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Kiss in dreams: what it can mean

  • Love and relationships
  • Body

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The short answer

A dream kiss can be about desire, affection, closeness or simply a mind replaying the people it thinks about. Kissing someone unexpected is common and does not mean you secretly want them.

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

Friendly and sexual interactions are standard categories in dream content research, and the continuity view links them to the people and feelings on our minds. Dreams also connect memories loosely, so a kiss with a friend, a colleague or a stranger may be the brain testing an unusual association rather than revealing a hidden wish. How the kiss felt is the part worth noticing.

Classic texts

History

Freud held that dreams fulfil wishes, and a kiss is one of the plainest examples. He also argued that wishes are often disguised, so the person in the dream may stand for someone else. Later research does not support his idea that every dream is a wish.

Folk tradition

Tradition, not science

Tradition: American popular dream books, around 1900

Miller's 1901 dream dictionary read kisses by their setting and partner, taking a kiss in the dark as a sign of risk and an affectionate family kiss as a good sign. These were popular readings of their time, not predictions.

Questions to ask yourself

  1. How did the kiss feel: warm, awkward, exciting, wrong?
  2. What quality does this person have that you want more of in your life?
  3. Is there closeness you are missing right now?

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: friendliness and sexuality (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. Antonio Zadra, Robert Stickgold (2021). When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep. New York: W. W. Norton.

    cited, not reproduced

    • Cited at: the NEXTUP model (reference not yet checked)

    NEXTUP model: dreaming explores weak, unexpected associations between memories.

  4. 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.

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

    public domain

    • Cited at: entry: Kiss (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.