Choose a language

Airplane in dreams: what it can mean

  • Journeys
  • Fear and danger
  • Change

DraftAn editor has not reviewed this page yet.

The short answer

Airplanes carry big journeys and the feeling of being in someone else's hands. Many dreamers connect them with a major change, and crashes with fear of losing control.

Your dream is not everyone's

Tell it the way you remember it. You get a reading about your dream and your life, not a dictionary entry.

Your text stays in this browser until you send it.

Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

The continuity view reads plane dreams through the dreamer's own situation: an upcoming trip, a move, a leap in career, or simply fear of flying. Losing control of a vehicle and falling both appear among the typical themes reported in dream surveys. Threat simulation theory, one contested account, reads crash dreams as rehearsal for danger. A crash dream is a picture of fear, not a warning about a flight.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. What big move or change is ahead of you?
  2. Were you flying the plane, or was someone else in control?
  3. What would help you feel safer about what is coming?

Related symbols

Sources

Every reading on this page comes from these works. Page references have not all been checked yet; those still waiting are marked.

  1. G. William Domhoff (2001). A New Neurocognitive Theory of Dreams. Dreaming 11(1): 13-33.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: pp. 13-33 (dreams as simulations of personal concerns) (reference not yet checked)

    Dreams as embodied simulations of personal concerns (the continuity view). The backbone of our psychology lens.

  2. Tore A. Nielsen, Antonio L. Zadra, Valérie Simard, Sébastien Saucier, Philippe Stenstrom, Carlyle Smith, Don Kuiken (2003). The typical dreams of Canadian university students. Dreaming 13(4): 211-235.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: typical dreams questionnaire, results (reference not yet checked)

    Survey of how many people report having had common dream themes (being chased, falling, teeth, flying, exams, nakedness and others) at least once.

  3. Antti Revonsuo (2000). The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23(6): 877-901.

    cited, not reproducedcontested theory

    • Cited at: pp. 877-901 (threat simulation theory) (reference not yet checked)

    Threat simulation theory: dreams as rehearsal for danger. Influential but contested; presented as one theory among several.