Dreaming about knocking
A 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.
Also searched as: a knock at the door, banging, someone knocking, a sound at the door
The unanswered knock is the characteristic report: a sound at a door, and the dream ending before it is opened.
Waking at the moment of the knock is reported very often, which is unusual: most dream content does not wake the dreamer.
A knock with nobody there is a distinct and unsettling group and belongs partly with the sleep paralysis material, where auditory intrusions are well described.
Knocking from inside something, a wall, a floor, a box, forms a small and much more disturbing group.
Common associations
- A real sound, plausibly, which should be ruled out first.
- Something requiring an answer.
- An interruption, since these frequently end the dream.
- Wrong location, in the knocking-from-inside reports.
Positive readings
Almost nothing, though the practical check is genuinely useful: real knocks, pipes, a neighbour and a settling house all produce this.
Difficult readings
The knocking-from-inside version is one of the more disturbing images in the database and dreamers remember it.
Where it accompanies immobility on waking, the sleep paralysis material applies.
Psychological perspectives
External sounds are readily incorporated into dream content, and a sharp, sudden, repeated sound is close to ideal material for that.
It is also a sound designed to demand attention, which plausibly explains why it wakes people so reliably where a conversation does not.
The nobody-there version is well described in the sleep paralysis literature, where sudden loud sounds are among the reported features.
Cultural and historical
A knock as an omen, particularly three knocks, appears in folklore across several European traditions and is usually associated with death.
The knock as an announcement or an invitation appears in religious literature, sometimes centrally.
Both are available and both will be reached for by dreamers who hold them.
What the sleep science says
Well established: external sounds during sleep are incorporated into dream content.
Well documented: sudden loud sounds as a feature of sleep paralysis reports.
Not established: any meaning, and the omen traditions are folklore.
Your own context
- Could it have been a real sound?
- Did you answer it?
- Did it wake you?
- Where was it coming from?
If this recurs
Check the house before interpreting: pipes, heating and a settling building produce recurring knocks and are the likeliest cause by a wide margin.
Emotions often reported
- alarm
- dread
- anticipation
- unease
- surprise
- terror
Specific knocking dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What happened
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Could there have been a real noise?
- Did I open it?
- Did it wake me?
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.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.
- 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 Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault TraditionsAcademic book
David J. Hufford (1982) · University of Pennsylvania Press
Cited for: The central finding behind this entire archive: that the "old hag" experience shows a stable core description across cultures with no prior exposure to the tradition. That is, the experience generates the folklore rather than the other way round.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of knocking 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
- PersonStrangerUnknown figures make up a large share of dream characters. Most are scenery. The ones worth a note are the ones the dreamer felt something specific about, without being told anything.
- 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.
- SymbolDoorDoors are the most common transition object in dreams, and what matters is almost never the door. It is whether it opened, whether you went through, and whether you knew what was behind it.
- SymbolWindWind is one of the few things in a dream that is felt as much as seen, and dreamers report force against the body more than they report anything visual. It is also the most likely weather to be a real sound in the room.
- SymbolBack and shouldersTwo quite different things share this entry: carrying weight, which frequently tracks a real ache, and the sense of something behind you, which is the being-watched material approached from the body.
- 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.
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 knocking often enough to be worth naming.
Records that mention knocking
These pages link to knocking, 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.