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Being chased in dreams: what it can mean

  • Fear and danger
  • Being tested

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The short answer

Being chased is one of the most commonly reported dream themes across ages and cultures. It usually tracks stress or avoidance: something you feel you have to get away from or have not faced yet.

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Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

Survey studies place being chased or pursued near the top of the typical dreams people report. Threat simulation theory, which is influential but disputed, reads such dreams as the brain rehearsing escape from danger. A continuity reading looks at your waking pressure: deadlines, conflict, a conversation you keep postponing. Frequent chase nightmares often go together with high stress, and research on disturbed dreaming links them to how we process fear. It can help to ask who the pursuer was and what might happen if you stopped running.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. Who or what was chasing you, and did you ever see it clearly?
  2. What have you been avoiding, postponing or trying to outrun lately?
  3. If you had turned around in the dream, what do you imagine would have happened?

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. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. Ross Levin, Tore A. Nielsen (2007). Disturbed dreaming, posttraumatic stress disorder, and affect distress: A review and neurocognitive model. Psychological Bulletin 133(3): 482-528.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: pp. 482-528 (distressing dreams and emotional distress) (reference not yet checked)

    Nightmares and distressing dreams in relation to fear processing and emotional distress.