Dreaming about the sky or clouds: what it usually reflects

The short 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 the sky or clouds is not a message about luck, disaster or something coming to an end. The image usually tracks the emotion of the night: an open sky shows up often in times of relief and lightness; heavy clouds, during stretches of worry or fatigue. When the dream involves flying through the clouds, the most common feeling is freedom.

Read also: Dreams about flying and Dreaming about stars.

Why the sky shows up in your dreams

The sky is an everyday backdrop, and the continuity hypothesis, discussed by Michael Schredl in 2003, reminds us that dreams tend to reuse what we see and feel while awake. A beautiful sunset, a plane trip, a storm forecast or just an overcast day can return at night, colored by your state of mind.

Many sky dreams are really flying dreams. In the survey by Tore Nielsen and colleagues, published in 2003, flying is among the typical themes that many university students said they had dreamed about, alongside falling and being chased. It is a common experience. See also dreams about airplanes.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Nielsen et al., The Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students, Dreaming, 2003.

Scenes that show up most in this dream

If the clouds turned into heavy rain and lightning, also read dreams about storms or lightning.

When the dream deserves professional attention

Most of the time, dreaming about the sky is neutral or even pleasant. If a threatening sky becomes a recurring nightmare, you wake up anxious several times a week or you start avoiding sleep, it is worth talking to a health professional: frequent nightmares can be treated. See how to have fewer nightmares.

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

What dream books say

In the Brazilian dream book O Livro dos Sonhos, by L. P. Baçan, the view from below is upbeat: the sky brings happiness in life and pleasant surprises in love, while clouds speak of luck in life and happiness in love. Interestingly, the book makes no distinction between white clouds and storm clouds.

Jung was wary of catalogs like this. Man and His Symbols holds that dreams are entirely individual and that their symbols cannot be cataloged. A gray sky might be the memory of a rainy day for one person and a picture of grief for another.

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

Psychoanalysis, symbols and faith: another look at dreaming about the sky or clouds

In Freud's psychoanalysis. Flying through the sky is one of the typical dreams Freud studied. In his view, these dreams echo childhood games in which an adult spun a child around, tossed them in the air or pretended to drop them; in the dream, the hands holding you vanish and only the floating sensation remains.

In Jung's psychology. Man and His Symbols quotes Leonardo da Vinci, who advised looking at stains on a wall, ashes or clouds to find marvelous ideas: loose shapes trigger associations, like spotting a face in a cloud. The book also retells the Chinese myth of P'an Ku, the giant who shaped earth and sky; when he grew sad, the sky clouded over. In Jung's view, through the compensatory function, people with grand or unrealistic plans may dream of flying or falling.

In symbols and faith. In A Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant note that the Chinese character for sky represents what a person has above their head, and that in China the emperor was called the son of heaven. From Buddhism to Islam, from Dante to China, people often speak of seven or nine heavens, steps of spiritual states. In the Bible, "the heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1), and God led the people through the desert with a pillar of cloud (Exodus 13:21).

Bringing both views together. Science explains that a dream sky reflects recent memories and emotions; faith sees the heights as a place of transcendence and presence. Both point to the same detail: the color of the sky and how you felt beneath it.

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

Popular readings of dreaming about the sky or clouds

In popular readings, a blue sky is linked to peace, good news and open roads; dark clouds, to passing difficulties; and flying above the clouds, to overcoming and achievement. A starry sky is often read as hope. These are cultural interpretations, good for reflection, not guarantees of what will happen. See dream meanings according to science and culture.