What Your Dreams Really Mean, According to Sleep Scientists

Humans have been captivated by dreams for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians recorded them on papyrus, and dream manuals date back to around 2000 BCE. Many ancient cultures believed dreams were messages from the gods or the dead: Egyptians treated them as divine prophecy, Greeks sought healing and guidance around dreams in temples, and in Mesopotamia, specialized priests and sages regularly interpreted dreams.

Today, scientists tend to view dreams as the brain's way of processing emotions and consolidating memories, with some researchers theorizing they serve as a kind of overnight therapy or threat-simulation system that helps us navigate the world. Of course, there's still a lot we don't know about dreams, but scientists increasingly suggest they may actually offer insight into our waking lives.

As for a dream’s meaning? Well, that largely depends on the individual. "The more modern view in dream work is that the dreamer themselves is the ultimate authority," says Karen Konkoly, PhD, a psychology researcher who studies consciousness in the dreaming brain. That’s why, when it comes to interpreting dreams, many researchers believe it’s more useful to tap into our own intuition and experiences rather than simply Google: “What does my dream mean?”

Here's a look at what current science says about why we dream, dream symbolism, and how to explore your own.

Why Do We Dream?

Just as there’s no one reason we think, there’s no one reason we dream, says Dylan Selterman, PhD, a social psychologist and adjunct instructor for psychology at Johns Hopkins.

Some neuroscientists believe dreams may simply be a byproduct of brain activity during REM sleep. However, a number of researchers believe that dreams help regulate emotions or integrate new experiences into memory. Others suggest they simulate social situations or help us rehearse difficult scenarios. “Dreams are a time for your inner predictions about how the world works to play out against each other and update and change the way that you think about the world based on the new information that you learned,” Konkoly says.

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Dreams are one way in which we can process our attachment bonds to other people. —Dylan Selterman, PhD

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Selterman favors a more social view. “Most dreams involve other people, often those we’re close to,” he says. And, perhaps, “dreams are one way in which we can process our attachment bonds to other people.” In fact, one study found that among people in stable partnerships, 20 to 30 percent of dreams included significant others.

In some schools of thought, dreams have links to spirituality. For one, dreams regularly show up in religious literature. What’s more, in one survey of over 5,000 participants, more than half reported having what they describe as a “visitation” from someone who has passed in a dream.

There’s also a new movement in dream research called dream engineering, which attempts to influence dreams in the lab to better understand them. “It’s controversial because obviously, a lot of dream researchers, we really value dreams, and we don't want people tinkering with them all the time before we really understand what they're doing for us,” says Konkoly. But the opposite is true, too: Without being able to change a dream as it’s occurring, “it's difficult to move toward a conclusive science of dreaming,” she says, which is the ultimate goal of this work.

What Does My Dream Mean?

Dreams may indeed be connected to our waking lives, but figuring out what a specific dream “means” is more complicated. “If you have a dream about a certain topic or image, it's going to mean different things to different people,” says Selterman.

Certain dreams or dream archetypes seem to be common among large populations of people, such as being chased, falling, arriving late, forgetting something, or being naked in public. For the most part, the deeper meaning behind these dreams is a mystery. Consider, for instance, dreams about teeth falling out: Some research links them to dental irritation upon waking, and there’s also some limited research connecting them to teeth grinding or jaw pain.

Many people also dream about mundane everyday experiences—grocery shopping, for example. This points to a dream theory called the “continuity hypothesis of dreaming,” which suggests dream content largely reflects our common everyday experiences and thoughts.

More reliably, dreams tend to reflect what’s happening around us: Konkoly notes that people in sleep studies often dream about being in the lab, and sounds like an alarm clock can show up inside a dream.

“Dreams seem to reflect our current concerns, things that matter to us, and things that are surprising,” she says. “But it's hard to predict exactly which memories will show up.”

One of the biggest barriers to understanding dreams, however, is simply remembering them in the first place. Some of Konkoly’s research has tried to tackle this by focusing on two-way communication with dreamers—trying to get information about people’s dreams while they're dreaming. To do this, in a lab setting, before people fall asleep, researchers give people codes or signals—like twitching their face or sniffing—to respond with. “When they're inside their dream and aware that they're dreaming, they can perform these signals,” says Konkoly. If you have trouble with dream recall, there are some tricks that can help you outside of the lab, as well (more on that below.)

How to Decode and Explore Your Dreams

Your dreams can offer an unfiltered window into your mind—surfacing anxieties you may have been pushing aside, illuminating patterns, or bringing unexpected clarity to a problem you've been struggling with. Because dreams largely bypass the rational mind, they also sometimes get at the emotional truth of a situation more directly than waking reflection can.

If you’re doing therapy or inner work, dreams can be an additional layer of self-awareness—a nightly dispatch from the parts of yourself you don't always have access to during the day. They can also be a signal that it’s time to seek mental health support.

If you want to better understand your own dreams, here’s where experts suggest starting.

1. Keep a dream journal.

In laboratory studies, about 80 to 90 percent of people can recall a dream when awakened, but outside the lab, people typically only remember dreams once or twice per week. The reasoning here is multi-faceted, including simply being groggy switching from a sleep state to a waking state. Also, during REM sleep—which is when most vivid dreaming happens—the brain parts that power memory encoding are largely dialed down, which is why dreams feel so strange and why they are hard to remember long-term.

Memory of dream details tends to fade quickly, but a dream journal can significantly help with recall, says Selterman. Keep a notebook or pad of paper next to your bed, then jot down notes about your dream immediately when you wake up. Then, over time, notice if there are any recurring patterns or themes.

2. Work through your dreams.

Examine a dream in detail by asking yourself questions like: What does this image remind you of? What is happening in your life that relates to this?

This process can help you notice patterns and connections that might resonate with your waking life—and even though science can’t definitively prove what a dream “means,” reflection can be surprisingly insightful, says Konkoly. If a certain friend or relative tends to appear again and again in your dreams, it could mean that your brain is still working through something around them or that the relationship is an important one somehow.

You could also try intentionally revisiting dreams, by visualizing the dream and imagining what it felt like to be a different character or to see something from another perspective, she says. This could open your mind to explore different aspects of your personality, help you branch out from the routine of your day-to-day life, or explore different perspectives to see situations in new ways.

3. Try lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreaming is the state of becoming aware that you’re dreaming while a dream is still happening. There are different reasons why you may want to try lucid dreaming, including just pure curiosity. Research also suggests that the practice may help with nightmares, improve physical performance in tasks that require motor skills, and even reduce the severity of anxiety and depression.

To try it, Konkoly suggests paying attention to your senses and bodily sensations as you fall asleep. By maintaining this awareness, some people can notice the moment a dream begins, she says. Even if lucidity doesn’t happen, the exercise can calm rumination that disrupts sleep.

Daily, frequent meditators also tend to experience more lucid dreams, perhaps because of the mindfulness factor: Being present and checking in with yourself (“Am I dreaming?”) can help you realize that you are indeed in a dream state.

You could also try the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD) technique, which involves proactively setting the intention to create a dream memory, by repeating a phrase to yourself like: “the next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I’m dreaming.” Or, if you’re up for it, test out another technique outlined in the International Lucid Dream Induction Study: Set an alarm five hours after you fall asleep, wake up and repeat the mantra, then imagine yourself being active in your dream.

A Note on When Dreaming Becomes Distressing

Many researchers think dreaming helps process emotional memories. During REM sleep—the stage when most vivid dreaming occurs—stress hormones are low, allowing the brain to revisit emotional experiences more calmly.

However, stress can also be a catalyst for dreams. After trauma, specifically, the nervous system can remain highly activated even during sleep. Instead of helping process the memory, the dream may replay it. “Repetitive nightmares are different from typical dreams,” says Konkoly. “It’s very rare to dream about a waking-life event exactly as it happened—that tends to occur primarily in PTSD,” she says.

If you have severe nightmares or PTSD, seeking help from a specialized medical provider can be highly beneficial. These practitioners may guide you through any number of therapeutic modalities, such as Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, which involves working with a therapist to rewrite the ending of a recurring nightmare. Over time, your brain learns that it doesn’t have to replay the original traumatic version of the memory during sleep. The Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine offer directories of such providers.

Sleep is meant to be restorative, says Konkoly. But when traumatic dreams repeatedly intrude, even the mind’s resting place can start to feel unsafe.