Dream themes
Common dream themes
Some dreams turn up for a great many people: being chased, falling, teeth falling out, an exam you never studied for. These guides set out what research has measured about each one, and why no single meaning fits every dreamer.
There’s no dream dictionary here. Each guide offers questions to ask your own dream, because what a dream is made of comes from your own life. For how dreams work in general, see the dream guides, starting with whether dreams mean anything at all.
- What does it mean when you dream about being chased? A chase dream has no single meaning, but it’s among the most common: 81.5% of students in one survey had one. Studies link chase dreams to trouble with others.
- Why do you dream about falling? No one has proven why we dream of falling; balance may play a part. The jolt as you drift off is usually a sleep start, and most people need no treatment.
- Why do you dream about your teeth falling out? We found no evidence that teeth dreams predict death, money or pregnancy. The main study of their causes linked them to jaw tension on waking, not to distress.
- Why do you still dream about school and exams years later? Researchers think an old exam scene returns when a similar pressure does. School dreams are common in adults, and we found no evidence they predict a real test.
- What does it mean to dream about flying? Flying dreams have no fixed meaning. About half of students in one survey had flown in a dream; research ties them to lucid dreaming and, more loosely, balance.
- Why do you dream about your ex? Dreaming about an ex is common, and a dream can’t tell you what you want. Research links these dreams to how often the ex is still on your mind when awake.
- Why do you dream about someone who died? Dreams of someone who died are common in grief: 58% in one hospice survey had them, and most found them pleasant at least in part. Help is there if they hurt.
- Why do you dream about being naked in public? No study we found has tested why people dream of being naked in public, and it has no fixed meaning. About a third of students in one survey had dreamed of it.
- What does it mean to dream about snakes? Snake dreams have no single meaning. About one in five students in one survey had one, and people learn to fear snakes easily, which may help explain the dream.
- Why do houses and hidden rooms show up in your dreams? Houses show up in dreams partly because most dream settings that can be classed are indoors and familiar. Neither a house nor a hidden room has a fixed meaning.
- Why do you dream about work and being late? Adults in a survey said one dream in five was about work, more with a stressful job. Dreams of being late are common. We found no sign either predicts anything.
- Why do you keep dreaming about the same person? In one study, about half the people in dreams were people the dreamer knew by name. Someone you try not to think of tends to return. Dreams can’t read minds.
How common is each dream?
Each figure below comes from the guide it links to, where the study is set out in full. The studies asked different people in different ways, from students asked whether they had ever had a dream to adults keeping a diary for two weeks, so the rows don’t rank one dream above another. Most of the figures come from one large survey of Canadian students (Nielsen et al., 2003), and no figure here says what a dream means.
| Dream theme | How common | Who was asked | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Being chased | 81.5% had ever dreamed of it | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| Falling | 73.8% had ever dreamed of it | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| Teeth falling out | 18.8% had ever dreamed of it | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| School and exams | 67.1% had ever dreamed of school, 45.0% of failing an exam | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| Flying | 48.3% had ever dreamed of it | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| An ex | 15.8% dreamed of an ex in two weeks | 425 students in Germany keeping a dream diary | (Schredl & Wood, 2021) |
| Someone who died | 58% had dreamed of the person they lost | 278 bereaved people in a hospice survey | (Wright et al., 2014) |
| Being naked in public | 32.6% had ever dreamed of being nude | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| Snakes | 22.1% had ever dreamed of them | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| A new room at home | 32.3% had ever dreamed of discovering one | 1,181 first-year university students in Canada | (Nielsen et al., 2003) |
| Work | More than 70% had had at least one work dream | Adults, 54 on average, in an online survey in April 2020 | (Schredl et al., 2020) |
| People you know | 48% of the people in their dreams were known to them by name | 33 adults recording 320 dreams at home | (Kahn et al., 2000) |