Dreaming about lightning
Lightning is reported for its suddenness and for what it reveals rather than for danger. The characteristic report is a landscape briefly lit, and dreamers remember what they saw rather than the flash.
Also searched as: a lightning strike, thunder, being struck by lightning, lightning in a dream
Illumination is the dominant content. Dreamers describe seeing something in the flash that they had not seen before, and that is the part they remember.
Being struck is reported and is usually painless, in line with every injury report in this database.
Thunder is reported separately and less often, which fits the general finding that dreams generate sound sparingly.
Lightning that does not behave, continuous, silent, or in a clear sky, is common and is a strong dream sign because it is unambiguously wrong.
Common associations
- Sudden revelation, in the literal sense of something being lit.
- Suddenness itself.
- Being singled out, in the struck reports.
- Divine action, in a great many traditions.
Positive readings
The revealed-landscape reports are described with awe and are among the more striking images people report.
Impossible lightning is a reliable dream sign, and dreamers practising reality checks report using it.
Difficult readings
Being struck is alarming even without pain, and dreamers describe the anticipation more than the event.
Where lightning accompanies a storm, the storm entry carries the material.
Psychological perspectives
Dreams do not model light, so a flash is generated as an experience rather than as a physical event. That is why dream lightning so often behaves impossibly and why it makes a good reality check.
The emphasis on what was revealed rather than on the flash is consistent with attention driving dream detail: the dream elaborates what is looked at.
The painless strike is the usual injury finding.
Cultural and historical
Lightning as the act of a god is close to universal across the ancient world, from Zeus and Jupiter to Thor and Indra, and it is one of the most widespread convergences in religious imagery.
Being struck carries specific and varied significance across traditions, in some as a mark of favour and in others of judgement.
The modern reading of a sudden insight as a flash is idiomatic and available everywhere.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: dreams generate light as experience rather than modelling illumination, which accounts for impossible behaviour.
Well documented: the rarity of pain in dream injury reports.
Not established: any meaning for lightning.
Your own context
- What did it show you?
- Did it behave like lightning?
- Was there thunder?
- Were you struck, and did it hurt?
If this recurs
Worth logging with the storm reports. Lightning rarely recurs alone.
Emotions often reported
- awe
- alarm
- surprise
- dread
- fascination
- exhilaration
Specific lightning dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- What did the flash show me?
- Did it behave properly?
- Was there any sound?
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 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.
- 2.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.
- 3.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.
- 4.The Content Analysis of DreamsAcademic book
Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle (1966) · Appleton-Century-Crofts
Cited for: The standard coding system for dream content, and the normative frequencies that later studies are compared against. The reason claims like "aggression is more common in dreams than friendliness" can be stated numerically at all.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of lightning 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.
- SymbolDarknessDarkness in dreams is not the absence of an image. Dreamers describe an active inability to see, frequently with light sources that do not work, and that failure is one of the most reliable features of dream perception.
- SymbolFireFire is the most double-edged element in dream reports: destruction and purification, anger and warmth. What decides the reading is whether you are near it or in it, and whether you lit it.
- SymbolA lock that will not lockOne of the most reported and least written-about dreams there is. The door will not lock, the bolt will not seat, the key turns and nothing engages, and the dreamer keeps trying.
- SymbolBonesBones are reported without much fear, which is the surprising thing about them. Dreamers describe skeletons and skulls with curiosity or detachment far more often than with dread.
- 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.
Records that mention lightning
These pages link to lightning, 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.