Dreaming about wonder
Awe-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.
Also searched as: awe, amazement, the sublime
Some dreams are remembered for a lifetime. They are usually not the frightening ones. They are the ones that produced awe.
Researchers have studied these under headings like impactful dreams or significant dreams, and they share features: unusual vividness, strong positive emotion, a sense of meaning that survives waking scrutiny, and remarkable durability of recall.
Dreamers of every belief position report them, including committed materialists, and they frequently describe them as among the most important experiences of their lives. This site takes that seriously without making any claim about where they come from.
Common associations
- Scale. Enormous skies, oceans, light, landscape.
- Meaning, felt directly rather than inferred.
- The numinous, in the technical sense.
- Beauty, which dreamers report as beyond what they can construct awake.
Positive readings
The entire entry. Dreamers describe lasting effects: mood, perspective, and in some cases decisions.
Flying, water, light and the moon are the settings most reported.
Difficult readings
Only the loss on waking, and the difficulty of conveying it to anyone else. Dreamers frequently report trying to describe such a dream and finding it sounds like nothing.
Psychological perspectives
Jung treated numinous dreams as psychologically significant regardless of belief, and this is one of the places that framing has aged well.
Contemporary work on impactful dreams finds they are associated with strong emotional intensity, high vividness and long-term recall, and that they occur across belief positions.
Whether such a dream is meaningful is not a question a study can settle. That it feels meaningful, durably, is measurable, and this page says exactly that much.
Cultural and historical
Revelatory dreams are treated as significant in almost every religious tradition on record, frequently with formal procedures for distinguishing genuine ones. Recorded as belief.
What the sleep science says
Impactful or highly significant dreams are a real reported category, characterised by intensity, vividness and durable recall, occurring across cultures and belief positions.
Nothing beyond that, and this page does not pretend otherwise.
Your own context
- What was the scale of it?
- Do you still remember it clearly? How long ago?
- Did it change anything?
- Have you ever tried to tell anyone?
If this recurs
Rare as recurring. Worth recording in as much detail as possible when it happens. Dreamers who did not write these down almost always regret it.
Specific wonder dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- What was the scale of it?
- How much do I still remember?
- Did it change how I felt about anything?
- Can I describe it to someone else, or does it sound like nothing?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
3 references. What these labels mean
- 1.Man and His SymbolsPsychology literature
Carl Jung and others (1964) · Aldus Books
Cited for: The amplification method, the compensatory function of dreams, and the archetypal reading of recurring figures such as the shadow.
- 2.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
- 3.The Content Analysis of DreamsAcademic book
Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle (1966) · Appleton-Century-Crofts
Cited for: The standard coding system for dream content, and the normative frequencies that later studies are compared against. The reason claims like "aggression is more common in dreams than friendliness" can be stated numerically at all.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of wonder have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- 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.
- SymbolMoonThe moon is one of the few dream symbols people usually report positively. It appears more often as light and atmosphere than as an object, and reports cluster around calm, strangeness and being watched over rather than watched.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.