7 Common Dream Types

Last week you dreamed about making cherry pies with your grandmother, who passed away 6 years ago — when you woke, you felt comforted by her presence like she was saying, “You’re never alone, I’ll always be here.”

Last night, you dreamed you finally made that cross country move you’ve been bouncing back and forth about, and this morning, the decision seemed clear.

Or, when you were 16, you’d been struggling to learn to drive your boyfriend’s stick shift jeep. Then, one night, you had a dream about blowing through the gears like it was nothing but a ‘thang. After that dream, driving a stick shift was a breeze.

That one’s oddly specific, isn’t it? (#truestory)

Dreams are powerful, personal, and intimate because they’re based on what’s going on in your life. However, there are common types of dreams that pop up in most of our dream lives at 1 time or another.

Let’s hit the most common types of dreams and what they may mean to you + ways to go beyond the archetypical and fully grasp the hyper-personal messages they deliver:

7 Of The Most Common Dream Types
Other Common Dream Type Themes
3 Questions To Ask Yourself About Your Dream
6 Benefits That Go Beyond Dream Type
When Comes to Dream Types — More is More

While there are common dream types across cultures, ages, etc., your dream last night of falling or losing your teeth means something uber specific and personal to you and your life.

Identifying common dream types is a step in the right direction.

But keep in mind — ditching your dream dictionary in favor of personalized dream analysis involving your feelings, relationships, and circumstances is the ONLY way to find out the authentic meaning of your dreams.

1. Current or Recent Event Dreams

These are some of the most common types of dreams — events that occurred in the past 24 to 48 hours pop up in your dreams. But remember, dreams are symbolic and metaphor-heavy.

It’s not a 1:1 depiction of the event just as it happened, but a subjective reenactment of how your mind truly perceived it.

For example, you might have a knock-down-drag-out fight with your boo, then dream that you’re Khaleesi, fighting for her dragons. Or, if you watched an epic car chase on the news (still looking at you, OJ), your dream that night or the next may revolve around cars — a car crash, a road rage event… but it wouldn’t be about them. Your dreams will still, and always, be about Y.O.U.

Think back to March 2020 — the world went on Covid hyper-alert and locked down. And people began to report wild, vivid, crazy dreams.

“There was a tarantula that was somehow also COVID-19 coming thru the mail slot (I have no mail slot).”
Dreams are not illogical. They follow your own emotional logic.
Even global events, global feelings of anxiety and fear, get colored in our heads by our personal set of beliefs, mannerisms, and experiences. Everything that makes you, YOU, drives the thread of the stories of your dreams.

2. Metaphorical or Symbolic Dreams

Your dreaming mind is intensely visual, so when it feels an emotion, it goes on the hunt for an image to match the feeling, which brings on the metaphors and symbolism.

These types of dreams help you process life events (current or from way back in the past) metaphorically.

For example, if you’ve been on an “uphill battle”, desperately trying to finish a work project, you might dream of actually climbing up an actual mountain all alone without gear, gasping for oxygen, while other, better-equipped climbers work in teams and zip right past you.

Metaphorical dreams can provide helpful insight when correctly interpreted, leading to personal growth.

In your mountain climbing dream, the lesson could be to ask for help when you need it and occasionally collaborate instead of trying to accomplish everything by yourself. If you could title your dream with a title similar to an epic movie, what would it be? “The Lonely uphill Battle”?

You kinda get the metaphor now, don’t you?

Your dreams contain hidden messages about yourself and the world around you, and when you decode those messages, they can be incredibly empowering.

In a study that focused on how impactful dreams were on the participants’ daily behavior, 67% reported that dreams influence their social relations, and 52% stated that their dreams influenced their decision-making.

3. Fantasy or Comfort Dreams

Another pretty common dream type involves fantasies or comforting experiences — you’ll notice these dreams occur particularly when the going gets tough in your waking life.

Fantasy dreams are often your hopes, dreams, wishes, and goals. Think of these dream types as a mental break from reality’s good/bad/ugly roller coaster.

Comfort dreams may involve positive people and experiences from your past or present. For example, an elderly adult who feels alone may dream about fun family escapades from her younger years. A younger mind may dream of a long-lost love who’s someone she never even met…

Both fantasy and comfort dreams may be your subconscious mind’s way of helping you soothe and step away from waking life stressors — a ”dreamcation” so to speak.

4. Dreams of A Deceased Loved One

Have you dreamt of someone you love who has passed away? We all have at one time or another. Often, these dreams can be your subconscious mind’s process of working through the emotions related to that person.

Maybe you have some unresolved feelings toward a parent, now deceased. Paying attention to those emotions and addressing them will help you let go of what isn’t serving you well and will remove the power such feelings have over your daily life.

Or you might dream of a relative, or friend, who inspired and empowered you in their life. You may be in need of that particular quality in your life right now…

5. Creative & Problem-Solving Dreams

Some dreams dish out divine inspo by stirring up creative ideas or never-before-thought-of solutions to pesky problems. After 1 of these dreams, you may wake up basking in the light of a grand revelation.

Deirdre Barrett, Harvard University psychologist and author of The Committee of Sleep, asserts, “In the sleep state, the brain thinks much more visually and intuitively.” Translation — when your brain isn’t censored by the limitations your conscious mind poses (“impossible,” unthinkable,” “socially unacceptable”), you’re free to access your creativity sans inhibition.

At 23, Larry Page (Yup. the Google guy!) woke from a dream wondering if he could download the whole web, and he started brainstorming this idea. He teamed up with Sergey Brin to collaborate on a search engine, initially called BackRub (thank goodness, that didn’t stick - can you imagine saying, “I’ll just BackRub the answer”?).

↠ In 1998, the 2 co-founded Google, and the rest is history.

6. Nightmares

Nightmares can be rough. They feel real even though they’re just dreams, don’t they? The fear and panic can be enough to scare you awake and keep you from falling back to sleep.

You might have a nightmare after a recent stressful event (a family crisis, getting fired, distressing news in the media — Hello, Covid…etc.), or if you’re anxiously anticipating a stressful situation (a difficult convo you’re dreading or your snarky sis-in-law coming for a visit).

Nightmares can also result from unresolved conflict, unconscious fears, or past traumas. Some nightmares are your subconscious mind’s way of working through these issues.

✴Here’s a dream pro tip✴ — if you keep having the same nightmares, the sure-fire way to keep ‘em coming, again and again, is NOT to address them at all.

On the flip side, if you’d like to be rid of those nightmares, you’re gonna have to face and deal with them.

Dr. Leslie Ellis is a leading expert in the use of somatic (a $5 word that means “dealing with the mind-body as a wholesome entity”) approaches in psychotherapy, she’s well-known in particular for working with dreams, nightmares, and the effects of trauma.

On the topic of getting to the root meaning of your nightmares, she says, “I suggest taking particular interest in the dreams that scare us because they hold the greatest potential for expanding our personal capacity and understanding.”

7. Lucid Dreams

1 potent dream type is the lucid dream, where the dreamer is aware that they’re dreaming.

Lucid dreaming enables the dreamer to “control” their actions during the dream — a somewhat prerequisite practice for this is dream incubation.

Think of it as if you’re the writer, director, and lead actor (which you are) of your own movie, and you’ve got the authority to change things up as you go. Lucid dreaming gives you the power to problem-solve (flee or fight in a situation, or completely change the narrative to provide you with control) or overcome a deep fear that might be holding you back in life.

OTHER COMMON DREAM TYPE THEMES

There are other common dream-type themes reported universally. Many of these themes show up in recurring dreams. But, again, it’s important to mention here, if you’ve had any of these types of dreams, think about how the dream relates to your waking life at the very time you dreamt it.

Flying
Falling
Being chased or attacked
Being naked
Getting stuck or trapped somewhere
Going back to school
Losing your teeth
Losing your ability to speak
Missing a test
Showing up late for the 1st day or a momentous occasion
Moving in slow motion or being unable to run
Crashing or losing control of a vehicle

3 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF ABOUT YOUR DREAM

Digging deeper and asking yourself thoughtful questions about your dreams is where the rubber meets the road in terms of figuring out why you’re dreaming about something and what those dreams mean to Y.O.U.

Ask yourself these 3 questions to get the most out of your dreams:

1. How did your dream make you feel? — What emotions or feelings did you experience after your dream? Excitement, fear, happiness, loneliness, peace, rejection? You’ll have to be willing to sit with your feelings to get an honest, authentic answer here.

2. Did anything feel familiar about your dream (focus on any symbolism)? — Remember, 𝅘𝅥𝅮”Which one of these is not like the other?”𝅘𝅥𝅮 Unless you pay attention to your dream patterns, you may never notice the anomaly. What else in your current life or your past could you match with this dream’s symbolism?

3. How can this dream shed light on my waking life? – Once you’ve identified your feelings associated with your dream and any familiarities within your dream, now’s the time to apply it to your waking life.

Have you found a new solution to a problem? Or maybe you can now make that big decision.

6 BENEFITS THAT GO BEYOND DREAM TYPE

Asking yourself those 3 questions puts you on the path to getting to know yourself fully. Your dreams hold a heap of powerful intel on your innermost thoughts and feelings directly affecting your life.

Once you go beyond identifying your dream type, there’s so much waiting for you across the rainbow of personal growth. Check out these 6 benefits:

1. Boost Self-awareness

While there is a bouquet of benefits of dream analysis, they all boil down to the star of the show — self-awareness. When you know yourself more fully, you can actively, intentionally design, and participate in your life rather than assume the role of a passive spectator or victim to your circumstances.

According to the Harvard Business Review, while most people believe they possess self-awareness, only 10% - 15% of us actually do.

2. Process Your Emotions

Rosalind Cartwright, aka “Queen of Dreams,” was one of the leading sleep researchers in the world. In her book, The Twenty-four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives, she addresses dreaming as a built-in therapist.

When you dream, your subconscious mind works through your unresolved conflicts to help you process your emotions concerning the issue.

3. Ignite Creativity

When you dream, your imagination lets loose, uninhibited by your conscious mind’s filter of “logical” or “impossible.” As a result, you may find that your creative juices are pumping after a vivid dream.

Albert Einstein once dreamed he was on a sled, going down a steep mountainside so fast that he eventually approached the speed of light, and the stars appeared different in relation to him. Sound familiar? Yep, that dream sparked his Theory of Relativity.

4. Problem-solve

Yes, you can tackle those nagging problems while you sleep. Unfortunately, when you’re awake, you tend to put heavy pressure on your brain to develop a “reasonable” solution, often leaving you stuck. Solutions may not always seem reasonable at first glance.

You can use your dream time to allow your mind to work on your problem. When you dream, your prefrontal cortex (Your logical side) is dormant, which puts logic and reason on the backburner to make way for creativity and intuition.

Thinking about your problem right before going to sleep can help guide your subconscious mind toward working on a solution by dreaming.

5. Learn a Skill

Imagine learning a new skill or polishing up an old one while you sleep. Your brain is primed for learning while you sleep because your subconscious mind isn’t concerned about what’s reasonable or how you measure up to those around you.

While you sleep, your brain reactivates patterns of neural activity from the day — human speak here — anything you have to learn, memorize, or figure out is neural activity. This reinforces your long-term memory and helps you hammer out the most challenging areas of a task.

Standing ovation for Harvard Medical School’s Robert Stickgold and Jeffery M. Ellenbogen for their extensive research on the interaction of sleep and cognition.

6. Soothe Stress & Anxiety

Unfortunately, stress and anxiety are a part of daily life and are on the rise. According to the American Institute of Stress:

77% of people experience stress that affects their physical health
73% of people experience stress that affects their mental health

Sleep and dreaming are your brain’s way of working through any unresolved conflicts and emotions spiking your stress levels. Dreaming gives you a safe space to release anxiety and calm your mind and body.

WHEN COMES TO DREAM TYPES — MORE IS MORE

Exploring common types of dreams is a simple way to pay more attention to your dreams and what they mean.

Going beyond identifying dream types is where real personal development happens and self-awareness blossoms.

More depth, more awareness, and more enlightenment stem from discovering your type of dream, then asking good questions about what that dream means to you and how to apply it to your life.

More is more.

7 Common Dream Types – What Your Dreams (Really) Mean To Y.O.U