The 20 most common dreams (according to science) and what they mean

Since at least the dawn of history, and perhaps long before, humans have wondered whether there’s any meaning to our dreams. From the terrifying to the transcendent, the familiar to the downright bizarre, our dreams can feel so full of meaning that even the most sceptical thinkers are tempted to dabble in the interpretation of dreams.

For now, there is little scientific understanding of why we dream; in fact, though there are many promising theories, there’s little understanding of why we sleep at all. But, though it’s doubtful that dreams have any predictive power, as believed in ancient times, it does appear that our dreams do somehow reflect our waking experiences, perhaps even in ways that are vital to our brain’s health and development.

For example, by late 2020, researchers observed an unprecedented surge in dreams about COVID-19 (some of which you can read on idreamofcovid.com). As if the pandemic didn’t already occupy our thoughts enough!

As a result, though there is no objective meaning to our dreams that has yet been confirmed by science, it does appear that we’re susceptible to common types of dreams or ‘dream symbols’ – the term often applied to specific dream themes, objects or characters.

Fortunately, as well as examining the neurophysiology of dreaming, scientists are now delving deeper than ever into dream content itself. Using a standard ‘Typical Dreams Questionnaire (TDQ)’ – a flexible list of common dream themes and episodes, like ‘falling’ or ‘being chased or pursued’ – researchers can examine the prevalence of specific dream content across large groups of people.

Fascinatingly, in research dating back to the 1950s, the most common dream themes appear to be largely consistent across both different studies and different populations.

So, what are these most common dreams? In this article, we’ll explore the most common themes according to one of the largest and most recent studies to use the TDQ to date. Next to each theme/heading, you’ll see the probability that the theme appeared in your most recent dream. We’ll also summarise some of the most common interpretations for each theme from across the web.

The most common dreams and their meanings

1. Flying or soaring through the air – 11.69%

For many, it’s the peak dream experience: soaring through the air with all the agility of the sprightliest songbird. It seems it’s also one that we’re keen to return to, with more than one in ten dreams including this potent symbol of freedom.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most common interpretations from dream dictionaries across the web suggest that flying relates to a sense of empowerment. The dream may coincide with new opportunities, confronting your fears or a meaningful release in tension in your waking life.

Relax, embrace the reward and enjoy the in-flight entertainment.

2. Trying something again and again – 11.34%

Although scientists are still working to better understand the link between dream content and our waking experiences, it does appear that stress may have some influence on what we dream about.

And here is the mother of all stress dreams: the Sisyphean task that can never be completed, only tried over and over. Whether it’s the room that can never be escaped, an endless stream of tetrominoes, or even the sleep from which you wake up, over and over, it’s a symbol with an eery parallel to our everyday frustrations.

Interpretations of the causes vary from simple real-world repetition, as in the case of the ’Tetris effect’, to more complex feelings of powerlessness in the face of daily challenges or stagnation in life.

3. Being chased or pursued – 8.95%

Another strong contender for the most common stress dream is the experience of being chased or pursued. In fact, according to another study, this dream experience is the most commonly shared across our entire lives, with 81.5% of participants reporting at least one dream involving this theme.

Unsurprisingly, most interpretations suggest that its unwelcome appearance is likely related to avoiding an issue or person. If your subconscious keeps hunting you down, many recommend that you focus on identifying the real-world parallel and turn to face your fears.

4. Sexual experiences – 7.29%

No list would be complete without this most intimate entry, which appears in something like 1 in 12 of our dreams. If you’re wondering, it does seem to be the case that men dream of sex more often; but, more interesting still, only 85% of men and 73% of women admit to ever dreaming about sex in their life.

The range of interpretation here is broad, but most experts warn budding dream interpreters to avoid leaping to obvious conclusions. In this case, a sexual encounter may not necessarily imply that you want to be intimate with someone. Instead, it could suggest a broader sense of admiration or personal desire, perhaps relating to a trait that the person possesses.

5. School, teachers, studying – 6.12%

As many of these ‘dream theme’ studies are conducted at universities, it’s unsurprising to see study-related themes appearing often in the dreams of unsuspecting psychology students. However, though studies do show that common dream themes evolve with age, this theme is often ranked in the top five even where the average age of participants is considerably higher.

Student or senior, interpretations often revolve around a sense of insecurity or inadequacy, or towards openness and new beginnings where the overall impression is more positive.

6. Arriving too late – 3.98%

Whether for a test or a train, running late is a broad theme that can incorporate many of the other experiences in this list. It is also another of the most common stress dreams experienced by most of us – around 60% across our lifetimes.

The most common interpretations relate to expectations; either those we put on ourselves or those put upon us by others. Examine any feelings of guilt or anxiety stemming from how you or those around you expect you to live.

7. A person now dead being alive – 3.54%

Of the dream experiences typically recorded in studies, the two most common experiences relating to death include resurrection as well as death itself. In one of the largest studies of recent dreams, it is resurrection that wins out, appearing in around 1 in every 28 dreams.

Tragically but unsurprisingly, psychologists and sociologists have noted the role such dreams play in the grieving process, with more than half of caregivers dreaming of deceased loved ones in the months after death.

However, more surprisingly, dreams of death and dying are described as pleasant in more than 80% of cases across multiple studies. In some way, it seems that dreams of death can help us to cope with the inevitable; in fact, at least one study has shown that comforting dreams and visions of the deceased become more prevalent as we approach death ourselves.

8. A person now alive being dead – 3.46%

Dreams of death and resurrection appear across our dreams with almost equal frequency depending on the study. However, at least one study has shown that, over our entire lives, dreams of a person now alive being dead are slightly more common (at 60%) than dreams of resurrection (at 38%).

Although it’s tempting to interpret dreams of death as a premonition, psychologists are keen to emphasise that our dreams stem from our own subconscious and emotions. Instead, dreams of death may relate to a sense of ‘ending’ in your waking life. If the dream is pleasant, the ending may be experienced as a comfort or a release, but unpleasant dreams of death could relate to a change in your life that you are resisting.

9. Being physically attacked – 3.15%

Sadly, dreams of being physically attacked are amongst our most common nighttime experiences. Interestingly, as in waking life, these experiences can also vary by age and sex: as one study suggests, ‘women receive more aggression than they initiate. They receive more intense aggressive actions than they initiate.’

Before moving on to generalised interpretations, it’s critical to note that recurrent nightmares, especially those relating to violence, are considered by some researchers as ‘the hallmark of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)’. If you fear that you may be in this category, it’s very important to seek professional help.

Otherwise, interpretations overwhelmingly relate to a sense of control over yourself and your life. If you frequently experience physical attacks in your dreams, it may be worth examining whether there are any causes of anxiety in your life that stem from a lack of control.

10. Swimming – 2.73%

The list so far reveals that our fears, stress and anxiety play a major role in the landscape of our dreams, so it’s comforting to find an agreeable dream experience hidden amongst our fears: swimming.

When it comes to swimming in your dreams, context is everything. For some, where the experience is unpleasant or relates to negative experiences, swimming may yet represent underlying anxiety in waking life. However, if the experience is pleasant or peaceful, swimming often represents a sense of being in control.

11. Falling – 2.45%

Although our primary study suggests that falling might appear in every 1 in 41 dreams, other studies have shown it to be one of the top three most common experiences across all of our dreams, with around 74% of us free falling at least once in our lives.

Of all our common dream experiences, falling might have the most varied pool of interpretations to choose from. Again, control appears to play some role, but the experience can vary wildly from positive to negative. As is often attributed to the meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, ‘The bad news is you are falling through the air. The good news is there is no ground.’

However, if you do find yourself falling only to be rudely jerked awake by an involuntary twitch, you are not alone. It’s likely that you just experienced a ‘hypnic jerk’, or ‘hypnagogic jerk’, a muscle spasm experienced by around 70% of people at least once in their life. The benign reflex is often associated with dream experiences of falling.

12. Wild, violent beasts – 2.45%

One of the more bizarre categories from the ‘Typical Dreams Questionnaire (TDQ)’, ‘Wild, violent beasts’ appear in around 1 in every 41 of our dreams. Such beast could be real but are more commonly fantastical creatures.

Again, interpretations vary, but many analyses focus on the untameable nature of such beasts and how that might relate to a feeling of powerlessness. Unlike a human-like character, ‘Wild, violent beasts’ cannot be reasoned with.

And if you’re wondering whether a furry friend is dreaming of you in return, a study from MIT suggests that it’s likely that they are. Researchers discovered that brain patterns spotted in animals relating to specific activities while awake correlated with similar brain patterns in the same animals while asleep.

13. Floods or tidal waves – 2.28%

From this list, it would appear that insurmountable forces are a staple of our subconscious. What then could be more fitting than an immense, seething body of water? Though some studies place the lifetime prevalence of such visions at just 12.4%, our study of recent dreams suggests that floods and big waves appear far more frequently.

As with many themes in this list, common interpretations revolve around feelings of powerlessness, especially related to a sense of displeasure at something in your waking life.

14. Eating delicious food – 2.25%

In between running from pursuers, evading wild beasts or falling into an abyss, you may find yourself lucky enough to be treated to a delicious meal, as around 31% of us are during our lifetimes.

Most broad interpretations suggest that food can serve as a proxy to our desires and disgusts in waking life. One especially interesting study might lend some credence to that theory by suggesting that dreamers suffering from anorexia are more likely to display food-rejecting behaviour in their dreams.

15. Being locked up – 2.11%

As this list reveals, experiences of being restrained or limited in some fashion are an extremely common expression of nighttime anxiety. These dream experiences appear to form a subcategory of themes relating to guilt, sorrow, loneliness, rejection, humiliation and inferiority – ‘masochistic’ experiences – that may be linked to depression.

Let’s be thankful that, for most of us at least, our dreams are much like Montaigne’s quip on waking life: ‘My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.’

On the other hand, intriguingly, some research suggests that the feeling of being trapped or persecuted in your dreams, however it manifests, may relate in some way to sleeping on your front. But then, whoever said that the interpretation of dreams was a simple science?

16. Being tied, unable to breath – 1.87%

Yet again, experiences of restraint make another appearance. Although the standard interpretations will be familiar to anyone who’s read this far – powerlessness, etc. – the common experience of struggling to breath is especially interesting because it relates to a specifically medical malady.

Within dream content, injuries, illnesses and other medical misfortunes have been shown to be more prevalent in people with relatively poor physical health. Of course, it’s not that your dream content can predict poor health, rather your daily thoughts and anxieties are reflected in your dreams.

17. Being killed – 1.80%

It may be surprising that this simple idea appears so low down the list; however, as mentioned previously, the vast majority of dreams about death are described as pleasant, if occasionally disturbing.

If our dreams do relate to our waking thoughts and lives, it’s interesting to note that men are far more likely than women to dream of killing someone (32% vs. 16%), while women are more likely to dream of being killed (44% vs. 35%), according to multiple studies.

Perhaps more surprisingly, from a young age, girls report dreams in which other people are hurt or killed more often, which is suspected to relate to the higher empathy scores reported in young girls vs. boys.

As with other dreams of death, being killed in your dreams is often interpreted as signifying an important change, transition or ending in your life, especially one that causes a strong emotional, often negative, reaction.

18. Vividly sensing a presence – 1.76%

Another peculiar category in the ‘Typical Dreams Questionnaire (TDQ)’ is to vividly sense a presence. For many, including respondents, the category will denote something spiritual; however, it appears that the intent of researchers was often to gauge the prevalence of ‘features also thought to define sleep paralysis’, as described in one study.

Sufferers of ‘Sleep Paralysis’ (SP) commonly report the vivid sense of an unknown presence. It’s been proposed that such symptoms may account for historical and folkloric accounts of ‘nocturnal incubus/succubus assaults, spirit possessions, old hag attacks, ghostly visitations, and alien abductions’.

Beyond the possibility of sleep paralysis, if you’ve had the vivid sense of a presence while dreaming, especially with a spiritual dimension, we would not want to prescribe its meaning and will leave the interpretation to you.

19. Encountering a kind of evil force or demon – 1.76%

In amongst the pleasures and pains described in this list, you may find yourself making an acquaintance you’d rather not have: an evil force or demon.

In fact, if you’ve ever felt that a supernatural presence, good or evil, appears to have striking reality even upon waking, you’re not alone. Some researchers have proposed that this phenomenon may have a physiological dimension, as parts of the brain related to your understanding of internally-generated ideas are dampened during the later phases of sleep. As a result, characters, ideas or experiences invented by your own mind can appear to take on supernatural dimensions even after waking. Spooky.

With the more bizarre dream experiences, it becomes more difficult to interpret obvious symbolic meanings. In fact, researchers have coined the term ‘Dream Bizarreness’ or ‘DB’ to attempt to measure ‘bizarreness’ more objectively, finding that there appears to be some correlation with the unreality of your dreams and REM sleep.

If that’s the case, the most bizarre figures of your dreams, even when frightening, may be simply another natural part of our mysterious sleep cycle.

20. Finding money – 1.62%

We’ve seen the ups, downs and downright oddities of our common dream experiences, so it’s a pleasure to end on an experience that’s sure to bring joy in waking life or sleep. Around 26% of us will have the good fortune of finding money in our sleep during our lifetimes.

Interestingly, it’s another theme that varies across the sexes, with men much more likely to report finding money at least once in comparison to women (34% vs. 22%).

When it comes to understanding the meaning, online interpretations suggest that the symbol relates to our sense of self-esteem. In short, it evokes emotions of ‘wish-fulfilment’, which may relate to financial desires or more expansive desires in the real world, like an accomplishment in a close relationship.

So, enjoy the experience and consider how you can bring that feeling of gratefulness out of your dreams and into your day.

Build the bed of your dreams

The sweetest dreams all have one thing in common: they begin with a good night’s sleep. And that’s something we’ve been working on for the past two decades, handcrafting luxury metal beds here in our workshop tucked away on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, UK.

If you enjoyed this exploration of our nighttime adventures (and misadventures) and are looking for a better night’s sleep, we encourage you to explore our full range of luxury metal beds. Alternatively, you can find out more about what makes our handmade beds so special here.