Dreaming about shed
A small building at the edge of a home, and the reports treat it as neither inside nor outside. What is in it is usually somebody else's, and the dreamer knows whose without being told.
Also searched as: a shed, a garage, an outbuilding, a workshop, the back of the garden
Contents dominate. Dreamers describe tools, boxes and objects belonging to somebody, frequently a parent or somebody who has died, and the ownership is known without evidence.
That puts these reports with the attic material rather than with the house material, and the two behave similarly: a store the dreamer did not fill.
Smell is reported here more than in most settings, usually of oil, wood or damp, which is notable given how rare smell is in dream reports.
A shed that is bigger inside is common and is the ordinary impossible-space finding.
Common associations
- Neither inside nor outside.
- Somebody else's things, known without evidence.
- Smell, unusually often.
- Impossible space, as everywhere.
Positive readings
The reports are frequently warm, particularly where the contents belong to somebody the dreamer has lost, and those belong with the bereavement material.
The smell is worth recording for its rarity alone.
Difficult readings
Mild. A dark shed produces the enclosed-space unease the basement entry describes, in a smaller container.
Psychological perspectives
Strongly encoded spaces reproduce in detail, and a shed belonging to a family member is exactly that: visited repeatedly over years, with a distinctive smell attached.
That probably accounts for the olfactory reports, which the nose entry notes are otherwise rare and are nearly always tied to a specific place or person.
The ownership certainty and the impossible volume are both the ordinary findings.
Cultural and historical
No interpretive tradition, and the entry says so. Outbuildings are too ordinary and too local to have attracted one.
What exists is a modern and quite specific cultural attachment to the shed as a private space, which is not universal and is worth noticing as an inheritance.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: strongly encoded environments reproduce in unusual detail, including olfactory detail.
Well documented: the rarity of smell in dream reports generally.
Not established: any meaning for a shed.
Your own context
- Whose things were in it?
- How did you know?
- Could you smell anything?
- Was it bigger inside?
If this recurs
Log with the attic reports. Both are stores the dreamer did not fill, and they behave alike.
Emotions often reported
- nostalgia
- curiosity
- melancholy
- calm
- tenderness
- unease
Specific shed dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Where it happened
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Whose things were in there?
- Could I smell anything?
- Was it bigger inside?
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.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.
- 3.The Dreams of Blind Men and Women: A Replication and Extension of Previous FindingsPeer-reviewed research
Craig Hurovitz, Steven Dunn, G. William Domhoff and Harry Fiss (1999) · Dreaming
Cited for: That congenitally blind dreamers report no visual imagery but rich non-visual sensory content, while those blinded later may retain visual dreaming.
- 4.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.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of shed 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
- SymbolSmellSmell is the rarest sense in dream reports by a wide margin, which makes any dream containing one worth recording. Where a smell does appear, dreamers almost always recognise it, and it is almost always connected to a person or a place.
- PlaceAtticAttics are reported far less often than basements and with a different emotional signature: curiosity rather than dread, and finding rather than avoiding. The contrast between the two is the most reliable thing in this part of the database.
- PlaceGardenGardens are described more positively than almost any other setting, and the two states that dominate the reports, tended and overgrown, are described very differently. The state of the garden carries the dream, not the garden.
- PersonFatherFather dreams cluster around authority, approval and protection more than around care. As with mothers, the version of him that appears (his age, the era, the house) usually carries more than what he does.
- PlaceA borderBorder dreams are document dreams, and they run into the finding that makes them almost inevitable: a passport is a piece of text with a photograph in it, and dreams can render neither.
- PlaceA building of stairsA recurrent and distinctive report: a building whose only content is stairs and levels that do not connect properly. It is the clearest single demonstration that dreams do not hold a floor plan.
