Dreams are not magic fortune-tellers, but instead very straightforward messages about the emotional stressors and subconscious thoughts that your brain tries to sort through during sleep.
Falling from great heights
You fall out of thin air from a cliff, tall building, or even the sky itself. You wake up abruptly from the dream right before you hit the ground with a violent jerk.
According to studies in psychology, dreams involving falling do not actually foretell impending death or danger. Instead, falling dreams relate to anxiety about losing control in some significant portion of your life.
If you feel helpless about your job slipping away, your relationship crumbling, or bills mounting up, your mind may manifest this as losing your grip and falling.
As to why you jerk yourself awake: What’s happening is your body’s just doing a hypnic jerk, a quick spasm your brain has when it mistakenly thinks your muscles relaxing means you’re falling.
Teeth cracking, loosening, or falling out
You try brushing your teeth with your tongue but they feel like shattered glass. They wiggle loose in your mouth or you spit them right out into your hands.
Although older traditions associate this dream with disease, recent research has connected dreams about losing teeth to anxiety over your self-image and/or communication decisions.
Our teeth symbolize strength, beauty and our image of authority; dreaming about them coming out means you may be afraid of speaking incorrectly, being embarrassed or losing your status in a peer group. It’s worth noting that dentists point to nocturnal teeth grinding or clenching as another potential cause of this dream.
Showing up unprepared for an exam or important work
You walk into a classroom or meeting room. You sit down. And suddenly you’re supposed to take an important exam or give a presentation that you didn’t study or prepare for.
This is also known as the “imposter syndrome” dream. If you were a stellar student in school, these dreams may occur far beyond your school years.
When you have new responsibilities your brain might be warning you about feelings of inadequacy. You fear letting yourself or others down in some new aspect of your life.
Experts in psychology suggest these dreams highlight our worries about being revealed as an imposter in front of others. Because school was your initial introduction to performance testing, it’s the first place your brain looks for related memories.
Running from fear
You’re running down dark corridors or through spooky trees. Your heart is racing and your legs are heavy, but something (or someone) is still gaining on you.
Let’s just get this cliché out of the way: whoever is chasing you symbolizes something in your life that you’re trying to avoid waking up. Perhaps it’s the difficult chat you’re postponing, the overdue notice you briefly saw, or a personal truth that’s hard to swallow.
And the fear of the dream’s pursuer directly correlates to how much dread you feel about facing the problem in reality.
Floating, flying, or soaring above the ground
Suddenly you shove off the sidewalk and float into the air. It’s effortless to soar above houses, trees and fields. You feel so relieved.
Dreams about flying most often happen when you’ve recently overcome a challenge, escaped from a confining situation or developed a new understanding about a difficult decision.
Flying is more than a pleasant fantasy. Your mind is making sense of emotions surrounding your feelings of liberation, empowerment and confidence. And the ease in which you can fly likely indicates how safe you feel in your decision.
Naked or undressed in a busy public place
You find yourself in the middle of a crowded grocery store, school hallway, or office lobby when you notice that you are wearing only your underwear or nothing at all.
This dream is typically less about body issues and more about feelings of vulnerability or being exposed.
This dream will appear often when you’ve recently confessed a secret, started a new job that you feel inexperienced for, or are worried that people will realize the act you are putting on.
How packed the location is in your dream offers insight into the degree you’re bothered by what others think of your authentic nature.
Bathroom troubles
You find yourself searching high and low for a restroom in some building, but every stall you come across either has no doors, has toilets full of water, or makes no sense at all by being ridiculously open for all to see.
If we’re being honest, this dream tends to have a two-fold interpretation: your bladder is literally telling you to go to the bathroom while you’re sleeping mixed with some deep psychological symbolism.
Since toilets can represent letting go of emotional rubbish or taking care of basic personal needs, having trouble finding one that’s private may represent feeling like no one cares about your boundaries or you always put everyone else’s needs before your own.
Driving an out-of-control vehicle from the backseat
You’re driving down the road when you realize you’re sitting in the backseat of the car or your brakes aren’t working while you’re frantically trying to control the car from the passenger seat.
Your car symbolizes your life’s journey and how fast you feel you’re going in life.
To dream that your car is out of control or that you’re not driving implies you believe someone else is in control of your life and you’re just going along for the ride. And this could be a boss, your significant other, or the expectations of your parents and family.
Completely paralyzed or unable to scream for help
There’s impending danger right in front of you but your limbs feel like they weigh a ton, your scream comes out as nothing and you simply can’t move one muscle no matter how much you struggle.
This nightmare stems from biology and science. When your brain enters REM sleep paralysis, it basically turns off your muscles so you don’t act out your dreams.
It’s when your mind pops back into awareness before your body’s systems are fully reactivated that your brain crafts a nightmare to explain the lack of movement.
Missing a bus, train, or flight at the last second
You’re sprinting through an airport or train station, weighed down by bulky bags, just as everything shuts down and you see your ride pulling out without you.
These dreams where you miss your ride are a pretty straightforward way your mind expresses anxiety. And it could stem from worries about lost chances, the feeling of time running out, or deadlines you’ve set for yourself.
Your mind conjures these images when you’re feeling the pressure of big choices, such as a job offer, buying property, or a major life transition, essentially portraying your fear of lagging behind or missing a chance.
Hidden rooms in your house
You’re walking through your house when you open a door you didn’t know existed. Behind it lies a magnificent, expansive area of your home that’s entirely new to you, in perfect condition.
When you dream about your house in psychological terms it symbolizes your inner self.
The dream suggests that you’ve unearthed new abilities, dormant passions, or aspects of yourself you’re only now realizing. And this is one of the most positive recurring dreams you can have.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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