What are crying dreams about?
This symbol is identified by words like crying.
Crying in dreams is a common dream symbol, occuring in about 8.1% of dreams. That's about 1 out of every 10 dreams.
What are the major highlights of crying dreams?
Crying is a very interconnected dream symbol. Having crying in a dream substantially changes the nature of the dream.
Dreams of crying are emotional
Crying have substantially more emotions than other dream symbols. It is particularly surprising. Other symbols that are like this include grief and sorrow, relief, comfort, confusion, trespassing, feelings, abusing, silence, weakness, and falling in love.
Crying dreams are friendly
Dreams of crying have greater increase of friendly interactions within the dream than most other dream symbols. While not all dreams of crying will be friendly and they can also contain aggressive interactions, dreams of crying are more likely to have friendly interactions than most other dream symbols. Other symbols that are like this include finding money, insanity, paying attention, crowds, emotions, laundry rooms, general thinking, pizzas, Cambodia, and chimneys.
Dreams with crying might be a nightmare
Dreams of crying are frequently associated with nightmares. Of course dreams that contain crying might not be a nightmare. Plenty of dreams with crying are not nightmares. But, dreams of crying are more related to nightmares than 80% of all other dream symbols. Other symbols that are like this include killing, closed my eyes, orange eyes, intruders, worms, other verbs, brains, abusing, Iran, and dead ends.
Crying dreams are about family
Dreams of crying are more related to family than 90% of all other symbols. In other words, dreaming of crying will increase your chances of dreaming of a family member. Other symbols that are like this include abortions, movement, Congo, wives, orange eyes, places, Guatemala, embracing, brothers, and bird cages.
Crying dreams might be about death
Dreams that contain crying are highly related to death. They are more related to death than 90% of all other dream symbols. Other symbols that are like this include terrorists, ambushing, verbs, war, infecting, destruction, orphans, grenades, seeing a dead father, and killing.
Crying dreams are about love
Dreams containing crying are more related to love than 90% of all other dream symbols. Of course each dream is unique and this does not mean that all dreams of crying are about love. It simply means that if you dream of crying, this dream has a greater chance of being about love than most other dream symbols. Other symbols that are like this include El Salvador, therapists, smiling, deluges, Laos, embracing, betrayal, my children, former partners, and events.
What symbols more present in dreams of crying?
Crying dreams are notable because they have substantially more characters, embracing, seeing a dead pet, seeing a dead mother, Kuwait, grief and sorrow, joy, events, comfort, miscarriages, seeing a dead relative, Laos, Fiji, movement, seeing a dead grandmother, seeing a dead partner, knees, suffering, Madagascar, general movement, seeing a dead father, babies, funerals, seeing a dead grandfather, communicating, Frodo, numb, hearts, comas, depression, cowards, helplessness, screaming, silence, abusing, nieces, seeing a dead friend, Kenya, emotions, break ups, cancer, overdoses, tackling, yelling, Denmark, best friends, raping, nephews, innocence, dismissals, family, suicide, paramedic, my children, orphans, senses, fists, revenge, shaking, and going to die than 95% of other dream symbols.
What symbols less present in dreams of crying?
Crying dreams are notable because they have substantially less owls, antlers, recurring dreams, spiders, verbs, crying, bees, other verbs, snakes, fish, scorpions, sharks, cannons, lucid dreams, excrement, flying, tigers, wolves, Australia, insects, water, deer, oceans, submarines, dragons, animals, cubes, cowboys, birds, magic, whales, hugeness, peeing, planes, eclipses, calves, natural places, tsunamis, swimming, aliens, chasing, rockets, green, crocodiles, and general insects than 95% of other dream symbols.
How does the dream symbol of crying affect the different aspects of a dream?
Explore different elements related to dreams of crying
Who is in crying dreams?
Overall, dreams with crying are aren't really related to characters in dreams. Specifically, dreams of crying are more related to close people, much more related to family, and much more related to romantic partners than dreams in general. They are less related to animals, less related to insects, and less related to different roles.
Show Detail
What are the emotions in crying dreams?
Overall, dreams with crying are much more related to emotions in dreams. Specifically, dreams of crying are much more related to happiness, much more related to sadness, and much more related to grief and sorrow than dreams in general.
Show Detail
Who is in crying dreams?
Overall, dreams with crying are less related to places in dreams. Specifically, dreams of crying are more related to home than dreams in general. They are less related to human places, less related to transportation, and less related to natural places.
Show Detail
What happens in crying dreams?
Overall, dreams with crying are more related to events in dreams. Specifically, dreams of crying are more related to friendly interactions than dreams in general. They are less related to disasters.
Show Detail
How do crying in dreams related to other dream phenomenon?
Overall, dreams with crying are much more related to dream events in dreams. Specifically, dreams of crying are more related to nightmares, more related to recurring nightmares, and more related to sleeping than dreams in general. They are less related to lucid dreams and less related to recurring dreams.
Show Detail
How can you make sense of crying in dreams?
Crying dreams are common. Among other things crying dreams are very postively interconnected, very emotional, friendly, nightmare, family oriented, about death, and about love.
Do you think this is true for your dream of crying? How might your dream of crying be different?
All dreams have meaning
You can gain insight from thinking about any dream, no matter how strange. Only you, as the dreamer, have final say on what your dream may or may not mean. Each dream is unique.
Look for the differences
The DreamWell dictionary provides information on how each dream symbol appears in dreams in general. Finding how experience crying in dreams can be a key to understanding its meaning.
Return to the feelings
Our emotions in dreams can help us understand its meaning. Pay attention to how you felt in the dream. Pay attention to how you feel about crying in dreams. See how you feel about crying now, in your waking life.
What are possible meanings for dreams of crying?
Crying in a dream can indicate strong emotions—grief, sadness, loss, despair—or just a need for release.
A main way dreams identify emotions is through color, and when combined with imagery they can pinpoint what emotions you are experiencing. See: Colors
For example, you dream about your favorite houseplant wilted and brown after being neglected, upsetting you to tears, and it symbolizes neglecting your personal growth or health. Green is associated with growth and connection with nature, and brown with decay. Plants and people both grow, and can be unhealthy when neglected. You see yourself in the plant and react based on subconscious knowledge of the symbolism. Now you really have something to cry about!
Now ask yourself what else withers from lack of attention or care: relationships, projects, dreams for your life.
The key to understanding the symbolism is your reaction. The dream imagery represents something that triggers your emotions. What do you feel like crying about? Keep in mind that dreams focus on whatever is unprocessed from your day, so if you feel strong emotions but go to bed before processing them, you are likely to dream about them. And when dreams process your emotions for you, they are very likely to be amplified.
While awake, your guard is up, but while asleep, your guard is down and emotions can really be felt. Crying in a dream might simply be a way of releasing tension, but also consider what’s going on deep in your heart. Something inside you might need your attention.
If you wake up crying, it’s possible that trauma, grief, or something similar is bubbling up to the surface and maybe not quite conscious yet. Or something ignored needs to be dealt with or confronted, such as pressure or stress. Or you’re healing, or venting. You can tell the difference, because when you vent you feel better. The pressure is released. But if something has been repressed and finally comes to the surface, the relief from crying is temporary.
Dreaming that you cry but no one seems to notice or care might be a sign that you feel ignored, helpless, or frustrated. You aren’t getting your point across, or no one is really listening. The symbolism can be projected onto a character that cries.
You can cry because of joy or relief. The difference in feeling is obvious.
Making fun of someone crying can symbolize lack of sympathy, or being unable to connect with someone emotionally when he or she is sad or upset. It’s not necessarily a character judgment. It’s possible that you subconsciously know there’s good reason to lack sympathy, or crying represents crocodile tears or comeuppance.
Making yourself cry in a dream can symbolize faking sadness or contrition. Or it can be a way of symbolizing acting out to get attention. Or it can mean you have difficulty crying.
Crying can be associated with immaturity—“cry like a little baby”—and manipulating people’s feelings and sympathy to get what you want. For example, a man dreams that he’s at a big meeting at work and one of his co-workers brings a baby to the meeting. The baby cries incessantly and the co-worker does nothing to try to stop it. The dream sums up the dreamer’s opinion that the co-worker in question fusses and complains like a baby until getting his way.
At a basic level, crying is an expression of need. It might be a plea for help.
See also: Babies, Seeing a dead relative, Emotions, Floods, Water, Wounds
This interpretation is from ""The Dream Interpretation Dictionary: Symbols, Signs, and Meanings" and is provided by J.M. DeBord aka "RadOwl". He is the author of several acclaimed books about dreaming, the host of The Dreams That Shape Us podcast, and is a moderator of r/Dreams, one of the largest dream sharing communities on the internet.
Examples of dreams of crying
Read some real dream reports of crying dreams.. These real life dream reports come from the moderated dream sharing communities of Reddit including r/Dreams, r/Nightmares, r/DreamInterpretation, or r/thisdreamihad. Please note that some of these may contain graphic, sexual, or violent images and text. Use the source link for each dream to view and join the discussion of each one.
I Had a Nightmare That Has Messed Me Up for Days Now. I Think I Went to a Multiversal Death Hub.
Hello all!
About 2 weeks ago I had a very existential lucid nightmare that I can’t get out of my head. It’s to the point where it has been effecting my waking life. I need some outside help making sense of what it could mean.
For context, I have existential issues involving what my purpose in life is or even if I am supposed to exist at all.
So it began in a sort of black void with a warm colored aurora in the sky. Directly in front of me there is a hooded man with his left eye missing that looks like an older grizzled version of me. Same look, voice, eye color, scar on our upper lip, everything. He is looking into a circular stone fountain looking thing with a bonfire positioned on a raised platform in the middle.
Around him in every direction as far as I could see were hundreds of thousands of gravestones. All of them had a vague “endings” written on them. (For example, “The Swiss Ending”, “The Atomic Ending”, “The Fantastical Ending”, etc.) Some were filled in while most had empty holes in front of them.
I approached the man in the middle and politely asked who he is and where I was. He simply responded with this,
“You know where we are, this is where we all go to die. Now find your grave, I’ll help you out when you get there.”
I responded with,
“My apologies, pal, I’m not dead yet. Who did you say you were again?”
“Does it matter? We’re all the same here anyway.”
That is when it occurred to me. All these graves were for different versions of me. From different realities or universes I don’t know. I was fairly certain I wasn’t dead and this was all just a bad dream so I decided to explore and possibly see which gravestone in this labyrinthine graveyard was mine.
As I walked, I started to feel a tug from my chest, like my heart was being pulled in a certain direction. I followed the pull for what seemed like ages. Eventually the graves just stopped except for this one gravestone sitting alone just outside of where the rest of them lay. As I approached my soul felt like it was it was sitting next to a cozy fireplace, so I had the feeling that this grave was mine.
I eventually got close enough to read it had it not been for the dust and debris that covered it. It looked old and dilapidated yet it still had an open plot in front of it. I brushed off the dirt covering the gravestone and what I read chilled me to my soul.
“The Bad Ending”
The old man came from beside me.
“What an unfortunate soul this one. Feel real bad for him, you know?”
“I think that’s me.”
“What? No, it couldn’t, he’s not-“
He looked at me, his face grew grim.
“Oh shit, you’re not supposed to be here yet!”
He then grabbed my face and I felt my brain shock like it had just been struck by Thor himself.
Then I woke up. Sweating, crying, and white-knuckled. It’s absolutely fucked with my mind ever since.
Hello all!
About 2 weeks ago I had a very existential lucid nightmare that I can’t get out of my head. It’s to the point where it has been effecting my waking...
Source | Show dream
I’ll never forget this dream. 18 years ago when I was 10, I lived an entire life in a single night.
It began with me playing outside, I was a child and had siblings, loving parents, it was was in a mideval time era. I remember my teenage years, I learned archery and swordplay (archery was my prowess) and joined the military as a young man. I served as a guard for my town and then was called away to war. Over the years, I progressed from soldier, to captain, to general, then eventually king.
I married and had children and eventually grandchildren. Then at the end of my life I remember sitting alone on a chair in the woods; fall had come, dead leaves blowing by on a wind that promised snow was not far away. I remember appreciating my life and my loved ones as my long gray hair blew across my face in the wind. I remember a single tear falling from my face as I knew my time had come to die. Then my life flashed before my eyes, in reverse, back to when I was a child, and with a white light I awoke in my bed with tears on my face.
I cried in earnest then, for the loss of those I loved, knowing that even though they werent real, Id never see them again. I’ll never forget that dream, it was... yeah, no word can describe it, surreal doesnt do it justice. I was 10.
It began with me playing outside, I was a child and had siblings, loving parents, it was was in a mideval time era. I remember my teenage years, I learned...
Source | Show dream
Had a crush on a girl 32 year ago. Haven't thought about her 32 years. Last night, I had a dream. She was pushing a stroller to a park and complaining to other moms that I didn't help out with...
I had a crush on a girl 32 year ago. I never told her that I had a crush on her.
I haven't thought about her 32 years.
Last night, I had a dream. She was pushing a stroller to a park and complaining to other moms that I didn't help out with changing diapers. I was running around with other people playing football, but I still heard what she said.
Against my better judgement, I looked her up online this morning.
I was beyond shocked and sat in front of my computer motionless for almost half an hour or longer. I felt no air in my lungs and it was as if my body forgot how to breathe...
I found out that she had just passed away 11 days ago. There was an obituary from her family as well. Not really sure why, but I called her phone number from 32 years ago. The number was her parent's house from back then. A man picked up. It turned out to be her brother. He and his family now lives in that house. I told him who I was and he remembered me.
As I started telling him about my dream from last night, he became very quiet and said nothing for several minutes. I thought line had gone dead, but it turned out that he was crying. What he said next shocked me to my core... He said "did you know that she also had a major crush on you back then?" and "a couple weeks before she died, she said she was still in love with you and she really wanted to see you one last time, but we didn't know how to get in contact with you"....
I feel all the energy drained out of me. My entire body feels like it was injected with pure sadness that no words could describe.
I had a crush on a girl 32 year ago. I never told her that I had a crush on her.
I haven't thought about her 32 years.
Last night, I had a dream. She was...
Source | Show dream
My best friend (f) shot me (m) and I don't know what it means?
Ok so I (m) have a female best friend. We have been friends for over 10 years with about a 4 year spread of little contact when she moved across the country.
She moved back 2 years ago and we have started to fall back to the friendship we had before she moved away.
Anyway last night I had an extremely vivid dream. I was at my mother's house for a cookout. Spring/summertime and there were several people there. My mom, her husband my two brothers myself my current girlfriend and several people that I don't think I actually know, just fillers I suppose. I also wanna preface that I don't dream often (atleast don't remember them) but when I do I remember I usually remember the beginning like waking up that day in my dream. But with this one it was like my consciousness was pushed in my body in the middle of the cookout.
So back to what's going on. So when I became conscious in the dream i remember thinking "how did I get here? I don't remember being here just a few minutes ago" and then my friends car pulled in the driveway. When she got out of the car she was visibly upset. I got up from my seat to greet her and noticed she was upset. I asked her what was wrong and she broke down and started crying. Then she produced a pistol from her purse and shot me twice in the chest.
I was stunned at first not realizing what happened. Then I felt the burn of the gunshot wounds, the warmth of my blood leak from chest. Then I fell over. I felt the cool damp grass on my face and the warmth of my blood on my torso. I remember feeling my energy drain from my body and then I took my last breath. When I died in the dream I woke up but it wasn't sudden or a jerk to being awake. It was like waking up any other day. But I had to feel my chest to make sure I wasn't shot. It was very vivid and I remember it so clearly.
What bugs me is that we have not argued or been in a fight or anything recently. Can you guys give some guidance?
Ok so I (m) have a female best friend. We have been friends for over 10 years with about a 4 year spread of little contact when she moved across the...
Source | Show dream
I just had a dream in which I was a psychotic killer. What does this mean?
I just had a dream in which I was a psychopath and was going around killing people, I killed 776 people... The imagery was so realistic that I woke up afraid of myself, crying... I was Shaking from this experience. Please help me decode this... Although I don't remember all my murders, I remember 2 of them... I can tell you both of em in extreme detail but they are kind of disturbing. Please interpret my dream.
I just had a dream in which I was a psychopath and was going around killing people, I killed 776 people... The imagery was so realistic that I woke up afraid of...
Source | Show dream
Explore your own dreams
Download the free DreamWell app to start journalling your dreams.