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Crush in dreams: what it can mean

  • Love and relationships

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The short answer

Dreaming about someone you like is common and usually says more about your hopes and nerves than about their feelings. It is not a sign that they are thinking of you.

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.

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Three ways to read it

Psychology and research

Research

The continuity view is clear here: the people we think about while awake are the people who show up at night. A crush in a dream often acts out wishes, rehearses a conversation or replays a worry about rejection. What the person did in the dream reflects your own imagination of them, so it cannot tell you what they feel. It can tell you what you are hoping for.

Classic texts

History

Freud argued that many dreams fulfil a wish, sometimes openly and sometimes in disguise. Dreams about a crush are an example of the open kind he described. Later research does not support his claim that every dream is a wish, but the idea is useful for noticing what you want.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. What did you hope would happen in the dream, and did it?
  2. What do you actually know about this person, and what did your mind fill in?
  3. Is there a small, real step you would like to take, or not take?

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. Calvin S. Hall, Vernon J. Nordby (1972). The Individual and His Dreams. New York: New American Library.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: continuity of dreams and waking concerns (reference not yet checked)

    Early statement of the continuity idea: dreams carry over the concerns of waking life.

  3. Sigmund Freud (1913). The Interpretation of Dreams, translated by A. A. Brill. New York: Macmillan.

    first published 1900

    public domain

    • Cited at: Ch. III (the dream as the fulfilment of a wish) (reference not yet checked)

    First English translation, of the third German edition. Public domain; scholars consider it looser than the later Strachey translation, which is copyrighted.