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Bathroom in dreams: what it can mean

  • Body
  • Places

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The short answer

Bathroom dreams are often about privacy, embarrassment and letting go. Many dreamers connect a toilet with no walls or one they cannot find with a waking need they feel they cannot meet in peace.

Your dream is not everyone's

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Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

Some bathroom dreams have a simple bodily cause: the sleeping brain weaves a full bladder into the story. Others, on the continuity view, mirror waking concerns about privacy, being exposed, or not having space to take care of yourself. Being inappropriately dressed or exposed appears among the typical themes people report, and a bathroom with no door is a close cousin.

Classic texts

History

Artemidorus observed that the meaning of bathing in dreams had changed with custom: in earlier times, when baths were rare, people read them one way, and in his day, when public baths were ordinary, another. His point, that symbols follow culture, is a good reason to read your own dream through your own life.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. Where in your life do you feel you have no privacy right now?
  2. What do you need to let go of?
  3. Did you worry about someone walking in, and who was it?

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. Artemidorus of Daldis (1644). The Interpretation of Dreams (Oneirocritica), in five books, translated by Robert Wood. London.

    first published 2nd century CE

    public domain

    • Cited at: Book I, on bathing and bathhouses (reference not yet checked)

    Greek dream manual from the Roman era. We paraphrase the public-domain Wood translation (1644). Modern translations (White 1975, Harris-McCoy 2012, Hammond 2020) are copyrighted and only cited.