Dreaming about someone: why that person shows up

What this dream usually points to (and what it doesn't)

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 someone does not mean that person is thinking about you. Research points the other way: who shows up in your dream is usually who occupies space in your head.

Read also: Dream meanings: what science and culture actually say and Dreams about flying: what happens in the brain, Dreaming about a friend.

They appear because you think about them

Under the continuity hypothesis, dream content follows waking life, including the people we live with or miss. That holds even for someone you have not seen in years: a memory, a song or a photo can reactivate the subject without you noticing.

Source: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003.

Freud, Jung and faith on this dream

In Freud's psychoanalysis. A person in a dream is not always just one person. Freud called it condensation when the dream blends features of several people into a single figure: a coworker's face and an uncle's voice. That is why he did not decode a character all at once. He asked what came to mind about each detail, and the clue often sat in the quietest trait, pushed to the edge of the scene.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, the people in our dreams can also carry parts of the dreamer. The shadow, the side we would rather not see, tends to appear as a figure of the same sex and embodies the very traits we most dislike in others. The anima in men and the animus in women show up as loved or mysterious figures. The book notes that the anima is what makes a man feel, on first seeing a woman, that he has known her all his life.

In faith traditions. Spiritism offers its own reading: in The Spirits' Book, Allan Kardec writes that during sleep the ties between spirit and body loosen, and the spirit may connect with other spirits. Dreams would be, in part, a blurred memory of those meetings. In the Bible, Hebrews 13:2 recalls that some people entertained angels without knowing it, a passage many believers link to unknown visitors.

Bringing both views together. The dream journal in the workbook by Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, has a field just for characters. Writing down who appeared, how you felt around them and what was going on that week gives material both to those looking for a message and to those looking for the mind's logic. The same goes for faces you don't recognize.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; Kardec, The Spirits' Book; Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone journal.

The effect on the next day

A study followed people in relationships who logged dreams and daily behaviour. Dreaming about a partner was associated with what happened the next day: conflict or jealousy dreams came with more friction, and affectionate dreams with more closeness.

So the dream does not predict the relationship, but it can colour the mood you wake up in. Worth remembering before holding someone responsible for something that happened inside a dream.

Source: Selterman et al., Dreaming of You, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2014.

See also: Dreaming about a baby or pregnancy and Dreaming about your husband.

The most common situations

• Dreaming about an ex: frequent in periods of change, not a sign of reconciliation.
• Dreaming of someone who died: among the most reported themes, and common in grief.
• Dreaming about someone you dislike: usually tracks unresolved conflict.
• Dreaming of a stranger: faces can be composites of people already seen.

Source: Nielsen et al., The Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students, Dreaming, 2003.

See also dreaming about death.

What dream books say

Livro do Sonho, a popular Brazilian dream dictionary, suggests that seeing someone you know in a dream represents aspects of yourself you are still trying to take in, and that competing with that person would show parts of yourself you reject. It is a reading close to psychology: the dreamed person would work as a mirror of the dreamer.

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. If you see the dream as a message, both paths suggest the same thing: ask what this image brings to mind in your life right now. See dream meanings according to science and culture.

Source: Livro do Sonho, Brazilian dream dictionary; Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900.

Read also: when the person in your dream is your ex; when the person is a stranger.