
30 People Draw Their Dreams And Others Offer Their Explanations
Dreams are an incredibly rich source of inspiration for many artists, conjuring up seemingly random and often bizarre images from deep inside our subconscious. These stories and images tell stories about the artist in a raw and unfiltered way, giving us a peek into their hopes and aspirations, as well as their darkest fears and insecurities.
The challenge of transferring the fleeting, often intangible quality of dreams onto paper must be quite appealing to the adventurous artist. We often wake up with only vague recollections of our dreams, teasingly intriguing snippets of what was a grand production inside of our creative minds. Do you often remember your dreams? How would you interpret them on paper? Scroll down to see these visual representations of different artists' dreams, in a list compiled by Bored Panda and get inspired to dream!
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I Saw This Creature In My Dream
She told me that death is not one person, it's many conductors
Everyone dreams, on average around two hours per night, even people who claim not to. Instead of a single dream, people usually have several short dreams every night, with each one usually lasting only between five to 20 minutes.
I Had A Dream About Tropical, Waterproof Sheep. I Decided To Paint It
They're special sheep that can be submerged in salty ocean water and only have the very outer layer of their wool get wet or something, I just remember that they were "waterproof" from my dream
The reason that most people claim not to dream is that more that 90% of all dreams are forgotten almost instantly after waking. But why? Dreaming occurs during Rapid-Eye Movement (REM) Sleep, if there is a transition from REM to another sleep stage before waking, the dream will usually disappear before you even knew it was there.
Even if you wake during REM sleep, the chemical processes that cause dreams quickly dissipate and the feeling that you were so caught up in quickly fades. Certain triggers throughout the day can cause a recollection of the dream however, for example if you have an experience that reactivates the same area of the brain that created the dream overnight.
For Six Years Now This Dream Has Been Recurring Every Couple Months. So Far I Have Drawn 32 Illustrations From It
I have had a recurring dream for 6 years now of a hidden tribe in a jungle. They share the valley they inhabit with a creature that can take their souls and allow them to be reborn in whatever next body they want and they retain all their previous memories. This tribe has lived for thousands of years, protecting this creature from outsiders. Some of them will be reborn as animals too (and retain all human memories) to preserve the valley in other ways
I Dreamt That Robert De Niro Was Posing For A Model Drawing Class
He had a monobrow and a female body and was dressed as a Playboy bunny while holding the upcoming Tool album
A researcher called Calvin S. Hall spent decades studying dreams, collecting over 50,000 dream accounts from college students.
He found that dreams evoke many emotions, but most of them tended to be more on the negative side. The most common emotion experienced in dreams was anxiety. It is not known why we tend to have more negative emotions in dreams than positive ones.
Watercolor Painting I Did. Inspired By A Recent Dream
I Painted A Dream. What Do You Think This Means?
I had this dream where I was riding around on a shark and "mining" the babies from the rocks. It was in World of Warcraft graphics, and I was mining like in the game. The babies were just growing out of the rocks. They ranged from normal sized babies to some very huge ones floating on stones everywhere. I went down into the water as well and mined some of the babies down there too. It was a very confusing experience
I Keep Dreaming I'm Buried And Becoming A Red Tree
That's the interesting thing about my dreams lately - I'm in full astronaut gear, even in situations where it would be bizarre to find someone wearing it
There are some common dreams that we all have, regardless of who we are or where we are from. While obviously, most of our dreams result from our own experiences, some themes unite us all, like being chased, being attacked, or falling (those negative emotions again). Other universal dreams include being stuck and unable to move, arriving late, flying, and being naked in public.
This Little Guy Came To Me In A Dream So I Drew Him
In my dream, these three little kittens come outta nowhere to my living room and start just doing kitten stuff. Kittens are always in my dreams, but they usually look normal. This time one looked like this. I call him Darth Kittyus. The second one was kinda crystalline, and I don't remember the third one, but it was weird too. Then this big army of people started trying to bust down my door. I think that was about it
This Is My Dream, Illustrated
Illustrated My Dream
Although I definitely hear things during dreams, the thing I always remember about them the most is the feeling. The intense emotions and feelings kind of overpower anything audible, like hearing isn't even necessary. But with this drawing specifically, I don't recall any noises. It was a powerful and looming silence, an intense dread permeated the atmosphere
It’s uncertain whether animals dream, but “it seems very likely,” Hugo Spiers, an experimental psychologist at University College London, told National Geographic. We've all seen and heard a dog seemingly having a great time while sleeping, wagging its tail and trying to run with its legs in the air. Just like us, animals have sleep stages that include cycles of REM and non-REM sleep, so it's definitely likely that your pup is indeed dreaming of frisbees in the park and endless butts to sniff.
Inspired By A Dream. Three-Trunked Elephant Saving My Life As I Sink To The Bottom Of The Sea
I Have Been Drawing A Recurring Dream Of 8 Years. I Feel My Images Would Fit In Here. This Is One Of Them
These dreams started to reoccur a week after the death of my brother. This drawing is based on the part of an idea where a tribal elder was telling his tribe about a prophecy he had of a green, pale-skinned man coming across the seas full of self-importance and malice. He would devour all of the life of the forest peoples and then vomit it back up mixing his culture of evil into their culture, changing it forever
I Painted My Dream
I had a dream and then decided to paint it. It's lots of pigs screaming and wanting to escape a tower in which they're kept
I Moved To Seattle Several Months Ago. Since My First Night Here This Lady Kept Appearing In The Background Of My Dreams
She just stands out of the way watching and breathing heavily. She's appeared dozens of times. I drew her because she was so compelling
I wonder if u are experiencing someone elses reality/memories in ur dreams. I've heard of this happening as well as psychic abilities during lucid dreams
I Drew A Picture Of My Nightmare
Before anyone says anything, I haven’t watched the Babadook recently. I know it looks like him. This was a particularly terrifying nightmare that I woke up from in a cold sweat. In my dream, I was laying in my bed trying to sleep, and when I opened my eyes The Dagman (somehow I just knew that was his name) was standing in my doorway staring right into my soul. Needless to say, I freaked out and somehow managed to escape my room but no matter where I went he would always be creeping on me in the doorways
Man I am highly against viewing & reading the images right before bed...I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight after this! :-/
Painting Of A Very Vivid Dream I Had In 2014
It actually started quite sadly. I dreamt that my boyfriend died - I was standing at a beach, crying my eyes out, and suddenly the sky kind of opened and revealed this scenery. It was the most breathtaking picture I've ever seen, and the only fitting words to describe it with are either Eden, paradise or heaven. It was crazy how real it felt. By looking at this, I knew he was safe and in peace. I woke up and started crying immediately after opening my eyes and had to make a quick sketch. It was the most powerful and vivid dream I've had so far
I believe this was his way of communicating with u through ur dreams to let u know he's in Heaven/paradise now! :') Hopefully ur mind is at ease knowing this!
I Have Always Had A Bit Of A Wild Nightlife. This Rooster Woke Me Out Of My Dream
He was standing strutting his stuff wearing cowboy boots outside of my bedroom window. So I just had to paint him. I was a bit annoyed that he was wearing my favorite cowboy boots. I love my dreams
This Was My Dream
Cletus From My Dream
I saw this guy in a dream. Apparently, he was a regular in this comic/coffee shop I was hanging out at, and everybody knew him. He didn't say anything, just left a trail of slime. He seemed alright though
For My Concentration I’ve Chosen To Illustrate My Dreams. Here’s What I’ve Got So Far
I’m a high school student in AP Studio Art. I’m also an extremely active, and often lucid dreamer. For my concentration (theme) I’ve chosen to illustrate my dreams. My first one definitely wasn’t my best. It’s me hiding while some kind of entity is coming through the door. The second dream is recurring for me. I often dream of huge waves and flooding water and being caught in it. Not in a scary way, in a relaxing way. And the third one - I had that dream after falling asleep watching Cosmos, actually. It was so mesmerizing watching all the colorful explosions in the sky
A Drawing Of A Dream I Had Recently
I feel lost but not in a bad way. Just enjoying the adventure
Sounds like a lovely dream, maybe have the itch to travel and wonder off somewhere new.
I Saw This Right Before Waking Up After A Nap On My Couch The Other Day
It was a familiar face, but I knew it was only a disguise hiding whatever it really was. It felt evil. Like it wanted something from me and was trying to trick me. I wasn't scared of it, but aware of its deceptive nature
This Creep Is Based On A Dream I Had About A Masked Figure Offering Me A Tiny House
Say Hi To This Unsettling Little Fella Who Popped Up In My Dreams Last Night
I don't remember the whole dream I had, but it played out like that pretty common horror movie scene where the family calls in a medium to check out the weird activity in the house, and the medium is walking around like "hmm, yes, I sense a dark energy here, particularly in this room." The dream was basically that, but the "camera" was looking down a hallway, 1st person perspective, and something pushed past the people standing in the hall, and the "camera" cut to face the people, and this creepy figure, about the size of a 10-year-old child, was standing in the shadows
We All Have Monsters Within. This Is An Illustration Of A Dream I Had
Man With Feet As Hands Came Back To My Dream Again
I am absolutely terrified of him, both times I woke up in cold sweat. He isn’t actually threatening though, he is just inconsolable (and slightly abrupt when he speaks). It also felt threatening that he kept giving me his footfoot instead of his handfoot when I was trying to comfort him (he sits behind me while crying), but he doesn’t actually do anything that motivates that. I was also sure he was going to hunt me and hurt me in the first dream, and I ran from him, but he did say that he wasn’t going after me, and I never saw him running
A Drawing Of An Odd Dream I Had Recently
In this dream, I felt like I was witnessing some strange ritual that I wasn't supposed to be seeing. I wasn't afraid, but just kind of repulsed by what I was looking at, and then I woke myself up soon after it all began because I was like "I gotta get out of here." It seemed that I came across the whole situation accidentally
Drawing Of A Dream I Had
This is an image I drew based on a dream I had a few weeks ago where I was getting a live bat tattooed onto my arm. I don't know what the dream means, but I haven't been able to forget this particular moment where the bat was screaming as it was buried under my skin.
That's gotta be a deathly, high pitched sound! My ears hurt thinking about the bat screaming
Have You Ever Looked At Your Hands In A Dream?
I find my depiction to be the case when I'm lucid in dreams. I'm not sure if I can recall ever noticing my hands otherwise, in normal dream states
Back With Something Quite Strange
Some days ago I dreamt of an awful gloomy eye surrounded by veins, kinds of intestines and fragments of flesh, staring at me and talking to me with a loud voice, but I don't remember what he said, the only thing I can remember is this: "DYINGS CALL ME ARNN." It was quite disgusting, and when I woke up, I still had the memory of this dream in my head, and I decided to draw it
Reading these before going to bed is a very bad idea.
I had a dream that Hillary Clinton could barely walk because she has too many nipples keeping her balance off kilter
What. The. HELL. What the hell goes on in that tiny mind of yours???
Keep giving him upvotes, guys. Good work so far.
Hey, hows Adam, Vanessa, what about Mooseblood? Have you cleaned your honey pool? 👏👏👏💃
oh my god that is weird
Guys keep giving him upvotes, he is writing these comments in a mental asylum
Good one
I have friends who live in the US, and they sent me a meme with her on it that said "Mexican word of the day: Nacho. STILL NACHO PRESIDENT" I though it was funny, but probably funnier to those in the US, In in a Parlimentary place...
I have many vivid dreams just not often like them, colorful and always at night, sometimes daytime. I was topless or don't wear underwear lol
I once had a dream that I went back in time, taught Freddie Mercury how to cat-shame, and it appeared on bored panda.
This comment has been deleted.
I never seen so good pics in my life! 500000000000000 star literally
i'm beginning to get inspired to draw or paint my own dream now
"Dreams are the answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask." So...the question here is... ???sheep???
I had a dream 22 years ago and i still remember it. I was at a mall full of people on the 1st and 2nd floor. Typical bright lively mall, And then i took an escalator up the 3rd. Where i was meet with noone. It suddenly turned into an abandoned hospital hallway. With big steel metal doors with dirty port hole glass to look in. Peeking inside looked like operating rooms. It was dim, maybe damp and moldy. While peeking in i saw babies hug upside down from hooks, some on metal tables., Some dissected. Some with green ooze flowing out. It was weird.. Then i ran back to the escalator. And was back in a brightly lit mall with lots of people walking around. But looking up you can still see the dark 3rd floor with a sort of ominous cloud. As if light was being sucked in.. ..
I dreamt that I discovered a portal into Hell. It was pleasant, idyllic even. I met the devil beside a tree surrounded by beautiful flowers. He was a fourteen year old child with red hair and freckles, and wore monk robes. He worked in a nearby monestary, as did I; we were childhood friends at one point. Apparently, the only reason Hell became so terrible was because Cthulhu took over.
Okay, the way you describe the devil sounds scarily like me.
Shocking plot development: you ARE the devil. BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! He was actually very nice. Acted like a brother!
Last night I saw a dream that it's already weekend and I don't have to go to work. When my alarm waked me up I knew it will be a bad day.
The title says "And Others Offer Their Explanations" but I'm not seeing any explanations. Am I missing something?
Years ago, I dreamed the next of a dream (a time gap of two years) in wich I see my friends (a tribe of children and teenagers in a lost city in the jungle) from the other part, it was soooo comforting to see they're still safe from this dead witch ! They had grown too ! I'm so proud of them. ;-;
This dream is probably pretty common, but I had a dream where I was running from something evil, but I didn't seem to move, and then I was falling into this big black pit. My drawing skills are rubbish so I won't upload a picture of it, plus I'd end up looking like the Babadook except less creepy.
crazy cool.
Once I had a dream that everyone but me was a solar-powered robot, and they would behave normally during the day, but when the sun set they would act all lethargic and they would start acting really weird, almost like they were extremely drunk. Later I found out that there was an organization of normal people like me who were trying to fix them. Pretty sure the government caught them not behaving weirdly one night and although I woke up before anything happened, I’m pretty sure they were all killed and their bodies were used to make new robots.
Weird dream from a while ago: I was climbing up a steep velvety slope, and when I got to the top, there was a big glass door that said Rose' Bar & Grill. (I've never been to one of those). When I went through the doors, there was nothing but a balcony that many people were jumping off of.
I could never draw that good I bet you should give it to a art museum
After these, I am sure to have nightmares tonight !!!
One of the dreams I remember the most was when I was in grade school. My best friend and I were running away from Mr. Burns from The Simpsons because he wanted to steal her kneecaps to replace his old ones. We got inside my house, where our computer teacher scolded me for not typing fast enough. I went to my window and looked out to see two frogs sitting on a tree. My house blew up, killing all of us, and the dream refocused on one of the frogs, who was in fact not a frog at all, but Hypnotoad from Futurama who had blown my house up with his mind. My guess would be this dream meant I was watching too many cartoons.
Dreams are the weirdest things.
I also had a dream in which I ran corridors inside a castle, rushing down stairs beside a ledge, until I fell over the side. I landed in a cage within a massive cavern, surrounded with other cages containing skeletons. A spider large enough to fill half of the cave bumped my cage, knocking me out, and I rolled through a tunnel and emerged in a clearing. In the clearing, sitting on boulders and stumps, were anthropomorphic cat ladies using smartphones to cruise Google. Quite the experience!
Baby dreams and Bride dreams mean new beginnings.
I used to have a "story" dream as I called it, about two white horses. I dreamt about them for the better part of around 4 years. Every dream progressed like a new day. One night in a dream they told me they had to go. Never dreamt about them again. To be able to illustrate that journey would be awesome. I'm glad that some can.
I get a feeling quite a few of these people have been having stresx nightmares.
My mother in law has a dream interpretation book and she has told me what my dreams meant in the past. I personally don't believe in them but its entertaining to hear what she has to say according to the book. I do though believe that dreams mean something regarding what you recently are going through, what you've seen that was meaningful bad or good, etc though. But those dream interpretation books are way out there!
I had a dream where there was a secret lab in our attic, and giant (I mean as big as a table) robotic mosquitoes came out and attacked my cousins and I. They killed my youngest cousin first, then my sister. The other cousin and I hid behind a chair, and then a mosquito poked in, and killed my cousin. I woke up right before it happened... Can anyone interpret this?
I have boring dreams in comparison to a lot of these
Agreed.
Damn, bro! Thelildupling is seriously crushing on Bored Phoenix
Hi Ava I gave you a like! But bad comment.👎 good pic👍
Wonderful job recreating them, u r indeed a talented individual! :)
I am jealous that u have very lucid dreams & can remember them enough to illustrate them days or weeks later! I almost always forget my dreams once I wake up! I would love to remember & understand what these dreams mean!
"I still see your shadows in my room..."
Can’t take back the LOVE THAT I GAVE YOU...
I'm quite a late and disorganised person and i have lots of dreams where i'm just running late, not for any reason that i can tell but i just have an overwhelming sense of being late. One of my dogs is always with me too, not all of them, just one of them.
I once had a dream that you can get Monkey AIDS from fruit flies
Yume Nikki 3 leaked footage.
Reading these before going to bed is a very bad idea.
I had a dream that Hillary Clinton could barely walk because she has too many nipples keeping her balance off kilter
What. The. HELL. What the hell goes on in that tiny mind of yours???
Keep giving him upvotes, guys. Good work so far.
Hey, hows Adam, Vanessa, what about Mooseblood? Have you cleaned your honey pool? 👏👏👏💃
oh my god that is weird
Guys keep giving him upvotes, he is writing these comments in a mental asylum
Good one
I have friends who live in the US, and they sent me a meme with her on it that said "Mexican word of the day: Nacho. STILL NACHO PRESIDENT" I though it was funny, but probably funnier to those in the US, In in a Parlimentary place...
I have many vivid dreams just not often like them, colorful and always at night, sometimes daytime. I was topless or don't wear underwear lol
I once had a dream that I went back in time, taught Freddie Mercury how to cat-shame, and it appeared on bored panda.
This comment has been deleted.
I never seen so good pics in my life! 500000000000000 star literally
i'm beginning to get inspired to draw or paint my own dream now
"Dreams are the answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask." So...the question here is... ???sheep???
I had a dream 22 years ago and i still remember it. I was at a mall full of people on the 1st and 2nd floor. Typical bright lively mall, And then i took an escalator up the 3rd. Where i was meet with noone. It suddenly turned into an abandoned hospital hallway. With big steel metal doors with dirty port hole glass to look in. Peeking inside looked like operating rooms. It was dim, maybe damp and moldy. While peeking in i saw babies hug upside down from hooks, some on metal tables., Some dissected. Some with green ooze flowing out. It was weird.. Then i ran back to the escalator. And was back in a brightly lit mall with lots of people walking around. But looking up you can still see the dark 3rd floor with a sort of ominous cloud. As if light was being sucked in.. ..
I dreamt that I discovered a portal into Hell. It was pleasant, idyllic even. I met the devil beside a tree surrounded by beautiful flowers. He was a fourteen year old child with red hair and freckles, and wore monk robes. He worked in a nearby monestary, as did I; we were childhood friends at one point. Apparently, the only reason Hell became so terrible was because Cthulhu took over.
Okay, the way you describe the devil sounds scarily like me.
Shocking plot development: you ARE the devil. BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! He was actually very nice. Acted like a brother!
Last night I saw a dream that it's already weekend and I don't have to go to work. When my alarm waked me up I knew it will be a bad day.
The title says "And Others Offer Their Explanations" but I'm not seeing any explanations. Am I missing something?
Years ago, I dreamed the next of a dream (a time gap of two years) in wich I see my friends (a tribe of children and teenagers in a lost city in the jungle) from the other part, it was soooo comforting to see they're still safe from this dead witch ! They had grown too ! I'm so proud of them. ;-;
This dream is probably pretty common, but I had a dream where I was running from something evil, but I didn't seem to move, and then I was falling into this big black pit. My drawing skills are rubbish so I won't upload a picture of it, plus I'd end up looking like the Babadook except less creepy.
crazy cool.
Once I had a dream that everyone but me was a solar-powered robot, and they would behave normally during the day, but when the sun set they would act all lethargic and they would start acting really weird, almost like they were extremely drunk. Later I found out that there was an organization of normal people like me who were trying to fix them. Pretty sure the government caught them not behaving weirdly one night and although I woke up before anything happened, I’m pretty sure they were all killed and their bodies were used to make new robots.
Weird dream from a while ago: I was climbing up a steep velvety slope, and when I got to the top, there was a big glass door that said Rose' Bar & Grill. (I've never been to one of those). When I went through the doors, there was nothing but a balcony that many people were jumping off of.
I could never draw that good I bet you should give it to a art museum
After these, I am sure to have nightmares tonight !!!
One of the dreams I remember the most was when I was in grade school. My best friend and I were running away from Mr. Burns from The Simpsons because he wanted to steal her kneecaps to replace his old ones. We got inside my house, where our computer teacher scolded me for not typing fast enough. I went to my window and looked out to see two frogs sitting on a tree. My house blew up, killing all of us, and the dream refocused on one of the frogs, who was in fact not a frog at all, but Hypnotoad from Futurama who had blown my house up with his mind. My guess would be this dream meant I was watching too many cartoons.
Dreams are the weirdest things.
I also had a dream in which I ran corridors inside a castle, rushing down stairs beside a ledge, until I fell over the side. I landed in a cage within a massive cavern, surrounded with other cages containing skeletons. A spider large enough to fill half of the cave bumped my cage, knocking me out, and I rolled through a tunnel and emerged in a clearing. In the clearing, sitting on boulders and stumps, were anthropomorphic cat ladies using smartphones to cruise Google. Quite the experience!
Baby dreams and Bride dreams mean new beginnings.
I used to have a "story" dream as I called it, about two white horses. I dreamt about them for the better part of around 4 years. Every dream progressed like a new day. One night in a dream they told me they had to go. Never dreamt about them again. To be able to illustrate that journey would be awesome. I'm glad that some can.
I get a feeling quite a few of these people have been having stresx nightmares.
My mother in law has a dream interpretation book and she has told me what my dreams meant in the past. I personally don't believe in them but its entertaining to hear what she has to say according to the book. I do though believe that dreams mean something regarding what you recently are going through, what you've seen that was meaningful bad or good, etc though. But those dream interpretation books are way out there!
I had a dream where there was a secret lab in our attic, and giant (I mean as big as a table) robotic mosquitoes came out and attacked my cousins and I. They killed my youngest cousin first, then my sister. The other cousin and I hid behind a chair, and then a mosquito poked in, and killed my cousin. I woke up right before it happened... Can anyone interpret this?
I have boring dreams in comparison to a lot of these
Agreed.
Damn, bro! Thelildupling is seriously crushing on Bored Phoenix
Hi Ava I gave you a like! But bad comment.👎 good pic👍
Wonderful job recreating them, u r indeed a talented individual! :)
I am jealous that u have very lucid dreams & can remember them enough to illustrate them days or weeks later! I almost always forget my dreams once I wake up! I would love to remember & understand what these dreams mean!
"I still see your shadows in my room..."
Can’t take back the LOVE THAT I GAVE YOU...
I'm quite a late and disorganised person and i have lots of dreams where i'm just running late, not for any reason that i can tell but i just have an overwhelming sense of being late. One of my dogs is always with me too, not all of them, just one of them.
I once had a dream that you can get Monkey AIDS from fruit flies
Yume Nikki 3 leaked footage.