Dream dictionary
What your dreams mean, one symbol at a time
Every entry answers the question first, then goes deeper: what the research says, what different cultures believed, and what to ask yourself. A dictionary tells you what a symbol usually means. The interpreter tells you what your dream means.
Body
Teeth falling out
Teeth falling out is one of the most common dreams there is, and it does not predict death, loss, or anything else. It tends to show up during stress, self-consciousness, or big transitions, and a 2018 study found it is also linked to plain physical dental irritation during sleep, like clenching and grinding.
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Being pregnant
Pregnancy dreams are rarely literal. They tend to appear when something new is developing in your life: a project, a relationship, a version of yourself that is forming but not ready to show. If you are actually pregnant, vivid dreams come with the territory; sleep and dreaming both change measurably during pregnancy.
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Being naked in public
The naked-in-public dream is a classic exposure dream: it tracks fear of being seen through, judged, or caught unprepared, not anything about your actual body. It spikes before presentations, new jobs, and any moment of scrutiny. Its strangest feature, that nobody in the dream seems to notice, is also its most reassuring.
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Animals
Snakes
Snake dreams usually point to something in waking life that feels dangerous, unresolved, or hard to trust: a person, a situation, or a change already underway. Because snakes shed their skin, they can just as often stand for transformation as for threat. The feeling in the dream decides which reading fits.
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Spiders
Spider dreams usually point to something that feels quietly entangling: a situation, obligation, or person whose web you are caught in, often one you walked into without noticing. Like snakes, spiders are ancient threat images the dreaming brain reuses under stress, so the dream measures unease, not actual danger.
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Dogs
Dog dreams usually run on the themes dogs carry in waking life: loyalty, trust, protection, and what happens when those are secure or betrayed. A friendly dream dog tends to mirror solid bonds; an aggressive one often marks trust under strain. For dog owners, sometimes a dog is simply your dog, visiting your sleep.
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Nature
People
An ex
Dreaming about an ex rarely means you want them back, and it says nothing about what they are feeling. Exes are emotionally loaded, well-rehearsed memories, so the sleeping brain reuses them to work on current material: unfinished feelings sometimes, but just as often a pattern, a fear, or a chapter of your life they stand for.
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A partner cheating
Infidelity dreams are among the most common relationship dreams, and they are not evidence of anything. They usually track insecurity, an attention imbalance, or fear of losing closeness, and they often say more about how valued you currently feel than about what your partner is doing. The hurt on waking is real; the event was not.
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Dead relatives
Dreaming of relatives who have died is a normal, common part of grief, and research on bereavement finds these dreams are more often comforting than distressing. They are not hauntings or omens. Whether you read them as visits or as memory doing its work, they tend to mean the bond is still being tended.
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Events
Falling
Falling is one of the most universal dreams, and it has two common sources: a hypnic jerk, the normal muscle twitch as you drift off, which the brain narrates as a fall, and waking-life feelings of losing control or support. Hitting the ground does not harm you, and the old claim that it kills you is pure myth.
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Being chased
Chase dreams are the most commonly reported dream theme in the world, and they almost always mirror avoidance: something in waking life you are running from rather than facing. The pursuer matters less than the running. These dreams tend to stop when the avoided thing is finally dealt with, which is their most useful property.
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Death
Death in a dream is about endings and change, not prediction. Dreams of dying, funerals, or a loved one's death are among the most common distressing dreams, and they cluster around transitions: chapters closing, relationships changing, versions of yourself being outgrown. No dream tradition worth taking seriously reads them as forecasts.
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Flying
Flying is one of the most positive dreams people report. It tends to accompany confidence, release from pressure, or the wish to rise above a constraining situation, and it is the classic activity of lucid dreams. Struggling to stay airborne is its own message: capability present, something dragging on it.
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