Dreaming about
music

Most people can hum the music from a film they saw years ago, and in many films it's the music that tells you how to feel before anything happens on screen. Dreams use it the same way. Dreaming about music usually mirrors your mood, or how in tune you feel with the people around you, and the kind of music it was (a sad song, a wild party, a choir, a tune you can't place) says a lot about which. But music in dreams is also just music, and some people wake up from one with a real song in their heads.

What you were doing while the music played changes the reading. Hearing music from another room is a different dream from singing on a stage, and both differ from playing an instrument you've never learned. Then there's how you live with music awake, since a professional violinist and someone who only hears the radio in the car will dream of it for different reasons.

What dreaming about music means

Music does things to us that words can't quite manage, which is why it's so useful to a dream. It sets a mood in seconds, it brings back a whole year of your life in three notes, and it's the main way people feel together in a crowd. Each of those gives a reading.

Your mood, scored

The quickest way to read a music dream is to ask what the music sounded like. A slow piece in a minor key often comes with sadness you haven't quite let yourself feel, while something upbeat points to energy or a happy patch. Music that was too loud, discordant or wouldn't stop can point to stress, a life with too much noise in it. What was the soundtrack of your week?

Being in tune, or out of it

English borrows heavily from music to talk about how we get along. We're in harmony with someone, out of tune with a group, on the same wavelength or striking a chord. A dream of playing well with others, in a band or a choir, often comes when you feel connected. And a dream of being off-key, or of everyone else playing a song you don't know, usually points to feeling out of step at work, in a friendship or in a family. Face the music, change your tune and play it by ear are in the same family, and one of them may be the whole reading.

Saying what you can't say

Some feelings come out more easily in a song than in a sentence. If you sang in the dream, especially if you sang well and loudly (better than you do in the shower), it may be about wanting to express something you've been holding back. If you opened your mouth and nothing came out, that's a very common dream about not being heard.

A memory in three notes

A song is one of the fastest ways back to a time, a place or a person. If your dream played something from your teens, your wedding or a summer you remember, the song is probably a way into that memory and what it stirs up now. And if you heard the song yesterday, that's probably where it came from.

Dreaming about hearing music

Music coming from somewhere you can't see, a neighbor's flat, a distant field or the next room, is the most common music dream. It's about something you're aware of but haven't reached yet, and the question is whether you wanted to reach it. Did you follow the sound? Or close the door on it? If the music drew you towards it, you may be curious about a new direction (a person, a place, an interest). And if it unsettled you, think about a situation where you can sense a mood or a tension without knowing where it's coming from.

Dreaming about a song you know

When the dream plays a song you know, listen to the words if you can remember them. Dreams are happy to send messages through lyrics, and a line about leaving, waiting or being let down can be the clearest thing in the whole dream. If it was a song you've had on repeat, it's probably just an earworm carried into sleep, because dreams follow what we do and worry about by day,^[1] which is also why musicians tend to report more music in their dreams than the rest of us. That's worth ruling out before you look for a deeper meaning. If you haven't heard the song in years, ask who you associate it with.

Dreaming about writing music

Composing in a dream, and waking up with a tune you're sure is new, happens more than you'd expect. The composer Giuseppe Tartini said his best-known violin sonata came from a dream in which the devil played for him, and Paul McCartney woke up with the melody of "Yesterday" already in his head. If you dreamed of making music, the dream is usually about creativity, a part of you that wants an outlet. Record anything you remember straight away, because melodies fade even faster than images.

Dreaming about singing or performing on stage

Singing on stage in front of a crowd is about being seen. If it went brilliantly, the dream points to confidence or a wish for recognition (the same wish behind many dreams about celebrities), but if you forgot the words, lost your voice or found you were in the wrong show, it's a close cousin of the exam dream, a fear of being found out or caught unprepared. These come up before job interviews, presentations and big days of all kinds.

Dreaming about playing an instrument

Playing an instrument in a dream is about skill and practice, which every musician knows is mostly boring, but dreams skip that part. Playing one you actually play points to how you feel about your progress, in music or elsewhere. Playing beautifully on one you've never touched can mean you're more capable than you think at something new. If the instrument was broken or out of tune, look for a tool you rely on (your body, your job, a relationship) that isn't working the way it used to.

Dreaming about dancing to music

Dancing puts the music in your body, and a dream where you danced freely, with no worry about who was watching, usually comes with a sense of release or joy. If you couldn't find the rhythm, or everyone else knew the steps, it's about feeling out of step with a group. There's more on the dancing page, which covers dancing with a partner too.

Dreaming about music according to Jung and Freud

Music isn't a symbol either of them wrote about, so what follows applies their ideas to it.

Jung on the music a busy day leaves out

In Jung's view a dream pushes back against a lopsided waking life.^[2] A day made of words, numbers and plans is where a dream full of music fits, because music brings what that day leaves out: feeling, rhythm, time with no use. A voice you hear singing but never see, especially one of the other sex, is also the kind of figure he called an anima or an animus, the part of the psyche he pictured as belonging to the other sex.^[2] Who did it remind you of?

Freud on the song from yesterday

Freud began with what happened the day before (his term was day residue) and then with whatever comes to mind about the dream's images.^[3] For a music dream that means working out where you heard the tune in the last day, then humming it and seeing what you think of next. If the song has words, a line about leaving, waiting or coming home may be where the wish he believed every dream disguises shows through.

The spiritual meaning of music in dreams

Hindu texts file dream music under omens, and they disagree about it.

Music in the Puranas and the Ramayana

The Puranas are Sanskrit compendiums of myth, ritual and lore, and two of them sort dreams into omens. The Agni Purana devotes a chapter to them and counts playing or hearing the lute (the vina) as good, with other instruments, singing and dancing among the bad,^[4] and the Matsya Purana, which answers a question about the dreams a king may see, files music in the same places.^[5] In the Ramayana, Valmiki's Sanskrit epic, the demoness Trijata dreams of conches, drums, dances and songs honoring Vibhishana, brother of the demon king Ravana, a good sign for him, while the doomed ogres drink, laugh and dance.^[6] Dancing is on the Puranas' bad list, so the texts don't agree even with each other.

Questions to ask about your music dream

The music in your dream was chosen from your own memory, so start with what it meant to you.

• What did the music sound like, sad, happy, loud, strange?
• Did you know the song, and do you remember any words?
• Were you listening, singing, playing or dancing?
• Were you in tune with the others, or out of step?
• What has the soundtrack of your life been lately?

Oniri asks what you heard and how it landed with you, and only then offers its reading of your dream.