Dreaming about a zombie: meaning, variations and what science says

Dreaming about a zombie: the direct answer

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

Dreaming about a zombie is not a sign of death, illness, a bad spirit nearby or that something will go wrong. The zombie is a threat that does not tire and does not negotiate, and so it appears in phases of constant pressure: piling deadlines, demands that return every day, the feeling of being caught up with. Films, series and games with the undead also feed this kind of dream a lot.

Read also: Dreaming that you are being chased and Dreaming about a person who has died.

Why zombies invade sleep

Being chased is among the most reported typical dreams. In the survey by Tore Nielsen and colleagues of university students, published in 2003, being chased appeared as one of the most frequent themes, reported by the great majority. The zombie is a modern version of this pursuer, with the detail that it comes in a group and never stops.

The threat simulation hypothesis, by Antti Revonsuo, helps explain the intensity of the scene: dreaming would work as training for flight and defense in a safe setting. Hiding in a market, blocking doors, protecting someone from a bite are exactly the scripts this hypothesis describes. A marathon of an apocalypse series before bed usually supplies the setting.

Sources: Nielsen and colleagues, The Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students, Dreaming, 2003; Revonsuo, The reinterpretation of dreams, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000.

Scenes that show up most in this dream

When the dream shows the whole world ending, it is also worth reading dreaming about the end of the world.

When the dream deserves professional attention

A nightmare about a zombie after a film is common and passes. If the chases repeat almost every night, you wake up out of breath, start avoiding sleep or the fear lasts through the day, see a health professional: frequent nightmares have effective treatment. See why nightmares happen and how to reduce them.

Source: Morgenthaler et al., Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

What dream books say

O Livro dos Sonhos (a Brazilian dream book), by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for zombie, a figure much more recent than the popular dictionaries. The closest is "corpse", which the book reads in a surprising way: in life, a long life; in love, changes.

Man and His Symbols, edited by Jung, recalls that dreams are completely individual phenomena and that their symbols cannot be cataloged. The zombie of someone who just watched a series is not the same as that of someone living an exhausting routine, and only the dreamer knows which of the two appeared.

Sources: Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014.

Freud, Jung and faith on this dream

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In the first chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud gathers authors who were astonished by the logic of dreams: no one finds it strange when a dead man walks to the grave on his own legs. For him, this absurdity has method. Through condensation, the dream merges several people into one figure, and the zombie with the face of a boss or a neighbor can combine more than one worry.

In Jung's psychology. The threatening figure that chases is usually read as the shadow, the side we prefer not to see. The book also includes the dream of a young man who, at the top of a mountain, feels dead beside a sarcophagus and then receives strength and rejuvenation from the sunlight. For Henderson, a collaborator of Jung, dying symbolically is part of initiation: something old ends so that something new can be born.

In symbols and faith. In the Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant tell that, for the Cashinahua Indians, the first men of today's world arose from the bodies of the giants of the previous humanity, after the flood: decomposition as the cradle of new life. In the Bible, Ezekiel 37:1-14 describes the valley of dry bones that live again, an image of restoration and not of terror.

Putting the two readings together. Science explains the flight; the traditions ask what needs to die or be reborn. Noting who the zombie was and where you hid helps you see which pressure turned into a monster.

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

What folk tradition links to this dream

In popular reading, the zombie usually represents people or situations that drain energy, hard-to-quit vices and habits repeated on autopilot. Fleeing and managing to hide appears as a sign of resistance; facing the zombies, as time to confront what you avoid; being bitten, as fear of being contaminated by your surroundings. These are cultural interpretations, to reflect on, and not predictions. See dream meanings between science and culture.