Dreaming about blue
Blue is rarely reported as a colour in its own right. It arrives attached to sky and water, which have their own entries, and dreamers almost never mention it unless something was blue that should not have been.
Also searched as: the colour blue, blue in a dream, blue sky, blue water
Where blue is reported, it is usually the sky or water, and the report is really about those.
The informative version is blue in the wrong place: a blue animal, blue skin, a blue room. Those are noticed and remembered, and dreamers describe them as the point of the dream.
An unusually intense blue is reported in a small group, often alongside lucidity, and belongs with the vivid-colour material in the head entry.
Blue as a mood is a modern English idiom and it does appear in reports, usually from dreamers who are already using it awake.
Common associations
- Sky and water, which is where nearly all of it comes from.
- Wrongness, in the reports where it is unexpected.
- Distance, since both sky and water recede.
- Sadness, which is an idiom rather than a tradition.
Positive readings
Clear blue sky is reported alongside the flying dreams, which are the most positively described experiences in the database.
Intense blue is described with real pleasure by the dreamers who report it.
Difficult readings
Very little. Blue skin or a blue face is reported rarely and produces alarm, usually connected to a person rather than to the colour.
Psychological perspectives
This entry is mostly a demonstration of the head entry's argument. Blue is everywhere in the world and almost never in a dream report, because it is not attended to.
That pattern, the most common colour in the environment being among the least mentioned, is good evidence that colour reporting tracks salience rather than presence.
The sadness idiom is a case of language supplying a reading. It is available in English and not in most languages, and dreamers who reach for it are reaching for a word.
Cultural and historical
Blue as protective, particularly against the evil eye, is a widespread and living practice across the Mediterranean, the Middle East and beyond, and the blue eye amulet is one of the most recognisable objects in the world.
Blue is expensive historically, and in European religious art it was reserved for particular figures because the pigment cost more than gold.
The association with sadness is English idiom, recent, and does not travel.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: colour reporting in dreams tracks salience rather than presence, of which this is a clear case.
Not established: any meaning for blue.
Your own context
- Was it the sky or water?
- Was anything blue that should not have been?
- How intense was it?
- Do you use blue to mean sad?
If this recurs
Rarely worth a note as a colour. Where blue is attached to sky or water, log those.
Emotions often reported
- calm
- peace
- melancholy
- wonder
- detachment
- awe
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Was it just the sky?
- Was anything blue that should not be?
- Did I notice it at the time?
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 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.
- 2.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.
- 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 blue 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.
- ColourColour in dreamsMost people report dreaming in colour, and most dream reports never mention it. Both are true, and the gap between them is why a colour you remember clearly is worth a line in the journal and a colour you had to think about probably is not.
- SymbolWaterWater is the most frequently reported dream element, and its readings are unusually consistent across traditions: emotion, the unconscious, and whatever is too large to be argued with. Depth and clarity carry most of the meaning.
- ColourBlackBlack in dream reports is usually an absence rather than a colour: a figure with no detail, water with no visible bottom, a room with no light. What dreamers are describing is most often the failure to resolve something.
- ColourBrownThe least reported colour in dream content, and the entry exists to say so. Brown is everywhere in the world and almost never mentioned, which is the attention finding at its most extreme.
- ColourGoldGold is reported as light more often than as a material, and those reports are consistently among the most positive in the database. Where it is a material, the money entry usually applies instead.
