What you do
Falling, flying, being chased, hiding, and what happens between people. The actions people report most, including the ones readers arrive frightened of.
22 records
- ActionFallingFalling is one of the most reported dreams in every population studied. The jolt that often accompanies it, a hypnic jerk, is a well-understood physiological event, and it is frequently the cause of the dream rather than its result.
- 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.
- ActionFlyingFlying is the most positively reported dream experience there is, and the most strongly associated with lucidity. Many people who realise they are dreaming try to fly, and many who fly realise they are dreaming.
- 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.
- ActionDrowningDrowning dreams combine water with suffocation, and the breathing element deserves checking first: nasal congestion, sleep apnoea and a heavy duvet all plausibly contribute.
- ActionHidingHiding dreams are the quiet half of the chase family. Reports centre on the effort of staying still and silent, and on the specific dread of being found rather than caught.
- ActionFightingAggression is more common in dreams than friendliness: one of the firmest findings in dream research. The recurring peculiarity is that punches in dreams frequently have no force behind them.
- ActionSearchingSearching dreams almost never resolve. That is not a symbol (dreams are structurally poor at completing a search) but what is being looked for, and for whom, is worth recording.
- 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.
- ActionInfidelityOne of the most searched dreams there is, and one where the honest answer is also the reassuring one: a dream of infidelity is not evidence that anybody has been unfaithful, and it is not a premonition. It is, reliably, a dream about the fear.
- ActionKissingKissing dreams are reported far more for who than for what, and the most common complaint is that the person made no sense. That mismatch is the whole subject of this entry.
- ActionBeing ignoredA widely reported and rarely written-about dream: the dreamer speaks, acts or arrives, and nobody responds. It is closely related to the dreams where the voice will not work, and the two are often the same experience described differently.
- ActionSaving someoneRescue dreams are effort dreams, and they almost never succeed. The characteristic report is reaching for somebody and not closing the distance, which is the same structure as the receding summit and the endless search.
- ActionCryingCrying 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.
- ActionEatingEating is reported far less than people expect, and taste almost never. What dreamers describe is usually the situation around a meal rather than the meal, and the interruption of eating is more reported than eating itself.
- ActionSwimmingSwimming is one of the few water dreams that is usually pleasant, and it separates cleanly from drowning: the dreamer is in control, moving, and breathing. Where any of those three fails the report becomes a different dream entirely.
- ActionDancingDancing is reported rarely and almost always positively, which makes it unusual in a database where most entries exist because something went wrong. Where it goes wrong, it is the music that fails rather than the dancing.
- ActionLaughingLaughter in dreams is under-reported and worth taking seriously, partly because it is one of the few dream states that carries into waking. Dreamers wake laughing, and are usually unable to explain why.
- ActionDyingThe folk belief that dying in a dream kills you is false, and it is the first thing this entry should say. People dream of their own deaths regularly, report it, and are here to report it.
- ActionKilling someonePeople arrive at this entry frightened of what the dream says about them, so the answer comes first: dream content does not indicate intent, desire or character. This is well supported, and it is the most important sentence on the page.
- ActionForgetting somethingA quiet, extremely common dream that is rarely written about: the certainty that something important has been forgotten, with no ability to say what. The not-knowing is the entire content.
- ActionPrayingPraying in a dream is reported by the devout and the non-religious alike, which is the first notable thing about it. The second is that dreamers frequently report being unable to complete it.