How Typical Are Your Dreams?

weirdly accurate.

How Typical Are Your Dreams?

Are my dreams the same as everyone else’s?

Some of them almost certainly are. This common dreams quiz shows how many of the dreams people everywhere report you have had yourself, and which of yours is rarest. In a 2003 study of 1,181 Canadian university students, four in five had dreamed of being chased, and surveys in Japan, Germany and China have found strikingly similar lists.

The quiz uses 14 themes from the Typical Dreams Questionnaire, the 55-theme checklist Tore Nielsen, Antonio Zadra and colleagues gave those students, asked the same way: have you ever dreamed of it, yes or no. The themes come in four families: chases, everyday drama, the past and impossible things. A hundred small clouds stand for the students, one for every 1%, and after each answer the ones for students who had that dream glow. At the end you get how many of the 14 you have had, how many of the dreams that most students had, how that compares with the average student, a playful dream type, and your rarest dream with what research says about it.

It is not dream interpretation: the research counts dreams, it doesn’t decode them, and the quiz never says what a dream means. It is not a diagnosis or a personality test either. The comparison group is first-year students, so older adults may remember different dreams, and a “no” often just means you have forgotten: the same students recalled about one dream every three days.

What the quiz covers

One thing: how many of the dreams people commonly report you have had, and how rare each of yours is.

The task

  • 14 dream themes from the Typical Dreams Questionnaire (Nielsen et al., 2003), in four families: chases, everyday drama, the past and impossible things
  • One question per dream, asked as in the study: have you ever dreamed of it? Tap no or yes, or press 1 or 2
  • After each answer, 100 small clouds over a floating island, one for every 1% of the 1,181 students, glow to show how many had that dream; each yes sends a token to circle your pillow

Your result

  • How many of the 14 you have had, and how many of the dreams more than half the students had
  • How that compares with the average student, worked out from the study’s figures
  • Your rarest dream: its name, how many students shared it, and what is known about why people have it
  • Every dream beside its share of students, on a result sheet you can scroll
  • A share card and a challenge link that carry only your count and your dream type, never which dreams

Before you start

  • About two minutes; free, no sign-up
  • Works on a phone or a computer; sound is optional
  • Answer from memory: if you’re not sure you ever had a dream, “no” is the honest answer

Questions about common dreams

Is this test free? Do I need to sign up to see my result?

Yes, it’s free, and there’s nothing to sign up for: no account, no email, no payment. Your result appears on this page the moment you finish, and you can share it or play again straight away.

What are the most common dreams?

Being chased was the most common of 55 dream themes in Nielsen et al.’s 2003 study of 1,181 Canadian university students: about four in five had dreamed it at least once. Falling and school dreams were close behind, and a 2023 survey in Xi’an, China, found the same three at the top. How the rest rank, and how many people share each one, appears in the quiz as you answer.

How does the common dreams quiz compare me with other people?

Each of the 14 dreams has the share of 1,181 students who had ever had it, from Nielsen et al.’s 2003 study. The quiz counts your yeses and compares them with the average student, found by adding up the shares. The study did not publish how many students had each total, so the quiz gives no percentile, only how you compare with the average. Your dream type comes from where most of your yeses fall, with rarer dreams counting for more.

Do people all over the world have the same dreams?

Largely, yes. In 1958, Griffith, Miyagi and Tago gave a list of typical dreams to students in Kentucky and Tokyo and found the two lists strikingly alike. Schredl and colleagues found the order of the themes very stable in 444 people in Germany in 2004, and a 2023 survey of 1,190 residents of Xi’an, China, found nearly the same themes at the top. The exact figures vary from sample to sample, especially for the rare dreams.

Why do so many people have the same dreams?

Nobody knows for sure; there are theories. One says dreams draw on waking life, and almost everyone has known school, deadlines and fear. Another, Antti Revonsuo’s threat simulation theory from 2000, says dreaming evolved to rehearse escaping danger. Tests give that theory mixed support: in a 2006 study of 212 recurring dreams, two in three held a threat, but the dreamer rarely escaped.

Can this quiz tell me what my dreams mean?

No. Dream research counts which dreams people have; it does not decode them, and no fixed meaning for any of these dreams has been established. The quiz tells you how common each of your dreams is and what researchers have found about it. It is not a personality test or a diagnosis, and a playful dream type is a name, not a label.

What if I don’t remember my dreams?

Answer “no” to anything you don’t remember; that is how the original questionnaire worked too. Forgetting is normal: in Nielsen et al.’s 2003 study, students recalled about 9.6 dreams a month, roughly one every three days. Someone who remembers none of the 14 gets a result of their own rather than a score of failure.

Should I see a doctor about bad dreams?

Dreams like these are normal, frightening ones included; the students in the 2003 study recalled about two nightmares a month. If bad dreams of any kind come often, wake you up frightened or wear you down during the day, it is worth mentioning to a doctor, because nightmares can be treated. The NHS and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s sleepeducation.org have reliable pages on nightmares.

Where the numbers come from

Every share in the quiz is from Table 1 of Nielsen et al. (2003): first-year psychology students at three Canadian universities, average age 19.8, asked whether they had ever had each of 55 dreams. The average student’s count is the sum of the 14 shares; the study gives no distribution of totals, so there is no percentile. The site does not publish its own players’ data.