Dreaming about music: why it happens and what it reflects

What this dream usually points to (and what it does not)

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 music is usually a pleasant and memorable experience: sometimes it is a familiar song, sometimes a new melody that disappears the moment you wake up. It is not an omen, and the music in the dream is not delivering a message. In general, it reflects how present music is in your life and the emotional state that comes with it.

The song you wake up humming may have come from a memory, from a sound in the room or simply from something you heard during the day. A chorus that played in the car, a ringtone, a hymn from a weekend gathering: all of it is material the sleeping mind can pick up and replay.

Read also: Dreaming about a concert, Dreaming about dancing and why some songs get stuck in your head.

What research says about music in dreams

A classic study followed 35 professional musicians and 30 students who were not musicians through 30 days of dream diaries. The musicians had about twice as many dreams with music, around 40% against 18%. In 28% of cases, the music in the musicians' dreams was an original piece, which shows that the mind can invent melodies during sleep. The researchers also noted that activities such as reading, writing and calculating rarely appear in dreams, which suggests that music holds a place of its own.

A review of the research shows that, in a survey of almost 2,000 participants, the time spent playing, singing or listening closely to music was linked to the share of dreams with music. That supports the continuity hypothesis: we dream more about what we devote ourselves to while awake. The frequency of musical dreams also tends to drop with age.

Put simply, the more music fills your days, the more likely it is to fill some of your nights, and in people who live with an instrument in their hands, the dreaming mind can even compose.

Sources: Uga and colleagues, Music in dreams, Consciousness and Cognition, 2006; Music and dreams: A review, International Journal of Dream Research.

Versions of the music dream and what they usually go with

If the instrument was the center of the scene, see dreaming about a piano and dreaming about a guitar. If it was a crowd, a stage or a dance floor, see dreaming about a concert and dreaming about a party.

See also: Dreaming about dancing and Dreaming about a clock.

When dreaming about music calls for attention

Dreaming about music is hardly ever a cause for concern. It is worth seeing a doctor if you hear music or voices while awake and there is no source at all, or if the music in the dream comes with intense fear and repeated nightmares. Nightmares can be treated; see nightmares: why they happen and how to have fewer.

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

Science and belief: Freud, Jung and traditions

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud quotes an image from an author of his time, according to whom a dream would be like the ten fingers of someone who knows nothing about music wandering at random over the keys of a piano, in other words, noise without meaning. Freud uses the example to criticize that view: for him, the dream has a meaning and can be interpreted. Modern research with musicians, who come up with new melodies in their dreams, does not sit well with the idea of meaningless noise.

In symbols and faith. A Dictionary of Symbols recalls that the Pythagoreans saw music as a harmony of numbers and of the cosmos, and that in every civilization the most intense acts of social or personal life have music as their mediator, up to the very limits of the divine. In the Celtic tradition, harpists played in three modes: the mode of sleep, the mode of laughter and the mode of lament, and the mode of sleep led to the Otherworld.

Bringing both readings together. Tradition sees in music a bond between the human and the divine; science sees a dream that follows musical practice and the dreamer's emotions. Either way, music in a dream speaks of emotion and belonging more than of prediction.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Chevalier and Gheerbrant, A Dictionary of Symbols.

What dream books say

In O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book, L. P. Baçan links music to union or health in life and to satisfaction in love: a traditional reading, mostly positive, with no proof behind it. Freud described dream books as a kind of dictionary that translates each image into another with a fixed meaning. Artemidorus of Daldis, author of the oldest complete Greek dream book that has survived, advised looking at the dreamer's life before interpreting anything. If you see the dream as a message, both paths make the same suggestion: ask what this image recalls in your life right now. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.

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

Read also: dreaming about a party; why great music gives you chills; why we dream.

Folk beliefs about this dream

In folk reading, dreaming about music is seen as a sign of harmony, of reconciliation and of good times. In some religious traditions, singing and instruments accompany the sacred. These are cultural interpretations, with no scientific proof. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.