Dreaming about a murder: what this heavy dream usually means

What dreaming about a murder usually points to

Dream interpretation is not prediction and not diagnosis. This article separates what sleep research observes from what popular interpretation associates with the theme, always saying which is which.

Dreaming about a murder is not a prediction of a crime, it does not reveal a hidden dangerous side and it does not mean you wish anyone harm. Most of the time, it shows up in tense phases: a conflict that will not get resolved, a piece of violent news that stuck in your head, a vague threat at work or at home.

What weighs in the dream is the emotion, not the plot. Fear, guilt, helplessness or anger are usually the thread that ties the scene to waking life. This article deals with the crime scene itself; for dreams in which someone simply dies, without violence, the article on dreaming about death is the place to start.

Read also: Dreaming that you are being chased and Nightmares: why they happen.

Where such a heavy scene comes from

The continuity hypothesis, studied by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, shows that dreams tend to follow whatever fills our days. A crime series or a news report about a crime in your neighborhood is enough material.

In 2018, Schredl and Anja Göritz analyzed reports of recent nightmares collected in an online study. Among the most frequently cited themes were falling, being chased, being paralyzed, being late and the death or injury of someone close. Violence against oneself or against the people one loves is, therefore, frequent nightmare material, and not a sign of something rare or abnormal.

In 2000, Antti Revonsuo proposed that dreaming works as a rehearsal in which the brain practices reacting to threats. It is a debated hypothesis, but it helps explain why these scenes show up even in calm lives.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Schredl and Göritz, Nightmare Themes, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018; Revonsuo, The reinterpretation of dreams, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000.

The most common forms of this dream

If the scene revolved around a specific object, it is worth reading dreaming about gunshots or a firearm or dreaming about a robbery or a holdup too. When the police enter the story, see dreaming about the police.

See also: Dreaming about a zombie and Dreaming about shopping.

When the dream calls for care and support

A single dream about a murder is no cause for alarm. It deserves attention when the nightmare repeats, when you start to be afraid of going to sleep or when the scene recalls something you really went through, such as violence or a traumatic loss. Frequent nightmares have treatment, such as imagery rehearsal therapy, in which the person rewrites the ending of the dream while awake. See also how to have fewer nightmares.

If the dream came with intense suffering, constant fear or memories of a trauma, do not carry it alone. Reach out to a health professional and, if you need to talk to someone right now, in the US you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), free of charge, 24 hours a day.

Source: Morgenthaler and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

Freud, Jung and faith at the crime scene

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In the first chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud gathers an old debate: does morality stay awake while we dream? Some of the authors he quotes said that in dreams we commit crimes without remorse; others, that our character holds. For Freud, the manifest scene hides a meaning that only the dreamer's free association can reveal.

In Jung's psychology. Jung spoke of the shadow, the part of ourselves we prefer not to see: anger, envy, impulses that social life asks us to keep to ourselves. In Man and His Symbols, it appears as a figure that confronts the dreamer. In his memoirs, Jung told of dreaming that he killed Siegfried, a hero of Germanic mythology, and read it as the end of a heroic ideal that no longer served him.

In symbols and faith. A Dictionary of Symbols, by Chevalier and Gheerbrant, recalls that death, in many traditions, is also passage and transformation. In the Bible, the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4) speaks of envy and guilt, and many people of faith read this dream as a call to reconciliation.

Bringing both readings together. Research shows that threat is a common theme of nightmares; psychoanalysis and faith ask what needs to be brought to an end. Neither one accuses the dreamer.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; Chevalier and Gheerbrant, A Dictionary of Symbols.

Murder in dream books

In O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book, L. P. Baçan records murder like this: in life, disturbances; in love, the end of an affair. These are short readings, in the tradition of popular dream dictionaries.

Freud called this way of reading the decoding method: each image becomes a fixed meaning, as in a key, without asking the person anything. A nightmare after a real robbery and another after a mystery series do not say the same thing, and no list can account for that difference.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014.

How folk tradition reads this dream

In Brazilian folk reading, dreaming that someone was killed is usually seen as the end of one cycle and the start of another, along the same lines as the saying that dreaming of your own death is a sign of long life. Dreaming that you killed someone appears as a wish to cut a tie or a habit; being accused, as fear of gossip; running from the killer and escaping, as a problem overcome. These are traditional beliefs, for reflection, not predictions. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.