Dreaming about puddle
A small amount of water that behaves impossibly. Puddles in dreams are frequently deeper than they can be, and the step into one is the moment dreamers remember.
Also searched as: a puddle, stepping in water, wet feet, a reflection in a puddle
Unexpected depth is the characteristic report: a puddle that goes to the knee, or that has no bottom, and dreamers describe the surprise rather than the water.
That is a clean impossibility and it makes a good dream sign, because a puddle is small enough to check.
Reflections in puddles are reported and behave like the lake and mirror reports: sometimes wrong, sometimes showing something not there.
Wet feet is a small group and connects to the shoes and barefoot material rather than to water.
Common associations
- Depth that cannot be there, the characteristic feature.
- A step, which is what dreamers remember.
- Reflection in miniature.
- Wet feet, which belongs elsewhere.
Positive readings
A very good reality check for its size: an impossible puddle is unambiguous and requires nothing but stepping.
The reports are light and dreamers frequently find them funny afterwards.
Difficult readings
Little. Where the depth becomes serious the report joins the drowning material, and that is uncommon.
Psychological perspectives
Nothing models volume, so a puddle has whatever depth the narrative needs at the moment of stepping. That is the same principle the bag and drawer entries describe for containers, applied to a hole in the ground.
The reported surprise is the more interesting part: the dreamer does object, briefly, which is unusual. Most dream impossibilities pass unremarked, and this one occasionally does not.
That may be because the mismatch is between a visible small thing and an immediate physical consequence, which is harder to ignore than an abstract inconsistency.
Cultural and historical
No tradition of note, which is worth stating.
The image of a small thing containing more than it should is available in a number of stories and will be reached for.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: dreams do not model volume, so container and hollow depths are generated on demand.
Well documented: reduced critical evaluation during REM, against which the occasional objection here is notable.
Not established: any meaning for a puddle.
Your own context
- How deep did it turn out to be?
- Did that surprise you at the time?
- Was there a reflection?
- Did you question it?
If this recurs
Log whether you objected. This is one of the few impossibilities dreamers sometimes notice inside the dream, and that noticing is the useful thing.
Emotions often reported
- surprise
- alarm
- curiosity
- confusion
- detachment
- unease
Specific puddle dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What happened
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- How deep was it?
- Did I think that was odd at the time?
- Was there a reflection?
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.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.
- 2.Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical ResearchAcademic book
Jennifer M. Windt (2015) · MIT Press
Cited for: A modern philosophical treatment of what dreams are, including the immersive-spatiotemporal-hallucination account and the status of dream reports as evidence.
- 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.Induction of Lucid Dreams: A Systematic Review of EvidencePeer-reviewed research
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Melanie Schädlich and Michael Schredl (2012) · Consciousness and Cognition
Cited for: That no induction technique has strong evidence of reliable effectiveness, and that the better-supported ones are cognitive rather than external.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of puddle 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
- SymbolRainRain is one of the most common weather conditions in dream reports and one of the least dramatic. It usually sets the tone rather than driving the dream, and the reported feeling ranges from cleansing to grim with no consistent pattern.
- PlaceLakeStill water is reported for its surface. Dreamers describe the flatness, the reflection, and a reluctance to disturb it, and the reports are calm in a way no other water in this database is.
- SymbolShoesShoes are reported almost entirely by their absence or unsuitability. The commonest report is being unable to find them when they are needed, and it usually arrives inside a dream about being late.
- ActionKnowing you are dreamingLucid dreaming is one of the few things in this entire database that has been demonstrated in a laboratory rather than inferred from reports. Sleepers have signalled from inside a dream with prearranged eye movements, on cue, while verifiably asleep.
- 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.
- 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.
