People
Dream characters are drawn from whoever a dreamer has encountered recently and often, weighted by exposure rather than by significance. Most of these entries exist to say that.
27 records
- PersonMotherMothers are among the most frequently reported dream figures at every age. Reports cluster around care, judgement and the version of her from a specific period of your life, often not the current one.
- PersonFatherFather dreams cluster around authority, approval and protection more than around care. As with mothers, the version of him that appears (his age, the era, the house) usually carries more than what he does.
- PersonEx-partnerDreaming about an ex does not mean they are thinking about you, missing you, or coming back. It is one of the most common dreams there is, it usually reflects unfinished processing rather than a connection, and it can happen years after you have stopped caring.
- PersonStrangerUnknown figures make up a large share of dream characters. Most are scenery. The ones worth recording are the ones the dreamer felt something specific about, without being told anything.
- PersonChildChildren in dreams are reported very differently depending on whether the dreamer has children. For parents they are usually literal and anxious; for others they more often carry vulnerability, potential or the dreamer at that age.
- PersonCelebrityCelebrity dreams are usually about what the person represents rather than the person, and they track media exposure closely. They say nothing about the celebrity and, in most cases, not much about the dreamer either.
- 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.
- PersonFaceless personFaces are one of the things dreaming struggles to hold steady, so a figure without a clear face is common and mechanically unremarkable. It becomes significant when the facelessness is the point, when the dreamer notices and reacts to it.
- PersonChildhood friendDreams of childhood friends are usually reported as being about a time rather than a person, and they cluster around periods of change, as though the mind reaches for an earlier version of the dreamer.
- PersonUnknown romantic partnerDreaming of a romantic partner you have never met is common and is not a preview of anyone real. The figure is assembled from memory and expectation, which is why they so often have no clear face.
- PersonBabyOne of the most reported figures there is, and the reports are dominated by responsibility rather than by the child. The single most common version is a baby the dreamer has forgotten about and suddenly remembers.
- PersonSiblingSiblings appear at the age they were rather than the age they are, more consistently than any other figure. Dreamers report an adult brother as a child, in a childhood house, without noticing anything odd.
- PersonGrandparentGrandparents are among the most frequently dreamt-of dead, and the reports are consistently gentle. The characteristic dream has them alive, well, and doing something entirely ordinary in a house that no longer exists.
- PersonPartnerThe person a dreamer lives with is among the most frequent dream characters, which is exactly what the continuity finding predicts. The reports worth attention are the ones where the partner is present but wrong.
- PersonBossA boss appears in dreams for the same reason a colleague does, which is availability rather than significance. The reports cluster on being assessed, and they belong with the examination material more than with the people material.
- PersonTeacherTeachers appear decades after anybody has been taught by them, and they appear with the school. The pairing is so consistent that these reports are usually better logged as school dreams than as person dreams.
- PersonPolicePolice in dreams are reported almost entirely in one role: the discovery of something the dreamer has done. Whether they have actually done anything is beside the point, and usually the dream does not say.
- PersonDoctorDoctors appear in dreams mostly around waiting and around being told something. The reports are dominated by an appointment that does not happen and by a diagnosis the dreamer cannot afterwards recall.
- PersonFriendFriends appear in dreams in proportion to how often they are seen rather than how much they matter, which is why a colleague can outrank somebody the dreamer loves. That is the most useful and least intuitive fact here.
- PersonNeighbourNeighbours are a good demonstration of the availability rule at its plainest: people who matter very little and are seen constantly appear far more than the frequency of the relationship would suggest.
- PersonCrowdA crowd in a dream is not a lot of individuals. Dreamers consistently report being unable to say who was there, and that vagueness is the most informative thing about these reports.
- PersonSomeone alive appearing deadA frequently searched and genuinely frightening dream, and the answer is unambiguous: dreaming that a living person has died is not a premonition, and there is no evidence that dreams predict deaths.
- PersonSomebody who was two peopleAlmost every dreamer has had one and almost every dreamer assumes it is peculiar to them. A person who is unmistakably two people at once, or who is one person wearing another's face, is common and follows directly from how dream characters are made.
- PersonSomebody who knows youA person the dreamer does not recognise, who clearly knows them, and the dreamer goes along with it. The social awkwardness of not being able to admit it is the reported content, which is a very specific thing for a dream to produce.
- PersonA twin or doubleTwo of somebody is reported, accepted at the time, and found strange only on waking. It is distinct from the doppelganger, which is specifically seeing yourself, and it produces nothing like the same unease.
- PersonA colleagueThe purest demonstration of the availability finding in the database. People report dreaming about colleagues they barely think about, and are troubled by it, and the explanation is simply that they see them constantly.
- PersonA soldierFor most dreamers a soldier is a costume: a figure carrying authority and threat with no personal experience behind it. For people who have served or lived through conflict it is not, and those reports belong with the trauma material rather than here.