10 things it really means when your dreams keep coming true

Have you been having vivid dreams lately?

Are you remembering your dreams often and finding that they are happening later in the day, week, or month?

Sometimes it can be difficult to understand our dreams. They are an unusual and creative space that we can learn a great deal from.

I’ve compiled a list of the top 10 things that it really means when your dreams keep coming true.

But First, Let’s Look at The Master of Dream Interpretation – Carl Gustav Jung

“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Over 100 years ago, Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung used his dream world to look deeper into the subconscious.

Jung compiled his revered insights and personal explorations in a red leather book called Liber Novus (“The New Book”). This book features Jung’s sketches of mythological characters and creatures, as well as dialogues between demons and deities.

He found that certain archetypes or personas, such as the Shadow, the Anima, and the Innocent Child, kept resurfacing in his patients’ dreams.

By exploring the details of his dreams and drawings, Jung found a symbolic language of his of the subconscious mind and pioneered the field of analytical psychology.

Jung came to see the subconscious as a fluid space for thoughts and emotions to ebb and flow.

Dreams become the important tools for him to understand his patients. He gleaned them for insights to heal mental illness. He also used the dreamworld to learn how the mind and body intimately interact.

If you feel like your dreams keep coming true, we can look to Carl Jung for some specific insights. Let’s dive right in:

1) You are deeply connected to the human spirit

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Did you ever have a dream where a specific character frequently appears?

It might be one of Jung’s fundamental dream archetypes.

Perhaps it was a reclusive, old, witch-like woman who visited you in a forest, a loving, nurturing, great mother who blanketed you in a sense of warmth and love, or a regal, ruling father-like figure who appeared in a critical moment and bestowed upon you great fortunes and blessings.

There are common characters that seem to appear across our dreamscape.

Jung created a list of major archetypes of the dream world and psyche that repeatedly surface in a dream. Examples of these personas are the Shadow, the Wise Old Woman, the Loving Mother, the Child, and the Trickster.

These significant, primal, characters appeared and reappeared in Jung’s dreamscape. Also, Jung found in countless sessions with his patients that the same characters communicated a primal and fundamental meaning. These archetypes also present themselves in different cultures and throughout history.

If your dreams about a common archetype seem to come true, it can mean that you are deeply connected to a common, universal dream language.

For example, the Trickster will commonly come up in our dreams to point out aspects of reality that we actively avoid or choose to overlook. The idea of the Trickster can be the one who holds insight or secrets and uses them to subvert the norm and play tricks on others. This archetype often has us question things we are certain about and asks us to look at them again with fresh eyes.

The trickster comes up across different cultures and in history, for example, he appears as the Coyote in First Nations mythologies, also as the Norse shape-shifting god Loki, the rabbit in West African communities, and Puck in Celtic mythology.

For Jung, the archetypes seem to be universal and united symbols in a collective unconscious that we can access through our dreams.

So, if you are dreaming about a specific character regularly, and something they say or do seems to occur outside of your dream, there may be something in your life that you are overlooking. It can mean that there is a need to consciously look at something in your life differently, and with more attention.

2) You are missing an important message

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Does something very specific stand out in your dream?

Do you see that signal appear when you are awake?

There are hundreds of thousands of cues and points of information that our unconscious mind and sensory system acquire every day.

Your conscious mind has to act very quickly to respond to any signs or signals that are deemed significant for our survival.

The majority of the information that you come across is not actively processed. It is not life-threatening or dangerous, it can be easily glossed over.

Your dreams can be a method for your subconscious and conscious to reprocess new perspectives from any overlooked signals.

You might experience the outcome of a scenario that never would occur in reality. Like you might find your work bag, not at your door, but lost, and buried in the backyard. If you analyze your thoughts and feelings on that dream, you might come to realize you think it is time to leave your job for another opportunity.

Your dreams can also play out scenarios that haven’t occurred in reality to give you clues and insight into how you might feel or respond to that outcome in the conscious, awakened state.

For example, if you dream that a loved one dies, you might come to treat them differently when you see them again because the reality of losing them hadn’t been a thought that you deeply considered before your dream.

In this manner, dreams can help you to understand what’s going on in your emotional state and your deeper psyche.

3) You need to remember who you truly are

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Do your dreams ever show you something about yourself that you know but don’t want to admit?

Your dreams might be coming true because there is something about yourself that you need to remember. Your subconscious wants to reveal a quality of your essence to your conscious level of thinking.

Personally, I don’t dream very much. When I did dream, which would be around two to three times a year. I found that my dream would hold a very distinct symbol that made sense or seemed to come true a few months later.

For example, once, I was in a very intense, and somewhat toxic, romantic relationship that was quickly going sideways. At that time, I had a dream that felt ominous and terrifying. It felt like a deep inner warning for me to stop engaging with that particular man.

Even though I didn’t want to admit it, I knew deep down in my bones that the relationship was extremely intense, unnecessarily tumultuous, and overly dramatic. But I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself.

In my conscious mind, I rationalized that I was happy and in love and actually in a rare, whirlwind romance.

My dream felt like my very essence was speaking to me. It was telling me to pay more attention and walk away.

The symbols of that particular dream made more sense after the relationship dissolved:

I was at the peak of a Himalayan mountain. Alone, with no footsteps around me. A rare snow leopard appeared. He was precariously perched on the top of the snowy summit. I started walking towards this very attractive, majestic, camouflaged animal, only to realize that he was extremely dangerous.

Then I thought, ‘Why should I walk any closer?’ I felt the warning intensify. A voice sounded like my grandfather spoke p. It said, ‘Just close the door!”. All of the sudden, I was in a room staring at a set of wooden, cabinet doors. The portal was gone, I was no longer in the mountains.

Looking back I see that my dream came true. It signaled to me that the relationship would end. It called me to have courage and walk away from something I wanted to hold onto dearly. However, I chose to ignore my basic feelings. I let the negative interactions build-up, and our disastrous passion played itself out. It felt like a door was slammed in my face.

In retrospect, it was clear that my dream was warning me to step away. It would have hurt less to end it when I dreamed it. My dream reminded me to be decisive and brave and to take action sooner than later.

4) You are more powerful than you think

Have you ever taken control of a dream?

If you can get into the state where you know you are dreaming, you can also experience an unusually lucid dream. In this space, you change the experience of your dreams according to your will and desire.

By actively playing out different scenarios in this subconscious space, your dreams can empower you to feel strong, and invincible, and take hold of the circumstances in front of you.

If your dream comes true in this lucid state, it can mean that you are actively changing it according to a strong desire that you have. This will also carry through to your waking state. So it is likely that you will set on the same course in your conscious experience. Hence, your dream will come true.

This happened to me once. I was having a dream where I felt like I was about to die. It sounds rather terrifying, and it was until it wasn’t. I was driving a massive truck and parked it on a wooden pier. I was waiting for a ferry to let me drive onboard. Suddenly, the pier broke and collapsed down into the ocean. My vehicle started to sink. I was upfront in the driver’s seat, and now aware there was a woman in the backseat.

She had a wheelchair folded up beside her. Her legs were paralyzed. Because the dream was so fast-moving and shocking, I remember realizing, ‘Oh, this is a death dream. I am going to drown.’ I allowed my body to sink with the vehicle. But a part of me screamed out and hesitated. I am a strong swimmer and also a freediver. I knew I could hold my breath long enough to swim myself and the women up to the surface.

So, in one split second, I flipped myself from a passive victim to a lifesaver. I assured the woman that we would be okay. I grabbed hold of her, kicked the window out, and began to swim us up to the surface. Mid-ascent, I woke up. I felt liberated. I realized I could take charge of my dreams because I had skills that empowered me in that space.

I knew that these skills were also available to me during my waking state. This knowledge made me feel much more powerful throughout my day.

The ability to become a director of your dreams seems to be a skill that you can develop. Carl Jung actively explored lucid dreaming using various methods from ancient Chinese culture, yoga practices, medieval alchemy, and other spiritual techniques.

Also, the techniques of Stephen LaBerge can help with lucid dreaming. After a great amount of research in the 1970s, he developed specific methods to help others access their dreaming consciousness.

5) Your mood will be more regulated

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Perhaps you even experienced some of your worst fears coming true?

Your dreams may have helped to prime you for such events so that you weren’t taken so off guard in reality.

If you are dreaming regularly and sleeping deeply, you can face these difficult aspects with more compassion, love, resilience, and courage.

If you’re dreaming regularly and you remember your dreams, it’s a great sign for your overall welling.

Many researchers show that our REM or dream sleep can act as a compact therapeutic session. They can help us to process and find resolve for the myriad of events in our day.

Our dreams have also been shown to help regulate our emotional states.

If you are sleep-deprived, you are more likely to feel off balance. If you are already feeling low, it’s also easier for your mind to dwell on the many negative aspects of your day.

When you are feeling down, you’re more likely to hold that feeling and be around things that make you stay in that state.

According to Psychology Today, a lack of sleep can increase your risk of feeling depressed. It can also make you feel unnecessarily anxious and less likely to feel inspired and creative throughout the day.

So, having a good night’s rest and feeling like your dreams come true during the day can mean that you are generally in a better mood or mindset, and can feel the positive qualities of life and interact well with those around you.

6) You need to say goodbye to someone you haven’t let go of

“Six weeks after his death my father appeared to me in a dream… It was an unforgettable experience, and it forced me for the first time to think about life after death.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Have you ever dreamed or felt the presence of someone who has passed on from this life?

According to Jung, this is quite natural and an insightful experience.

Your dreams can be a space where you say goodbye to people that you haven’t had a chance to let go of subconsciously. These dreams can be heartfelt and welcomed encounters, or they can be rather unpleasant and disturbing moments for you.

Whether it be a relationship that went astray, or you tragically lost a loved one without having the chance to tell them how you feel, a dream can offer a place to let your mind play out impossible conversations. They can help with the bereavement process, by allowing your heart to open, and send out messages of peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Often, when you dream of someone who has passed, there are unresolved issues that haven’t been released from your psyche. So, admitting what lies deep down in your heart to someone in your dream can allow you to feel a sense of relief afterward, as if the dream did come true. It means that the dream is now true to you.

You can now focus on a future filled with more peace and comfort within.

7) You are better able to fully accept who you are

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Your dreams can be a place where you look at your deepest, most secret thoughts. You know, the ones that you would never dare to say out loud, even to yourself.

Having these types of dreams may help you to express buried feelings involving violence and pain or of a deep desire and need.

Your dreams can help you to understand that you are not your thoughts.

The same person who acts very kind and compassionate can also experience some tremendously horrible dream decisions and fantasies.

You can also start to see positive aspects of your psyche that you might have otherwise overlooked. And playing out different fantastical scenarios in your dreams allows you to enjoy the experience of being uniquely you.

Negative or positive, your dream space gives you a chance to work through any repressed emotions using a proxy.

They allow a great deal of dismissed conscious thoughts and sensations to surface so that you can reply and remix them.

Events happen so fast and not in a logical sequence, so we don’t process them in the same way that we process the chronological events of our day.

Have you noticed that it’s difficult to judge in the dream space?

The more we begin to observe and explore what is going on in our dream state, with full acceptance, the more we can understand the randomness and madness of our minds.

Jung reminds us that this madness is a great place to learn how to accept the full range of the human experience. There are no rules to live by. You make them.

Whether or not your dreams come true, we can start to lovingly accept all that we are, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The more you can receive your deepest thoughts and desires that surface in your dreams, the more you can start to accept the complete range of what it means to be human.

8) Nothing is permanent or predictable

“Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.”

– Carl Gustav Jung

Even if it feels like your dreams keep coming true, there is something to learn from also noticing that the majority of your dreams that you have had throughout your life don’t manifest. This can be an important reminder that life is inherently wild and unpredictable.

The more you can accept the randomness of your dreams, without getting caught up in their meaning or significance, the more you can learn to tread through the numerous, banal events of your day.

In the same way that you might randomly dream of monkeys coming into a swimming pool with you, or that you are flying over a field of purple corn, or suddenly be chased by dinosaurs, your mind will accept it as it is and nothing else.

They are all just events. You don’t immediately give meaning to it at the moment that you are experiencing it in your dream space. So it’s a place where you can be completely creative.

However, if you dream that you cross paths with an ex-lover, you might look for more meaning in that dream and develop it as an important story.

In this way, dreams can help us remember that events take on meaning and importance because we give them that power.

If your dream seems to come true, it can be because you want it to. But that doesn’t mean that you can predict what will happen next. So when it feels like your dreams seem to keep coming true, remember that there are a multitude of dreams that didn’t. Dreams like thoughts will come and go. With meaning or no meaning. Each dream will be different, unpredictable and remind you that your day ahead will always be surprising.

9) You act to make them true

Your dreams can reveal a great deal about your inner state. They might seem particularly predictive because they may involve situations that you haven’t thought about in your waking state.

You might dream of something one day, and then dismiss it, only to have the exact scenario occur a few weeks later.

Looking closer at the science of predictive dreams has some significant findings. For example, a study from Johns Hopkins University found that pregnant women who tried to guess the sex of their baby were 70% accurate, while the women who reported that they dreamed the sex of their baby were 100% correct.

This suggests that we have access to some deeper sense of knowledge that doesn’t seem to come from our conscious realm.

So if your dreams seem to be coming true, it can mean that dreams have the power to mirror to you what you truly know and feel. They convey real information to you.

You may come to realize this in different ways. You might dream something that affects your future behavior and leads to that very outcome that you dreamt.

For example, if you dream about failing an important exam, it might alter your future actions. You might decide that you are doomed and study and prepare less as a result of this belief. So the dream may reflect that you don’t want to study for the test. The most likely outcome for this is that you fail to pass it.

Or, you might dream something that becomes true only in retrospect.

For example, you may dream that you fail an exam and not think too much about it after the dream. If you do indeed fail the exam in reality, if you recall the dream, it will take on much more meaning and seem true in hindsight.

In this way, Jung reminds us to look deeper at the relationship between your consciousness and unconsciousness. Events may seem products of fate. However, the more we can look into our inner world, the more we can start to understand why our dreams feel like they come true.

Bottom Line

Your dreams involve a strong interaction between your conscious and subconscious state.

So, it’s highly likely that probable events in your dreams will be remembered more vividly and make it easier for you to anticipate that outcome.

So if your dreams seem to send you messages and events to note, take notice.

Our dreams seem to come true because we make them so.

Your dreams are great teachers and revealers of our experiences. So dare to go in and look deeper!