Sometimes in dreams, we cry. The reasons for crying in a dream can be varied, maybe we are crying for a dead person or for some other reason that makes us sad.

Alternatively, we may cry for joy or see someone cry and comfort them.

Occasionally we also dream without crying tears. It also happens that we just wake up crying. What does it mean to cry in a dream?

Crying always expresses feelings, normally we experience crying as a strong emotional outburst.

In real life, we ​​cry for various reasons such as fear of the future, separation from our life partner, bad experiences, pain, grief or being overwhelmed.

In addition, positive reasons bring tears to our eyes, such as great happiness, joy of reunion, wonderful experiences and other experiences that move us emotionally.

Dream of Crying – Meaning

Regardless of the cause of the shedding of tears, crying is and will remain an outburst of emotions that is usually perceived as quite violent because basically the whole body is crying, not just our eyes.

When we cry quietly and sadly, we feel paralyzed, when we cry with anger or hatred, all muscles feel tense and when we cry out of pure fear or desperation, we shake uncontrollably all over our bodies.

Those who cry for joy also lose some control over their bodies, be it that they jump around excitedly or stop dead in their tracks, let out a few tears and say nothing because the joy has driven them speechless.

Crying is a reaction to pent-up feelings that have not yet been processed. Either negative feelings have accumulated because they have been repressed.

Then they reinforce each other until they break out in the form of tears and make their way through. A spontaneous outbreak of tears usually happens when we are so overwhelmed by our feelings that we cannot grasp them all in the short time.

When we learn of the death of a loved one, we cry most violently immediately after receiving the message, because we have to understand this event first. The grief is too intense to be dealt with immediately. If you are lucky, it is the same.

All parents cry with happiness after the birth of their child. Holding your own baby in your arms after birth and hearing the first cry of this new living being is just too overwhelming, even if you have had a few months to prepare for this moment. The feelings just have to go.

It is similar in a dream. When we cry in a dream, our subconscious is crying. There are pent-up feelings that we either ignore or suppress when we are awake. If we cry a lot in our dreams, does that mean that we are emotionally overloaded per se or that we are simply sad or depressed in the depths of our soul?

If we think about what has made us cry so far in life and what could bring tears to our eyes in the future, the proportion of responses associated with negative feelings and events is likely to be significantly greater than that of positive causes.

However, that does not mean that crying in the dream is a predominantly negative dream symbol. On the contrary. It is a mostly positive dream symbol.

The reason for this is the liberating effect of crying. We usually feel better after we burst into tears and let the pent-up emotions run free. Crying has a liberating effect. It is the same in a dream.

In the individual interpretation of such dreams, it is not of the utmost importance whether we cry in the dream ourselves or see someone cry. In both cases, it is an outburst of emotion. If another person cries in the dream, the meaning, in contrast to crying yourself, can also go to the fact that one feels the need to help another by comforting him.

If someone else sheds tears of joy in a dream, this is a good sign, because something fantastic has happened and you can share in the joy of the crying.

More important are the type and intensity of crying and the feelings that go with it. In principle it applies that the problems are bigger, the more violently the dreaming cries. However, that also means that you should deal with your dreams accordingly intensively.

In doing so, one should approach the dream interpretation as objectively as possible and find out the reason for the dreamed crying. Helpful questions at this point are, for example:

The answers to these questions always turn out to be very informative when you consider that crying releases pent-up feelings and, figuratively speaking, lets them flow away. It is as a knot has burst and all of the pressure on it is finally able to escape. An example:

Someone has had a bad divorce. He still cannot understand it and is still mourning his life partner. The grief gnaws at him and represents a great burden. Now this person dreams of his ex-partner and breaks down crying during the dream. In and of itself this sounds like a nightmare, since the grief meets him in the dream and makes the dreaming cry.

In fact, this dream has a very positive meaning, namely that his subconscious is working hard to process the breakup. The dream says that the dreaming is ready to consciously conclude with the divorce. He can work through everything and overcome what has happened.

It is similar with dreams about the deceased. If we mourn the death of a loved one in a dream, it is a sign of processing. The subconscious clears up, so to speak, and prepares the dreaming to leave the grief behind and to continue his life.

Crying shows what our subconscious is doing and what it is working on with high pressure. Sometimes they are just compensatory dreams.

Especially very introverted people who barely show their feelings to the outside world often cry in their dreams. All suppressed emotions are discharged in the dream; a kind of pressure equalization takes place.

However, if we cannot find a cause, so that we cry in the dream for no reason, there is probably a serious problem.

Crying in a dream for no reason indicates a deep inner-psychological sadness, which can develop into depression. If such dreams are common, they should be given the utmost attention. If no fixed cause can be found, a psychotherapist can be consulted.

This is even truer if you actually cried in your sleep or woke up crying from the dream. It is normal to cry when you are in a sad situation and have had a bad dream. This is actually a good signal, because it shows that you are in a processing phase.

Waking up crying for no apparent reason, on the other hand, indicates very large emotional problems, possibly a traumatic experience that one has tried to suppress. Psychotherapeutic help is advisable here.

Crying is one of the most important valves in dealing with our feelings. We cry when we are overwhelmed by our feelings, regardless of whether we have such intense emotions that we cannot grasp them immediately or whether unprocessed feelings have built up so much that they simply break out as a dam burst.

It is the most intense kind of emotional expression. We cannot express happiness more strongly than with tears of joy. Likewise grief, fear or pain. We do not cry with every wound, but only when the pain is so severe that there is no other way.

Usually we cry alone or in the presence of good friends or family members. We often feel embarrassed or shameful about crying in front of others, because we indirectly admit that we are overwhelmed with a situation and that we are losing control or self-control. Crying is therefore often seen as a sign of personal weakness.

Too often, it is forgotten here that crying has a very liberating effect. After that, we are calmer, more relaxed and much less tense. It is the same in our dreams. When we cry in a dream, a release takes place. Pent-up feelings show up and we are ready to turn our conscious attention to them in order to finally process the causes of the emotions.

Dream of Crying – Symbolism

Duden defines the verb to cry as “shedding tears as an expression of pain, of strong inner excitement […].” Therefore, the dream interpretation of crying should be obvious, right. Crying in a dream can only mean that one is unhappy or grieving, right. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Crying in a dream can – as so often in dream interpretation – have different reasons and meanings.

In general, the dream interpretation crying gives information about the presence of intense feelings – both positive and negative. If we cry while we are awake, it clearly shows our fellow human beings and us that we have reached our stress limit; that we can no longer.

Especially if you find it difficult in waking life to let your emotions, run free, crying in dreams can serve as a useful outlet. However, it can also express the desire to reveal one’s true feelings to one’s fellow human beings in real life.

Depressed people cry for no apparent reason, they lose themselves in their emotions and they lose the ability to determine for themselves when and where they can express their emotions and when not. Crying for no apparent reason should be taken seriously.

Crying for no reason in a dream can indicate real worries and sadness in waking life. Therefore, whoever cries in a dream without knowing the reason for it could understand this as a warning signal?

The actual crying in sleep could serve to relieve tension, for which there is no valve in real life or which the dreaming does not allow himself to let out. Therefore, if you often “catch” yourself crying in your sleep, you might wonder what emotions you are trying to suppress in waking life.

There are also numerous, sometimes quite different, interpretations for dreams in which you see someone crying. Such a dream could reflect that in real life one feels compassion for this person, but does not allow oneself to express this compassion.

On the other hand, the crying person can also represent the dreaming himself. Then the dream signals that the dreamer is confronted with a difficult situation in waking life, but will know how to help himself. Therefore, the dream expresses confidence and hope.

It was popularly believed that tears of joy in dreams herald happiness and joy in real life. To shed tears of joy in the dream can of course also express the actual joy of the dreaming about an incident in real life. Likewise, it could reflect the strong longing for something – for example for the thing about which the dreaming is so happy in sleep that he cries for joy.

Dreaming about your ex-partner is completely normal, especially during the processing phase after the breakup. The emotional impressions and experiences still have to be processed. If the separation was a long time ago, such a dream can reflect certain longings and hopes, especially of course those that you had attached to your ex-partner.

Seeing your ex-partner cry in a dream causes compassion and could arouse the protective instinct that one feels for close, loved ones. The dream can also reflect a longing that is linked to the thought of the ex-partner.

In spiritual circles, dreaming of the ex-partner is understood as a warning not to get involved with him again, and as a call to remain strong in this regard, even if the dream has increased the longing for him again.

To cry about the dead can first mean that we miss them more than we would allow or admit in the waking life. Traditionally, crying for a dead person in a dream can also mean that the dreaming is ailing or mentally weak in real life, but will soon be healthy again.

This dream interpretation goes back to the ancient Assyrians, who also believed that the psyche, by crying for a dead person in a dream, detaches itself from something heavy and says goodbye, and henceforth can take a new path in good spirits. If one weeps in the dream for a dead person, a new beginning is imminent – the dreaming is ready for it.

If a loved one dies in a dream, this can indicate in the tram interpretation crying that the relationship with this person in real life is currently subject to change. If one weeps in the dream for this person, it could mean that the dreaming has accepted the change and is ready to make the best of it.

Dreaming of crying indicates the need to vent tensions and emotions not expressed and accumulated during the day.

Pain, sadness, despair, nostalgia, sexual impulses that are not listened to or repressed during daytime life, can emerge in dreams in the form of crying, tears, sobbing and moaning.

The dream then becomes the space for expression of these feelings often considered “unpleasant, painful and inappropriate”, which are harnessed, denied or sublimated through food or s*x.

Dreaming of crying has the function of showing the dreamer HIS suffering and allowing the expression of a part of the personality that is ignored during the day.

It is a metaphorical to remove the mask and confront what happens inside oneself, a form of dream abreaction that releases tension and restores a balance otherwise compromised by the denial of feelings.

Feelings that, repressed and compressed in the unconscious, nevertheless manage to manifest themselves: turning outside with forms of aggression and violence or inside with psychosomatic illness.

Dreaming of crying and tears in dreams share the symbolism of water and rain: emotions and sadness, despair, joy.

Like torrential water or rain, they end up breaking the banks and overflowing, sweeping away the emotional block or control that has prevented the feelings from manifesting.

Dreaming of crying is not always a symptom of pain or sadness, it can also present itself as an expression of intense emotion, such as “cleaning” and renewal in a phase of transition and transformation, as a response to dream images of great beauty, to sensations of fullness, to spiritual impulses.

Dreaming of crying will then be a sign of relief, well-being and an intimate contact with one’s vulnerability, or a symptom of emotional participation, of an identification with the feelings of others, of understanding and empathy.

Popular tradition refers to the theories of antiquity according to which dream images that are dramatic or difficult to bear (e.g. death, tears, pain), will have a symbolic meaning opposite to what is attributed to them in daytime life.

Thus, dreaming of crying, tears shed in dreams combined with feelings of pain, herald joy and luck. It is said that: “if laughter announces mourning, tears bring joy” and, if shed by the dreamer, they will be a symbol of encouragement and success in some activity.

Conclusion

Dreaming of crying is very common and has almost infinite variables. We will consider only a few images described in dreams sent to me by readers.

Without ever forgetting that what I write on these images is only an indication that must be considered as a starting point for personal reflection, because each dream changes in relation to the other symbols that appear there and to the tensions of an emotional, psychic or physical order. That the dreamer is experiencing.