18 records
Dream emotions
The emotion is usually the most accurate part of a dream report and the part people discard first when they go looking for a meaning. A dream about a snake that left you calm and a dream about a snake that left you sick are not the same dream, and no symbol lookup that ignores that is worth reading.
- 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.
- EmotionAnticipationThe feeling of something about to happen, sustained indefinitely and never resolved. It is the emotional signature of a large share of dreams and it is produced by a structural feature rather than by anything in the dream.
- 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.
- EmotionDisgustDisgust is not a variety of fear, and treating it as one loses the most useful distinction in this part of the database. It has different triggers, a different function and a different profile, and a large group of dream images produce it exclusively.
- EmotionEmbarrassmentThe emotion behind one of the few genuinely near-universal dreams. Social exposure appears in typical-dream surveys across countries and decades, and embarrassment rather than fear is what those dreams produce.
- EmotionFearFear is the most commonly reported dream emotion in most content analyses. A frightening dream is not unusual and is not by itself a sign of anything wrong.
- EmotionGriefGrief dreams are a normal and well-studied part of bereavement, and a large proportion of people who have them describe them as comforting rather than painful.
- EmotionGuiltThe clearest case in the database of an emotion arriving before its cause. Dreamers routinely report overwhelming guilt with no offence attached, and the offence is missing because there never was one.
- EmotionHelplessnessHelplessness is one of the most reported dream feelings, and it has an unusually strong physiological contributor: during REM sleep the body genuinely cannot act, and dreams frequently build a story around that.
- EmotionJealousyJealousy dreams are watching dreams. The characteristic structure is observing something the dreamer is not part of, with no ability to intervene, and it produces a feeling that persists into waking more reliably than most.
- EmotionJoyPositive dreams are under-reported rather than uncommon, because people record what disturbs them. That reporting bias distorts what everybody believes about their own dreams, including this database until it is corrected for.
- EmotionLonelinessLoneliness in dreams is produced by absence where presence is expected rather than by being alone, and that distinction is what separates a peaceful empty beach from an empty city.
- EmotionNostalgiaNostalgic dreams are usually about a time rather than a thing, and they cluster around transitions, as though the mind reaches back when the ground shifts.
- 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.
- EmotionReliefMost relief in dreaming happens on waking rather than in the dream, and that moment is worth understanding: it is the point at which the dreaming state ends and the emotion it produced has not yet caught up.
- EmotionShameShame dreams are unusually social. They nearly always involve being seen. Being naked in public is the classic form and one of the most reported dreams in every survey.
- EmotionWonderAwe-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.
