Dreaming about heart
The heart is the body part most likely to be reporting something real. Heart rate genuinely rises during REM and during nightmares, and a dream about a racing heart is frequently a dream about a racing heart.
Also searched as: heartbeat, heart racing, chest pain in a dream, heart attack dream
The commonest report is awareness of the beat: hearing it, feeling it, or being unable to ignore it, usually with nothing else happening.
Chest tightness and pressure form a second group. That combination has a well-known non-cardiac explanation in sleep paralysis, where chest pressure is one of the most consistently reported sensations, and the bedroom entry covers it.
Dreams of a heart attack are reported and are frightening, and the honest position is that they are not diagnostic and that real symptoms are a medical matter regardless of what a dream did.
A heart as an object, rather than as a sensation, is reported rarely and usually in the symbolic register.
Common associations
- A real physiological signal, which is the first consideration.
- Chest pressure, which sleep paralysis produces reliably.
- Fear, which raises heart rate and is raised by it.
- Love, in the symbolic register, which is a late and largely Western reading.
Positive readings
Little, though understanding the sleep paralysis connection removes a great deal of fear for people who have chest-pressure experiences, and that is a real benefit.
Difficult readings
These dreams can be frightening and can leave a person genuinely worried about their heart.
The database is clear on this and will not hedge it: chest pain, breathlessness or a persistent irregular heartbeat is something to raise with a doctor, and a dream is neither a reason to worry nor a reason not to. What happens in a dream has no bearing on whether a symptom needs looking at.
Psychological perspectives
Autonomic activity varies substantially during REM sleep, and heart rate and breathing become irregular. Nightmares are accompanied by measurable arousal.
So a dream in which the heart is pounding is very often accompanying an actual rise, and the dream is reporting rather than predicting.
Chest pressure in sleep paralysis is separately documented and is one of the most consistent features of those reports across cultures and centuries.
Cultural and historical
The heart is the seat of thought, judgement or the self in a great many traditions, and treating it as the seat of the emotions specifically is a relatively narrow and late convention.
In ancient Egyptian belief the heart was weighed after death, and it was the organ retained rather than removed, which is a specific and well-documented practice.
The modern heart shape is medieval and European and has nothing to do with the organ.
What the sleep science says
Well established: autonomic variability during REM sleep, and measurable arousal accompanying nightmares.
Well established: chest pressure as a consistent feature of sleep paralysis.
Not established, and stated plainly: any diagnostic capability. Dreams do not detect heart disease.
Your own context
- Was your heart actually racing when you woke?
- Was there pressure on your chest?
- Could you move?
- Do you have any real symptoms?
If this recurs
Recurring chest pressure with immobility on waking is sleep paralysis and the sleep-science material applies.
Recurring real symptoms are a matter for a doctor and not for a journal, and that distinction is the most important thing on this page.
Emotions often reported
- panic
- dread
- alarm
- terror
- urgency
- relief
Specific heart 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.
- Was my heart racing when I woke?
- Was there pressure on my chest?
- Could I move?
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.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.
- 2.Nightmares: A New Neurocognitive ModelPeer-reviewed research
Tore Nielsen and Ross Levin (2007) · Sleep Medicine Reviews
Cited for: A model of nightmare production combining affect load and affect distress, and the distinction between bad dreams and nightmares proper.
- 3.The AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events: Rules, Terminology and Technical SpecificationsSleep medicine
Conrad Iber and colleagues, for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (2007) · American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Cited for: The current clinical standard for how sleep stages are scored, including the EEG frequency criteria that define each stage.
- 4.Lifetime Prevalence Rates of Sleep Paralysis: A Systematic ReviewPeer-reviewed research
Brian Sharpless and Jacques Barber (2011) · Sleep Medicine Reviews
Cited for: Prevalence estimates for sleep paralysis across general, student and psychiatric populations.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of heart 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
- SymbolIllnessDreams do not detect illness. That is the most important sentence here, and it needs saying because the opposite claim is common, is frightening, and has no evidence behind it.
- PlaceBedroomThe bedroom is the one setting where a dream can be mistaken for the room you are actually in, and that makes it different from every other entry here. A large share of frightening bedroom dreams are sleep paralysis rather than dreams about a bedroom.
- ActionDrowningDrowning dreams combine water with suffocation, and the breathing element deserves checking first: nasal congestion, sleep apnoea and a heavy duvet all plausibly contribute.
- SymbolBedThe bed is the one object a dreamer is actually touching while they dream about it, and that shows in the reports. A large share of frightening bed dreams are sleep paralysis rather than dreams about a bed.
- SymbolBlanketThe one object in this file that is physically present while you dream about it. Weight, heat and restriction from real bedding are among the most readily incorporated sensations there are, and this dream is frequently the bed rather than the mind.
- SymbolNot being able to breatheThe one entry in this database most likely to be about your body rather than your mind. Suffocation dreams are frequently the sleeper actually struggling to breathe, and where they recur that is worth investigating medically rather than interpreting.
If you have this one often
A dream that frightens you and keeps coming back is its own subject. The nightmares section covers what is known about why they recur, the one rewriting technique with real evidence behind it, and when a nightmare stops being a dream problem and becomes something a clinician should hear about.
Figures people report during these dreams
From the archives, and held to their own evidence standard rather than to the one on this page. Reported alongside heart often enough to be worth naming.
Records that mention heart
These pages link to heart, 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.