Since the outset of the pandemic last year, many people noticed their dreams became more vivid and unsettling leaving us to wonder what they could mean.
Now an expert has decoded the potential meanings behind the top ten nightmares that Britons most commonly look up online.
Dream expert Lauri Loewenberg, in collaboration with hybrid mattress brand OTTY, analysed some of the most searched nightmares in the UK to help those suffering from bad dreams to figure out what their subconscious is trying to tell them.
The most commonly searched nightmare is about snakes, followed by teeth falling, being chased, falling and even dying.
When it comes to the urge to understand our dream patterns, Lauri explains: ‘We get nightmares when the subconscious wants to help us correct an upsetting or difficult issue in our life.
‘So as frightening as nightmares are to experience, they are good for us because they are shining a light on something that is wrong, something we have been ignoring, mishandling or that has been overpowering us in some way.’
Here, FEMAIL reveals the top ten most commonly searched nightmares and what they really mean.
According to recent study by OTTY, the most commonly searched nightmare is about snakes, followed by teeth falling, being chased, falling and even dying (stock image)
1. Snakes
While everyone will have personal associations with symbols that appear in dreams, there are also ‘archetypal’ meanings that can typically apply to most of us.
And according to Lauri, dreaming of snakes usually represents someone toxic in our life.
This person is most likely exhibiting ‘low down’ behaviour that could be harming us, or has the potential to threaten us in some way.
2. Teeth falling out
Dreams that involve a doomed trip to the dentist are most often linked to communication issues in our real life.
Losing teeth during a nightmare is most often connected to allowing something out of your mouth the previous day that you shouldn’t have, like a secret or someone’s personal business.
If you regularly say things without thinking first, if you don’t have a filter, or if you tend to say things you instantly regret, you are likely to experience this dream.
Another common element of this dream is how you’re going to look with missing teeth. This tends to be tied to the conscious concern about how others perceive you after what you have allowed to let slip.
3. Being Chased
This dream is caused by avoidance and most commonly experienced by those who run away from issues instead of tackling them head-on.
This dream is letting you know that the longer you run from the issue, the longer it will continue to cause you problems.
4. Falling
The downward motion is what is at play here. This dream tends to happen when we are feeling let down by someone or something in real life.
When plans fall through when something you had high hopes for doesn’t work out, or whenever something brings down your general mood, the subconscious result could be a dream where you’re falling from a great height and heading into the unknown.
This is also a common dream for people that suffer from mental health issues and can be a warning from their body that they are about to ‘fall’ into another depressive episode
5. Dying
Death is the end of life, but to the dreaming mind, death is simply the end of life as you currently know it.
You can dream of death when something in your life is coming to an end or significantly changing, like when a relationship ends, when you change careers, or when you first find out you’re pregnant.
These are life-changing moments that the subconscious will equate with death – the end of the old you.
If you dream of someone else dying, then there is likely some sort of change happening with that person or a shift in your relationship with that person.
It is common to dream of a child dying when they reach different phases of life: when they start walking, when they go to school, when they learn to drive, when they get married and so on.
Death dreams allow us to recognise changes in our lives so that we can let go of what we no longer need, and become more open to the change to come.
6. Drowning
A drowning nightmare occurs in those feeling in over their heads with something, such as responsibilities, debt or emotions.
Like the falling dream, there is the downward pull at play here, although there is a bit more control involved with a drowning dream.
So pay attention to the struggle you experience trying to stay above or get to the surface of the water.
What struggle in your real life feels similar? That’s what your dream is commenting on. What in your real life would serve as a life raft for you?
7. Bugs
When something or someone is annoying or ‘bugging’ us, we may find that bugs start to infest our nightly dreams.
The more creepy crawlies in your dream or the larger the bug, the bigger the problem is in waking life.
Bugs have been a prominent symbol in many people’s dreams since the pandemic started. We often refer to sickness as ‘a bug that’s going around’ that we don’t want to be bitten by.
Dream expert Lauri Loewenberg decodes the meaning behind the UK’s top 10 most searched nightmares revealing that dreaming of snakes can represent someone with toxic behaviour in our life
8. Being cheated on
If you’ve previously experienced infidelity in a relationship, dreaming about it in the present indicates that there are still levels of distrust within you that need to be addressed.
However, if infidelity has never been an issue for you and this dream seems to be coming out of nowhere, then it is likely alerting you to something in your current relationship that feels like a third wheel.
Your partner may be working too much, spending too much time on a side hustle, dedicating too much of his free time to gaming, or maybe a new baby is taking up all the time and attention you used to have for each other.
Whatever it is, your subconscious is bringing this to the surface so you two can figure out how to make up for lost time.
9. Killing someone
Whereas death is a natural ending, murder is a forced one. So if you are murdering someone in your dream, you are probably actively working to change or end something negative in your real life.
If you’ve recently quit smoking, initiated a break-up or divorce, or if you’ve changed eating habits and have started to lose weight, then you are likely to dream of murder.
10. Being lost
This dream is often caused by indecision or uncertainty in real life, and the idea of not knowing ‘which direction’ to take to reach a goal.
We tend to say, ‘I’m lost’ when we can’t figure out directions or when trying to keep up with a confusing conversation.
Our dreams have a neat way of bringing figures of speech and metaphors to life