Dreaming about machine
Machines in dreams are reported through two failures that mirror each other: one that will not start, and one that will not stop. The second is considerably more common and more distressing.
Also searched as: a machine, machinery, a robot, something mechanical, a machine that will not stop
The unstoppable machine is the characteristic report. Something is running, the dreamer needs it to stop, and no control works.
That is the effort-without-effect finding with an object attached, and it is one of the purer expressions of it because a machine is supposed to obey.
Machines with no purpose, running and producing nothing, form a distinct and quite eerie group.
Robots and humanlike machines belong closer to the doll and monkey material, where the discomfort comes from near-humanness rather than from mechanism.
Common associations
- A process that will not stop, the characteristic version.
- Controls that do nothing.
- Purposeless operation, in the eerie reports.
- Near-humanness, where the machine resembles a person.
Positive readings
Little. The unresponsive control is a usable dream sign.
Difficult readings
The unstoppable version is distressing in a specific way: the dreamer is not threatened, they are simply unable to intervene.
That is a purer helplessness than most threat dreams produce and dreamers describe it as such.
Psychological perspectives
Motor commands are not executed, so a control that does not respond is the ordinary case rather than the exception. A machine gives that failure something to be about.
The purposeless-machine reports are interesting: a dream does not need a function to generate an operation, so a machine can run without doing anything, and the dreamer notices the absence.
Continuity is moderate and depends heavily on what somebody does for a living.
Cultural and historical
No tradition, and the entry says so.
A century of fiction about machines that cannot be stopped is available to everybody, and it is almost certainly supplying the shape of these reports.
What the sleep science says
Well established: motor commands are not executed during REM, producing unresponsive controls.
Reasonably supported: dreams generate operations without requiring a function.
Not established: any meaning for a machine.
Your own context
- Was it starting or stopping that failed?
- What was it for?
- Did any control do anything?
- Was it like a person?
If this recurs
Log with the other things-that-do-not-respond reports: phones, light switches, doors, brakes. It is one group.
Emotions often reported
- helplessness
- frustration
- dread
- urgency
- unease
- panic
Specific machine dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What happened
Where it happened
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Was I trying to start it or stop it?
- Did any control work?
- What was it supposed to do?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
3 references. What these labels mean
- 1.The Brain as a Dream State Generator: An Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis of the Dream ProcessPeer-reviewed research
J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley (1977) · American Journal of Psychiatry
Cited for: The activation-synthesis model: that dream narrative is partly the forebrain making sense of brainstem-generated activity.
- 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.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.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of machine 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
- PlaceLiftLift dreams are about not being in control of where you end up. The reports are dominated by lifts that do not stop where they were asked to, that move sideways or too fast, or that open onto somewhere that should not be there.
- SymbolCarThe car is one of the most common modern dream settings, and the reports cluster around control: who is driving, whether the brakes work, and whether the dreamer can see where they are going.
- SymbolDollDolls produce unease with no threat attached, and the reason is specific: a doll is a face that does not behave like a face. The reports belong with the mask and faceless-person material rather than with objects.
- EmotionHelplessnessHelplessness is one of the most reported dream feelings, and it has an unusually strong physiological contributor: during REM sleep the body genuinely cannot act, and dreams frequently build a story around that.
- SymbolScreenScreens in dreams do not work, and the reason is not symbolic. A screen is a surface covered in text and fine detail, which is precisely what dreams cannot render, so the reports are dominated by failure to read.
- SymbolBicycleBicycles fail by balance rather than by control, which makes them different from every other vehicle here. The characteristic report is wobbling, and dreamers describe the effort of staying upright rather than of steering.
Records that mention machine
These pages link to machine, 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.