Dreaming about vomiting
One of the small number of dreams where the physical explanation should be checked before anything else, and where being unable to complete the act is reported more than the act itself.
Also searched as: being sick in a dream, throwing up, nausea, unable to be sick
The characteristic report is incompletion: retching that produces nothing, or an urge that will not resolve.
That structure belongs with the wider group of things the body cannot do in a dream, and it has the same motor explanation.
Where the act is completed, dreamers frequently report producing something impossible: objects, hair, or a quantity that could not fit, and dreams handle this without any objection.
Actual nausea on waking is reported by a minority, and where it occurs the physical cause is the thing to pursue.
Common associations
- An act that will not complete, the characteristic structure.
- Real nausea, where there is some.
- Impossible contents, in the completed reports.
- Rejection, in the idiomatic reading.
Positive readings
Nothing directly. Some dreamers report relief in the completed version, which is worth recording as an observation rather than a meaning.
Difficult readings
The incomplete version is genuinely unpleasant and dreamers describe it as one of the more physically uncomfortable dreams they have.
Where real nausea is present, particularly on waking and repeatedly, that is a matter for a doctor rather than a journal.
Psychological perspectives
Motor commands are not executed during REM, and the retching reports are that finding applied to a different muscle group. The dream produces the attempt and not the outcome.
Incorporation covers the reports where nausea is genuinely present, and it is testable.
The impossible-contents reports are a good illustration of the container principle described in the egg and bag entries: what comes out is generated at the moment of looking.
Cultural and historical
Purging carries ritual significance in a number of traditions and is a serious practice in several, with specific contexts and preparations.
The idiomatic reading, of rejecting something one cannot stomach, is available in English and in many languages and will be reached for whether or not it fits.
What the sleep science says
Well established: motor commands are not executed during REM, producing attempted actions without outcomes.
Well established: bodily states can be incorporated into dream content.
Not established: any symbolic meaning.
Your own context
- Did anything actually come up?
- Were you nauseous when you woke?
- Had you eaten late or drunk much?
- Was there an urge that would not resolve?
If this recurs
Recurring real nausea on waking is medical. Recurring dream retching without it belongs with the other incomplete-action dreams and the pattern lives there.
Emotions often reported
- disgust
- revulsion
- urgency
- frustration
- relief
- panic
Specific vomiting dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Did anything come up?
- Was I queasy when I woke?
- What had I eaten, and when?
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 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.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 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 AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events: Rules, Terminology and Technical SpecificationsSleep medicine
Conrad Iber and colleagues, for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (2007) · American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Cited for: The current clinical standard for how sleep stages are scored, including the EEG frequency criteria that define each stage.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of vomiting 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
- SymbolTongue and mouthThe commonest mouth dream is one of the most unpleasant in the database: a mouth full of something that cannot be got rid of. It sits directly beside the teeth dreams and shares their likely physical causes.
- SymbolIllnessDreams do not detect illness. That is the most important sentence here, and it needs saying because the opposite claim is common, is frightening, and has no evidence behind it.
- AnimalRatRats produce disgust rather than fear, which puts them in a small group with insects and separates them from every predator in this file. The reports centre on number, on the domestic setting, and on the animal being where it should not be.
- ActionEatingEating is reported far less than people expect, and taste almost never. What dreamers describe is usually the situation around a meal rather than the meal, and the interruption of eating is more reported than eating itself.
- ActionBeing unable to speak or moveBeing unable to move or make a sound is extremely common, and it sits on the boundary between an ordinary dream and sleep paralysis. Working out which one you had is the single most useful thing this page can help with.
- ActionFightingAggression is more common in dreams than friendliness: one of the firmest findings in dream research. The recurring peculiarity is that punches in dreams frequently have no force behind them.
Records that mention vomiting
These pages link to vomiting, 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.