Dreamtelling

Dreamtelling is the practice of recounting dreams to one or more listeners, either aloud, in writing, or through recorded media. It centers on the verbal narration of dream content—the people, places, events, and emotions experienced during sleep—often with an emphasis on meaning, memory, or creative potential rather than strict factual accuracy.

Participants may include individuals sharing dreams with friends, members of a sleep or dream circle, patients in psychotherapy, students in writing or storytelling workshops, or online communities. Common formats include oral retellings, dream journals or diaries, and structured dream groups in which participants take turns sharing and providing reflections or questions. Goals range from personal insight and emotional processing to inspiration for fiction, visual art, or other creative work.

Cultural and historical contexts variably treat dreams as messages, omens, or symbolic material. In Western psychology, dream reports have historically been central to psychoanalytic exploration, with clinicians guiding interpretation to explore unconscious associations. In literature and folklore, dream narratives have served as motifs and sources of imaginative material.

Because dream recall is subjective and fragmentary, dreamtelling often involves negotiation of memory, interpretation, and boundaries around privacy. Ethical considerations include consent to share, respect for others' boundaries, and caution against definitive claims of universal meaning. Dreamtelling can be distinguished from formal dream interpretation, which applies systematic methods to derive meaning from dream symbols.

See also dream diary, dream interpretation, narrative therapy.