Dreaming about killing someone
People 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.
Also searched as: killing in a dream, i killed someone, murder, hiding a body, violent dream
The reported structure is rarely the act. Dreamers most often describe the aftermath: having done it, needing to hide it, and the specific dread of discovery.
That aftermath version is close to a recognisable anxiety dream and shares its shape with examination and being-late dreams, with the difference that the stakes are catastrophic.
Where the act is described, dreamers often describe no agency: it happened, or they watched themselves, or it was already done.
The victim is often unidentified, and where they are identified dreamers are frequently horrified by the choice, which they cannot connect to anything.
Common associations
- Aftermath rather than act, the characteristic structure.
- Concealment and discovery, which is where the dread sits.
- Absent agency, reported very often.
- Guilt with no wrongdoing behind it.
Positive readings
The reassurance is the whole point of this entry, and it deserves to be stated more than once: having this dream is common, it is not a disclosure, and it does not mean anything about you.
Dreamers who learn that are frequently enormously relieved, and that relief is the outcome this page exists for.
Difficult readings
The waking guilt is real and can be severe. Dreamers report shame about having had the dream, which is a distress caused by the interpretation rather than by the dream.
Where violent dreams are frequent, distressing, and accompanied by acting out physically during sleep, that is a separate matter worth raising with a doctor, because REM sleep behaviour disorder is a recognised condition and is not about dream content.
Psychological perspectives
Dreams recombine available material without regard to endorsement. Violence is abundantly available from news, fiction and imagination, and its appearance carries no more information than a dream about a colleague does.
The aftermath structure suggests these are anxiety dreams that have reached for the largest available stakes, which is what the machinery does when it needs consequence.
The reported absence of agency supports that reading directly: a dream about guilt does not need the dreamer to have chosen anything.
Cultural and historical
Interpretive traditions have often treated violent dreams as revealing, which is the reading most likely to harm the dreamer and the one least supported by evidence.
The database rejects it explicitly. As with the infidelity entry, this is a case where recording the tradition neutrally would do damage, and saying so is part of the job.
What the sleep science says
Well established: dream content does not indicate waking intent, desire or character.
Recognised condition: REM sleep behaviour disorder, in which people physically act out dreams, which is medical rather than interpretive.
Not established: any revelatory content in violent dreams.
Your own context
- Did you do it, or find it done?
- Was there any intention in the dream?
- Was the dream about the act or about being found out?
- How much of your distress is about the dream itself?
If this recurs
Frequent violent dreams that disturb sleep are worth raising with a doctor, particularly if there is any physical acting out. That is a sleep matter, not an interpretive one.
Otherwise, log with the anxiety dreams, because the structure is the same.
Emotions often reported
- guilt
- dread
- panic
- shame
- detachment
- terror
Specific killing someone 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.
- Did I choose anything in the dream?
- Was it the act or the hiding?
- Am I upset about the dream or about having had it?
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.The Reinterpretation of Dreams: An Evolutionary Hypothesis of the Function of DreamingPeer-reviewed research
Antti Revonsuo (2000) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Cited for: The threat-simulation hypothesis. That the over-representation of threatening content in dreams may be functional rather than incidental.
- 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.Clinical Management of Chronic Nightmares: Imagery Rehearsal TherapySleep medicine
Barry Krakow and Antonio Zadra (2006) · Behavioral Sleep Medicine
Cited for: That rehearsing a rewritten version of a recurring nightmare while awake reduces nightmare frequency and distress.
- 4.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.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of killing someone 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
- SymbolKnifeKnife reports divide by who is holding it, and the two halves are so different they barely share a subject. Being threatened with one is a straightforward fear dream; holding one is reported with a distinctive and uncomfortable ambivalence.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
Records that mention killing someone
These pages link to killing someone, 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.