- A dream about vomiting is traditionally read as expelling something harmful from one's life: a deal, a person or a secret.
- Old dream books read the dream as loss for the poor and gain for the rich, a reversal typical of the tradition.
- Folk dream books read it as riddance, psychology as disgust and rejection, sleep research as a body signal that often enters the dream.
- Nausea, reflux and illness during sleep are among the bodily states known to shape dream content.
- Dream interpretation is a tradition of reading symbols; it does not predict events.
What does it mean to dream about vomiting?
Folk dream books read vomiting as riddance: the dreamer throws out what was poisoning them, a bad bargain, a two-faced friend, a lie they had swallowed. The oldest books add the reversal so common in the tradition: for the poor, vomiting means loss, for the rich, that they will have to give something back. Vomiting blood is read as a warning about health or about a quarrel in the family; vomiting worms or insects as enemies exposed; seeing someone else vomit as that person's trouble becoming yours. Feeling better after vomiting in the dream is read as relief that will follow a hard decision.
Three ways to read a dream about vomiting
| Reading | Who says it | What the dream is taken to mean | Based on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dream books | Folk tradition, Miller (1901) | Folk dream books read vomiting as riddance: the dreamer throws out what was poisoning them, a bad bargain, a two-faced friend, a lie they had swallowed. The oldest books add the reversal so common in the tradition: for the poor, vomiting means loss, for the rich, that they will have to give something back. Vomiting blood is read as a warning about health or about a quarrel in the family; vomiting worms or insects as enemies exposed; seeing someone else vomit as that person's trouble becoming yours. Feeling better after vomiting in the dream is read as relief that will follow a hard decision. | Custom |
| Psychology | Freud, Jung and later authors | Psychology reads vomiting as the body's language for rejection. Something has been taken in that cannot be digested: an insult swallowed in silence, a role accepted against one's will, a truth the dreamer has been forcing down. The dream expels it, sometimes with shame, because being seen vomiting is being seen out of control. Freud grouped such dreams with the bodily wishes that sleep fulfils in disguise. Later authors read the object vomited, food, blood, words, objects, as the thing rejected, and the place, public or private, as how safe the dreamer feels to refuse. | Clinical interpretation |
| Sleep research | Sleep laboratories, surveys | Sleep research documents that bodily states pass into dreams: nausea, reflux, a heavy meal or an illness starting during the night can produce a dream of vomiting before the sleeper is aware of feeling sick. Pregnancy and medication side effects are known contexts. Content analysis places disgust among the less common but distinct dream emotions, and it is felt strongly in the body. When no physical cause is present, the dream follows the continuity principle: a day in which the dreamer felt revulsion toward a person or situation is the usual source. | Measurements and surveys |
Vomiting in the dream books
What each source says, in its own terms. Dream books are quoted as tradition, not as fact.
Vomiting in a dream is throwing out what harmed you: a bad deal, a false friend, a swallowed lie. Vomiting blood warns about health; another person vomiting brings their trouble to your door. Relief after vomiting is relief after a hard decision.
Freud read dreams driven by bodily need as wish fulfilments in disguise: the body's state during sleep supplies the material and the dream builds a story to keep the sleeper asleep.
Vomiting dream meaning, by variation
The details change the reading.
| In the dream | Traditional reading | Psychological reading |
|---|---|---|
| Vomiting blood | A warning about health or a family quarrel. | Something vital is being lost in a conflict. |
| Someone else vomiting | That person's trouble comes to you. | You are absorbing someone else's disgust or shame. |
| Vomiting in public | Shame over a matter that becomes known. | Fear of losing control where others can see. |
| Vomiting worms or insects | Enemies exposed and expelled. | Getting rid of thoughts that have been eating at you. |
| Vomiting food | A bad bargain undone. | Refusing what you were made to accept. |
| Vomiting objects | A secret comes out. | Something foreign to you that you have carried too long. |
| Feeling better after vomiting | Relief after a hard decision. | The rejection was necessary. |
| Cannot stop vomiting | A long, tiring matter. | Too much to reject at once; overwhelm. |
When in the night do such dreams happen?
Vivid, story-like dreams happen mostly in REM sleep. REM periods are short early in the night and get longer toward morning, which is why a dream like this is often the last thing before waking.
Spiritual meaning of vomiting in a dream
Spiritual writers read vomiting in a dream as purification: the body rids itself of what does not belong to it, and the dream marks the same work on the level of the soul. In their reading the dream comes when the dreamer has taken in other people's fears, words or expectations and is finally letting them go. They read the relief afterwards as a cleansed state and the shame in the dream as the last resistance to letting go.
What have I swallowed lately that I should have refused?
Is there something I feel disgusted by and have not admitted?
Did my body feel sick on waking, or only the feeling?
Questions people ask
What does it mean to dream about vomiting?
Folk dream books read it as getting rid of something harmful, a bad deal or a false friend. Psychology reads it as rejection of what you cannot digest. Sleep research adds that nausea during sleep often creates the dream on its own.
Is dreaming of vomiting a bad sign?
In dream books it is a good riddance rather than a bad sign, and there is no evidence that dreams predict events. If the dream repeats with real nausea, the body is the thing to check.
What does vomiting blood in a dream mean?
Dream books read it as a warning about health or a family quarrel. Psychology reads it as losing something vital in a conflict. If it worries you, a doctor answers what the dream cannot.
Why did I dream of someone else vomiting?
Folk tradition reads it as their trouble coming to you. Psychology reads it as absorbing another person's shame or disgust, often after witnessing something unpleasant the day before.
Can a dream of vomiting mean I am pregnant?
Only in the sense that nausea in early pregnancy can enter dreams. The dream itself is not a test; a test is.
Why did I feel relief in the dream?
Because the rejection was needed. Dream books read it as relief after a hard decision; psychology reads the relief as the body confirming what the mind had not yet allowed.
- Freud S. The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899
- Hall C. S., Van de Castle R. L. The Content Analysis of Dreams, 1966
- Schredl M. Dream content analysis: basic principles. International Journal of Dream Research, 2010
- Folk dream books, the reversal of gain and loss
Each symbol page sets three readings side by side and names where each one comes from. Dream books are quoted as tradition. Last reviewed on the date in the header.