Dreaming about wind
Wind is one of the few things in a dream that is felt as much as seen, and dreamers report force against the body more than they report anything visual. It is also the most likely weather to be a real sound in the room.
Also searched as: a strong wind, wind in a dream, being blown, a gale, hearing wind
Force is the characteristic report: being pushed, leaned into, or unable to make progress against it.
Sound is the second and dreamers often describe hearing it before anything else, which raises the possibility of real wind outside, and that is worth checking.
Wind carrying something, leaves, dust, papers, appears often and is described as the thing that made the dreamer notice it.
Being lifted or blown off the ground is a smaller group and sits between the wind and flying material.
Common associations
- Force against the body, which is what the reports contain.
- A real sound, plausibly, which should be ruled out first.
- Something carried and lost, in the papers and leaves reports.
- Change, which is idiomatic rather than observed.
Positive readings
Wind at the point of lifting the dreamer is reported alongside flying dreams and shares their elation.
Warm wind is described pleasantly by the minority who report it.
Difficult readings
Being unable to make progress against wind is the standard effort-without-effect structure and is frustrating rather than frightening.
Where the wind is destructive the report joins the storm material, which weather.js covers.
Psychological perspectives
External sound is readily incorporated into dream content, and wind is loud, continuous and common at night, which makes it one of the most plausible real inputs in this whole file.
That is testable in the simplest possible way: check whether it was windy.
The force reports are more interesting. Dreams reproduce resistance and effort convincingly, and wind is one of the few weather phenomena that produces a bodily sensation rather than only an image.
Cultural and historical
Wind and breath share a word in a striking number of languages, and in several traditions the same term covers wind, breath and spirit, which is one of the more remarkable convergences in language.
Named winds with specific characters exist across the Mediterranean and elsewhere, and some carry attributed effects on mood and health.
The modern idiom of change in the wind is available in English and will be reached for.
What the sleep science says
Well established: external sounds during sleep are incorporated into dream content.
Reasonably supported: effort and resistance are reproduced convincingly in dreams.
Not established: any meaning for wind.
Your own context
- Was it actually windy that night?
- Could you feel it, or only see it?
- Were you making progress against it?
- Did it carry anything away?
If this recurs
Check the weather before interpreting. This is the entry in the file where a real external cause is most likely and easiest to confirm.
Emotions often reported
- alarm
- exhilaration
- effort
- unease
- awe
- urgency
Specific wind 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.
- Was it windy outside that night?
- Could I feel it on my body?
- Was I trying to walk into it?
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.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.
- 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 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 wind 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.
- SymbolSkyThe sky is the single best reality check in a dream, because it is large, always present, and almost never right. Dreamers who learn to look up report noticing more inconsistencies there than anywhere else.
- ActionFlyingFlying is the most positively reported dream experience there is, and the most strongly associated with lucidity. Many people who realise they are dreaming try to fly, and many who fly realise they are dreaming.
- SymbolKnockingA knock is one of the most likely dream sounds to have been real, and it is worth checking that first. It is also one of the few dream events that reliably wakes people.
- SymbolBack and shouldersTwo quite different things share this entry: carrying weight, which frequently tracks a real ache, and the sense of something behind you, which is the being-watched material approached from the body.
- SymbolBedThe bed is the one object a dreamer is actually touching while they dream about it, and that shows in the reports. A large share of frightening bed dreams are sleep paralysis rather than dreams about a bed.
Records that mention wind
These pages link to wind, 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.