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Crying in dreams: what it can mean

  • Loss and grief
  • Love and relationships

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The short answer

Crying in a dream, or waking up in tears, usually means an emotion found a way out that it could not find during the day. It is often followed by relief.

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

Emotions are a core category in dream content research, and dreams frequently carry feelings more strongly than waking life allows. The continuity view reads dream tears as a sign that something matters to you: grief, stress, loneliness, or even relief and joy. Crying in dreams is common during bereavement and big transitions. If you woke up crying, it can help to notice what the tears were about before the feeling fades.

Folk tradition

Tradition, not science

Tradition: American popular dream books, around 1900

Dream books around 1900 read weeping in a dream as a sign of bad news. We report this as how people once read the image, not as a prediction.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. What were you crying about in the dream, if you know?
  2. Is there a feeling you have not had time or space for while awake?
  3. Did you feel lighter or heavier after waking?

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. Calvin S. Hall, Robert L. Van de Castle (1966). The Content Analysis of Dreams. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: coding categories: emotions (reference not yet checked)

    The standard coding system for dream content (characters, social interactions, misfortunes, emotions, settings, objects) and its normative sample.

  2. 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.

  3. Gustavus Hindman Miller (1901). What's in a Dream (later reissued as Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted).

    public domain

    • Cited at: entry: Weeping (reference not yet checked)

    An American popular dream dictionary. Its entries are written as omens ("foretells"); we only report how people once read a symbol, never as a forecast.