puddles in dreams are frequently deeper than they can be, and the step into one is the moment dreamers remember.
- SymbolSteam and mistDistinct from fog, which is a landscape and belongs to weather. Steam is indoors, it is warm, and it is one of the few dream images where the temperature is reported as reliably as the appearance.
- PlaceLighthouseA lighthouse is reported for the beam rather than the building, and specifically for the interval: dreamers describe the dark between passes more than the light itself.
- PlacePierA structure that takes the dreamer out over water without putting them in it, and the reports turn on the gaps: dreamers describe seeing water through the boards more than they describe the pier.
- PlaceMarketDistinct from the shop, which is a transaction that will not complete. A market is a place of looking, and the reports are about the goods refusing to resolve rather than about buying anything.
- PlaceFairgroundA place licensed to be strange, which makes it the one setting where a dream can be impossible without the dreamer noticing anything is wrong. That is worth knowing if you are trying to spot inconsistencies.
- PlaceShedA small building at the edge of a home, and the reports treat it as neither inside nor outside. What is in it is usually somebody else's, and the dreamer knows whose without being told.