Dreaming about clouds
Clouds are the part of a dream sky most likely to behave impossibly, because motion is expensive to generate and dreams do not bother. Clouds that do not move, or that move far too fast, are extremely common.
Also searched as: a cloudy sky, clouds in a dream, dark clouds, walking on clouds
Motion is where it goes wrong. Dreamers report clouds frozen in place, or racing, or changing shape while watched, and rarely question it at the time.
Gathering darkness is the second theme and belongs with the storm material, which weather.js covers.
Being above cloud is a distinct and positive group and sits with the flying reports.
Standing or walking on cloud appears in a small number of reports and is described with a matter-of-factness that dreamers find funny afterwards.
Common associations
- Motion that is wrong, the most useful observation.
- Gathering, in the storm reports.
- Being above them, in the flying ones.
- Solidity that should not be there.
Positive readings
Above-cloud reports share the elation of the flying dreams and are described in the same terms.
Cloud motion is a good reality check and one that requires only a few seconds of looking.
Difficult readings
Little that is specific. Darkening cloud carries the storm material rather than its own.
Psychological perspectives
Continuous motion has to be generated continuously, and dreams generate what is attended to. A cloud that is not being watched has no reason to move, which is a fair description of what dreamers report.
That makes it a useful check, and it is a slightly more subtle one than hands or text because it requires a few seconds rather than a glance.
Walking on cloud is the usual absence of physical modelling: nothing enforces that cloud cannot bear weight.
Cultural and historical
Clouds as the dwelling place or the vehicle of the divine appear in a number of traditions, and the cloud as a concealing presence is specific and recurrent in some religious texts.
The modern reading of clouds as gloom is idiomatic and shallow by comparison.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: dreams generate detail and motion only where attention falls.
Well documented: the use of environmental inconsistency as a reality check.
Not established: any meaning for clouds.
Your own context
- Were they moving?
- Did they move at a sensible speed?
- Were you above them?
- Did you watch long enough to tell?
If this recurs
Log with the sky reports. This is a component of a dream sky rather than a subject in itself.
Emotions often reported
- calm
- unease
- wonder
- anticipation
- detachment
- melancholy
Specific clouds 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.
- Were they moving at all?
- Was the speed sensible?
- Did I watch them for a few seconds?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
4 references. What these labels mean
- 1.Lucid Dreaming Verified by Volitional Communication During REM SleepPeer-reviewed research
Stephen LaBerge, Lynne Nagel, William Dement and Vincent Zarcone (1980) · Perceptual and Motor Skills
Cited for: The eye-signalling experiments that established lucid dreaming as a verifiable state rather than a self-report.
- 2.Induction of Lucid Dreams: A Systematic Review of EvidencePeer-reviewed research
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Melanie Schädlich and Michael Schredl (2012) · Consciousness and Cognition
Cited for: That no induction technique has strong evidence of reliable effectiveness, and that the better-supported ones are cognitive rather than external.
- 3.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.
- 4.The dream narratives of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (Genesis 20, 28, 37 and 40 to 41; Daniel 2, 4 and 7; Matthew 1 to 2 and 27; Acts 10 and 16)Religious or philosophical text
Various, compiled
Cited for: What the biblical texts themselves record about dreams: that they are treated as a channel of divine communication, that interpretation is presented as a gift rather than a technique, and which specific dreams and readings appear. Cited for what the text says, never as evidence about dreaming.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of clouds 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
- SymbolStormStorms are among the more emotionally intense weather reports and behave in dreams the way threats behave: the dreamer is looking for shelter, watching it approach, or already inside it. The approach is reported more often than the impact.
- SymbolFogFog is reported less often than rain or storms and is more consistent in what it does: it removes information. The reports are about not being able to see rather than about anything in the fog.
- SymbolSkyThe sky is the single best reality check in a dream, because it is large, always present, and almost never right. Dreamers who learn to look up report noticing more inconsistencies there than anywhere else.
- 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.
- SymbolBookBooks are reported almost entirely through the failure to read them, and that failure is one of the few dream phenomena with a solid explanation behind it: text in dreams is genuinely unstable.
- SymbolClockClocks in dreams are notoriously unreliable, the time changes when you look twice, and that instability is a well-known feature of dreaming rather than a symbol. Where clocks do carry meaning, it is almost always about lateness.
