Dreaming about ears and hearing
Hearing failures are reported more than hearing itself, which fits the general scarcity of sound in dreams: it is easier for a dream to produce the absence of hearing than the content of it.
Also searched as: ringing in my ears, muffled hearing, going deaf in a dream, a sound i cannot place
Muffled or distant sound is the characteristic report, and dreamers describe hearing as though through something.
Being unable to locate a sound is the second theme and connects directly to the voices material, where a sound with no source is common.
Ringing is reported and, where somebody has tinnitus awake, it appears in dreams, which is an ordinary and clean continuity effect.
Not being heard is a separate matter entirely and belongs with the being-ignored and speech-failure entries, though dreamers frequently conflate the two.
Common associations
- Absence of hearing, easier to generate than hearing.
- A sound that cannot be located.
- Real tinnitus, where it exists.
- Not being heard, which is a different dream.
Positive readings
Little directly. The distinction between not hearing and not being heard is the useful content, because dreamers who separate them usually find they belong to different patterns.
Difficult readings
Mild. The unlocatable sound produces the standard sustained unease.
Where real hearing loss or tinnitus is involved, the dream is reflecting it.
Psychological perspectives
Auditory content is under-produced in dreams generally, so a dream about hearing badly requires the dream to generate less rather than more, which is the easier direction.
That is a small but genuine insight: dreams are better at failures of perception than at perception, and the same is true of the text, sight and taste findings.
External sounds are readily incorporated and a real noise may be the unlocatable one.
Cultural and historical
Hearing as understanding is embedded in language everywhere, and deafness has been used as a metaphor in ways that are frequently offensive to people who are actually deaf.
The database notes that rather than reproducing the metaphor, and records that Deaf dreamers report dreams in their own languages, which is a fact about dreaming that most dream writing has simply never mentioned.
What the sleep science says
Well documented: auditory content is reported far less often in dreams than visual content.
Well established: external sounds are incorporated into dream content.
Documented: Deaf dreamers report dream content in signed languages, which most dream literature omits.
Your own context
- Could you hear anything at all?
- Was there a sound you could not place?
- Do you have tinnitus?
- Was it not hearing, or not being heard?
If this recurs
Log which of the two it was. That single split usually sorts these reports correctly.
Emotions often reported
- confusion
- unease
- frustration
- alarm
- detachment
- loneliness
Specific ears and hearing dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Could I hear anything?
- Was there a sound I could not place?
- Was it hearing or being heard?
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.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.
- 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.Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical ResearchAcademic book
Jennifer M. Windt (2015) · MIT Press
Cited for: A modern philosophical treatment of what dreams are, including the immersive-spatiotemporal-hallucination account and the status of dream reports as evidence.
- 4.Sleep Paralysis and the Structure of Waking-Nightmare HallucinationsPeer-reviewed research
J. Allan Cheyne (2003) · Dreaming
Cited for: The three-factor structure of sleep-paralysis hallucinations (intruder, incubus and vestibular-motor experiences) which accounts for the recurring "presence in the room" and "pressure on the chest" reports.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of ears and hearing 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 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.
- SymbolVoicesA voice with no speaker is one of the more common auditory reports, and where it happens at the edge of sleep it has a specific and well-documented explanation that has nothing to do with meaning.
- SymbolSilenceMost dreams are quieter than dreamers realise, so silence is usually only noticed when it is doing something: a scene that should have sound and does not, which produces a specific and hard-to-name unease.
- SymbolKnockingA knock is one of the most likely dream sounds to have been real, and it is worth checking that first. It is also one of the few dream events that reliably wakes people.
- SymbolA crackCracks are one of the few things dreams reliably show growing, which is unusual: dreams produce states far more readily than transitions, and a spreading crack is a transition being watched.
- SymbolA holeA hole is an absence with edges, and dreams handle it the way they handle every absence: the edges are generated and what is beyond them is not. Dreamers report being unable to see in, and being certain about what is there.
Records that mention ears and hearing
These pages link to ears and hearing, 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.