Dreaming about aeroplane
The first thing to establish is that this is not a flying dream. Unaided flight is one of the most positively reported experiences there is; being a passenger in an aircraft is reported almost entirely in terms of turbulence, crashes and not being in control.
Also searched as: plane, airplane, flight, plane crash, turbulence, airport
The contrast with unaided flight is the most useful fact in this entry, and dreamers are often surprised by it. Flying under your own power is exhilarating and frequently lucid. Sitting in an aeroplane is not.
The reported versions cluster on descent: turbulence, an engine failing, a landing that will not come, and the crash itself. Dreamers often describe the crash as observed rather than experienced, and many describe watching from outside the aircraft.
Missing the flight is common and belongs with the being-late material rather than here.
A smaller group describes flights that are ordinary and uneventful, usually in the middle of a dream about something else, and these carry nothing distinctive.
Common associations
- Control surrendered completely, more so than any other vehicle.
- Height without the pleasure of it, which is what separates this from flying.
- Confinement, the part dreamers with claustrophobia report most strongly.
- A journey whose outcome is not yours to affect.
Positive readings
Not much, and the honest answer is that the positive material lives in the flying entry instead.
What is worth knowing is that a dreamer who notices they are in an aircraft and wonders whether they could simply fly instead is very close to lucidity, and some report making exactly that transition.
Difficult readings
The crash version is a genuine nightmare for some dreamers and is worth taking at face value: it is frightening.
Where someone has a real fear of flying, the reports track it closely, which is an ordinary continuity effect and not a sign of anything.
Psychological perspectives
Threat simulation is a reasonable fit for the crash reports, though with a modern object filling an old template. A dream rehearsing catastrophe will use whatever catastrophe the culture supplies.
The interesting feature is the dissociation. Watching your own aircraft crash from outside it is reported often, and dreams do this with other catastrophes too. It suggests the narrative can detach from the dreamer's position more easily than waking imagination does.
Continuity accounts for who has these dreams, and fear of flying is the strongest single predictor in the reports.
Cultural and historical
A century old, so there is no tradition, and dictionaries assigning it a settled meaning are inventing it.
What there is instead is a very heavy load of news and film imagery, which is available to everybody and is probably supplying most of the content.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: the prominence of threat and catastrophe in dream content generally.
Well established: dream content follows waking fears and preoccupations.
Not established: any meaning for aircraft specifically, and no tradition exists to appeal to.
Your own context
- Were you flying the plane, in it, or watching it?
- Was it the flight or the crash?
- Are you afraid of flying awake?
- Could you have flown without it?
If this recurs
Recurring crash dreams alongside a real fear of flying track the fear and usually respond to it rather than to interpretation.
Where the recurring element is missing the flight rather than the flight itself, log it with the being-late group.
Emotions often reported
- dread
- helplessness
- panic
- alarm
- detachment
- terror
Specific aeroplane dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What happened
Where it happened
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Was I a passenger or watching from outside?
- What went wrong, and when did I know?
- How do I feel about flying awake?
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.The Reinterpretation of Dreams: An Evolutionary Hypothesis of the Function of DreamingPeer-reviewed research
Antti Revonsuo (2000) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Cited for: The threat-simulation hypothesis. That the over-representation of threatening content in dreams may be functional rather than incidental.
- 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.Gender Differences in Dream Recall: A Meta-AnalysisPeer-reviewed research
Michael Schredl and Iris Reinhard (2008) · Journal of Sleep Research
Cited for: Dream-recall frequency as a measurable, individually stable trait, and the factors that move it.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of aeroplane 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
- ActionBeing lateOne of the most widely reported dreams there is, and one of the most consistent in structure: a deadline, an obstacle that keeps multiplying, and no arrival. The dream is far better at producing the obstacle than at producing the outcome.
- EventAccidentAccident dreams are common and, for anyone who has been in a real accident, may be trauma-related rather than symbolic, which is a different thing needing different handling.
- 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.
- 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.
- PlaceLiftLift dreams are about not being in control of where you end up. The reports are dominated by lifts that do not stop where they were asked to, that move sideways or too fast, or that open onto somewhere that should not be 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.
If you have this one often
A dream that frightens you and keeps coming back is its own subject. The nightmares section covers what is known about why they recur, the one rewriting technique with real evidence behind it, and when a nightmare stops being a dream problem and becomes something a clinician should hear about.
Records that mention aeroplane
These pages link to aeroplane, either as something reported in the same dream or as a related subject. This page does not point back at all of them, so the list is assembled rather than chosen.