53 records
Dream actions
Actions are the closest thing dream research has to a universal: falling, being chased and being unable to move show up in content analyses across every population studied. These pages cover what the action tends to carry, and where the evidence for that is stronger or weaker than the internet suggests.
- ActionA gameGames in dreams have rules the dreamer does not know and cannot ask about, and everybody else appears to know them. That structure is the clearest statement of something the first-day, examination and competition entries each describe in part.
- ActionA secretDreamers report holding a secret of enormous importance and being unable to say what it is. The weight is generated and the content is not, which makes this one of the purest examples of the pattern this database keeps finding.
- ActionBeing a child againDreamers regularly report being their childhood age with their adult mind, and accepting it entirely. The age is usually one where a great deal was encoded: the settings and the people come with it.
- 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.
- ActionBeing earlyThe counterpart to being late, and it is reported a fraction as often, which is the finding. Dreams are far better at generating a deadline missed than a deadline met, and the imbalance is enormous.
- 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.
- ActionBeing in the wrong bodyBeing somebody else, and knowing it, and continuing. It completes the identity argument: dreams assert who you are with as little regard for the evidence as they assert who anybody else is.
- ActionBeing invisibleDistinct from being ignored, which is painful. Deliberate invisibility is reported as freeing, and the same absence of response produces opposite feelings depending on whether the dreamer chose it.
- 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.
- ActionBeing naked in publicOne of the small handful of dreams reported across every population studied, alongside falling and being chased. The consistent feature is not the nakedness but the indifference of everybody else, and the shame that persists anyway.
- 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.
- 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.
- ActionBreaking somethingAccidental breakage produces a guilt out of all proportion to the object, and it is one of the most consistent emotional patterns in the database: the egg, the snail, the ring, the glass. Small damage, large feeling.
- ActionBuilding somethingWhat is built does not hold. Dreamers describe assembling something that comes apart, will not fit, or is wrong when they step back, and the stepping back is when it goes wrong.
- ActionChasing somebodyThe active counterpart of the most reported dream there is, and it is reported a fraction as often. When the dreamer is the pursuer they still do not arrive, which shows the failure belongs to the dreaming body rather than to the role.
- ActionCleaningCleaning dreams do not finish. The mess spreads, returns, or was never reduced, and the dreamer keeps going, which makes this one of the purer unresolving-task dreams in the database.
- ActionCookingCooking dreams are unfinished-task dreams with an audience. The meal is not ready, there is not enough, or something burns, and people are waiting, which is what gives them their particular pressure.
- ActionCountingDreams do not count, and once you know that a great deal of otherwise strange dream content becomes ordinary. A total recounted comes out differently, because there was never a fixed number of things.
- 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.
- 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.
- ActionDreaming you are asleepDreaming that you wake up, and then waking again, sometimes several times over. The false awakening is well documented, harmless, and one of the more reliable doorways into a lucid dream.
- ActionDrinkingThe dream most likely in this whole file to be reporting a real bodily state. Thirst during sleep is genuine, common and readily incorporated, and the report is frequently the body rather than the mind.
- ActionDrowningDrowning dreams combine water with suffocation, and the breathing element deserves checking first: nasal congestion, sleep apnoea and a heavy duvet all plausibly contribute.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- ActionFollowing somebodyQuieter than chasing and quite different: the dreamer keeps pace rather than closing, and the person ahead does not know or does not mind. It is one of the few pursuit structures that does not fail.
- 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.
- ActionForgetting the dreamAlmost nobody does not dream. Recall varies enormously and is affected by things you can change, which makes this the most actionable entry in the database for anybody who thinks they have nothing to record.
- ActionGetting lostDistinct from searching, which is looking for a thing. This is not knowing where you are, and the reports centre on a specific and quite eerie experience: a place you know well that has stopped being navigable.
- ActionGoing back somewhereReturn dreams are the most reported form of nostalgia in the database, and the characteristic detail is that the place is smaller, or wrong, or already occupied by somebody else.
- ActionHaving been here beforeThe sense of having dreamt something before, or of a waking moment matching a dream, is extremely common and is explained without anything unusual. The mechanism is well described and it is worth knowing.
- 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.
- ActionHiding somethingDistinct from hiding yourself, which has its own entry. Concealing an object produces two failures in sequence: the hiding place is never good enough, and the dreamer cannot afterwards remember where it was.
- 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.
- ActionJumpingA deliberate leap, which distinguishes it from falling entirely. What dreamers report is a jump that goes further and slower than it should, and that over-performance is the opposite of every other motor report here.
- 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.
- 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.
- ActionKnowing you are dreamingLucid dreaming is one of the few things in this entire database that has been demonstrated in a laboratory rather than inferred from reports. Sleepers have signalled from inside a dream with prearranged eye movements, on cue, while verifiably asleep.
- 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.
- 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.
- ActionRefusingDreamers almost never refuse anything, and that is the finding. This database is full of dreamers complying with absurd instructions, accepting impossible situations and answering to wrong names, and an entry for the exception is the right way to end.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- ActionThe same dream againRecurring dreams are common, they are more often unpleasant than pleasant, and the useful thing about them is not their content but the fact that you have a repeated measure of something.
- ActionTime behaving wronglyThe belief that dreams happen in an instant is wrong, and it has been tested. Time in lucid dreams runs at roughly waking speed, measured by signalling from inside the dream, though the narrative can still skip enormous distances.
- ActionVomitingOne of the small number of dreams where the physical explanation should be checked before anything else, and where being unable to complete the act is reported more than the act itself.
- ActionWaitingA large share of dreams contain waiting and almost none contain the arrival. It is the most common unresolved structure in the database and it runs through the station, doctor, bank, queue and anticipation reports alike.
- ActionWatching yourselfDreams relocate the point of view far more readily than waking imagination does, and dreamers report watching themselves without finding it strange at the time. It is common, ordinary, and not the same thing as an out-of-body experience.
- ActionWritingThe text finding from the other side. Dreamers can no more produce stable writing than read it: the words do not stay, the pen does not work, or the sentence is gone by the time the next one is written.
