The Meaning of Dream: What It Is and How To Use It

What is a dream, and what do common dreams mean? This article details the meaning of dreams as well as the interpretation of dreams.

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The word dream can be used as a noun or a verb, either literally or figuratively. This article will tell you all about the meaning of the word dream, how to say the word dream in other languages, and interpretations of some common dreams.

What Does the Word Dream Mean?

According to Dictionary, the word dream can be a noun or a verb. As a noun, a dream can refer to the images and thoughts that a person experiences during sleep. It can also refer to a person’s ambition or goal. The pronunciation of dream is driːm.

As a verb, the word dream refers to the act of dreaming during sleep and the act of having a goal. People often enter a dream world of fantasies during the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep cycle and see their dreams like they are in a movie. 

Interpreting Dreams

Psych News Daily states that dreams can provide information about our waking life. There are many common dream themes that different people might experience, such as being naked at work or school, falling down a black hole, or their teeth falling out. 

This series of thoughts is not necessarily a predictor for what will happen in real life, but a metaphor for your current mental state.

How Can Dream Be Used in a Sentence?

If you are just learning the meaning of the word dream and want to try using it in a sentence, studying the example sentences below can help you learn how to do it:

My bad dreams were always the most intense and vivid dreams that my unconscious mind could come up with as a kid. My subconscious thoughts were terrifying, and I went to several professional dream analysts and neuroscientists for psychoanalysis.

In her wildest dreams, Grace Loewenberg never thought she would be going to the Olympics. She had written it in her dream journal since childhood, and her integrity and hard work finally paid off. 

I find comfort in my dreaming mind. The imagery always helps me when I feel a mental block or a lack of creativity. 

I dream of a day when there is no more war or violence, and we can all find peace on Earth.

What Are Translations of Dream?

People all around the world have dreams! To discuss dreams with people worldwide, you can start by looking at this list of translations of dream. How many of these translations look similar to the word dream, and how many seem to have a different root word?

  • Chinese (Taiwan): 夢
  • Croatian: san
  • Danish: drøm
  • Portuguese (Portugal): Sonhe
  • Urdu: خواب
  • Estonian: unenägu
  • Hebrew: חולם
  • Gujarati: સ્વપ્ન
  • Swahili: ndoto.
  • Polish: śnić
  • Latvian: sapnis
  • Ukrainian: мрія
  • Bulgarian: мечта
  • Portuguese (Brazil): Sonhe
  • French: rêver
  • Spanish: sueño
  • Filipino: panaginip
  • Kannada: ಕನಸು
  • Catalan: somni
  • Dutch: droom
  • Russian: мечтать
  • Japanese: 夢
  • Slovak: sen
  • Welsh: freuddwydiont
  • Thai: ฝัน
  • Vietnamese: mơ ước
  • Swedish: dröm
  • Malayalam: സങ്കല്പിക്കുക
  • Bengali: স্বপ্ন
  • Malay: mimpi
  • Marathi: स्वप्न
  • Arabic: حلم
  • Serbian: сањати
  • Turkish: rüya
  • Korean: 꿈
  • Czech: sen
  • Romanian: vis
  • Italian: sogno
  • Finnish: unelma
  • Greek: όνειρο
  • Tamil: கனவு
  • Basque: ametsa
  • Amharic: ህልም
  • Norwegian: drøm
  • Telugu: కల
  • German: Traum
  • Chinese (PRC): 梦
  • Hindi: सपना
  • Hungarian: álom
  • Indonesian: mimpi

What Are Synonyms of the Word Dream?

If you are trying to clarify what you mean by dream, you could use a synonym from Power Thesaurus. Synonyms can be useful to know if you are trying to grow your vocabulary or if you feel you have used the word dream too many times. 

  • ambition
  • aspiration
  • beauty
  • bubble
  • castle in the air
  • chimera
  • conceive
  • daydream
  • delusion
  • design
  • desire
  • dreaming
  • fancy
  • fantasize
  • fantasy
  • figment
  • goal
  • hallucinate
  • hallucination
  • have a dream
  • have a nightmare
  • hope
  • idea
  • ideal
  • illusion
  • imagination
  • imagine
  • intent
  • intention
  • knockout
  • mirage
  • muse
  • nightmare
  • objective
  • phantasm
  • pie in the sky
  • pipe dream
  • plan
  • rainbow
  • reverie
  • sleep
  • stargaze
  • think
  • thought
  • trance
  • vision
  • wish
  • woolgather

What Are Antonyms of the Word Dream?

If you’re searching for an antonym of dream, this list from Power Thesaurus will not disappoint. Learn antonyms of dream to talk about the opposite of dreaming!

  • actuality
  • authenticity
  • bust
  • case
  • certainty
  • concrete
  • corporality
  • corporeality
  • disappointment
  • dislike
  • dud
  • entity
  • existence
  • fact
  • failure
  • flop
  • genuineness
  • hatred
  • hell
  • hell on Earth
  • lemon
  • letdown
  • loser
  • materiality
  • means
  • method
  • night terror
  • nightmare
  • purgatory
  • realism
  • reality
  • stinker
  • subsistence
  • substance
  • thingness
  • torment
  • torture
  • trial
  • tribulation
  • truth
  • truthfulness
  • validity
  • verisimilitude
  • verity
  • way

Conclusion

Overall, the word dream can be used as a noun or a verb, either literally or figuratively. Literally, this refers to the imagery that a person sees during certain stages of sleep. Figuratively, the word dream can refer to a goal or ambition that a person wants to accomplish. What are your literal and figurative dreams, and are they good or bad?

Sources:

  1. Dream synonyms – 2 164 Words and Phrases for Dream | Power Thesaurus 
  2. Dream antonyms – 353 Opposites of Dream | Power Thesaurus 
  3. Dream Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
  4. What does it mean when you dream about someone? Here are 8 helpful explanations. | Psych News Daily