Falling is pretty dangerous, and sometimes it can be life-threatening. Dreaming about falling, especially from very high places, can be very disorienting, literally. Most people can manifest the sensation of falling right upon waking up, and it makes you wonder what these relatively common dreams can mean.
Being in such a dangerous situation during a dream can be ominous. The most likely dream interpretation is the loss of control over some significant things. The disorienting sensation that overwhelms you as you fall inside a dream can represent the uncomfortable feeling of slowly losing your grasp on these crucial things in your life.
However, dreams rarely have singular interpretations, and context is very important in deciphering their spiritual meaning. Make sure to take note of crucial details in the dream so that you can interpret it as accurately as possible.
Is It a Hypnagogic Hallucination?
Dreams about falling are often associated with a hypnagogic hallucination. A hypnagogic hallucination is when you have brief somatic (felt) experiences as you’re about to sleep. Many people can mistake a hypnagogic hallucination for a dream, but there are certain differences between them.
In reality, hypnagogic hallucinations occur in the hypnagogic state, the phase when you are transitioning from being awake to sleeping lightly. During this state, your body is preparing to relax entirely for sleep, but your brain might mistake this relaxation as a sensation of falling. This drives the brain’s flight reaction, causing you to perform involuntary muscle contractions, called hypnic jerks, where you literally jerk yourself awake.
On the other hand, dreams occur at a later phase of sleep, called REM sleep. This starts around 90 minutes after you drift into sleep. During this dream state, your brain engages multiple areas and you begin to have vivid dreams.
The important distinction is that hypnagogic hallucinations are felt experiences, and they are often short-lived. Dreams, on the other hand, can last much longer and often have stories happening, and they may not engage your senses as much as a hypnagogic hallucination might.
The next time you wake yourself up through a hypnic jerk after a ‘falling dream’, it might be because you are still about to sleep. It may not have any spiritual meaning at all.
Hypnagogic hallucinations are also a common symptom of some disorders, like narcolepsy, but this phenomenon can occur in other people as well.
Of course, if you have confirmed that you did have a dream about falling, then we can go dive into what they might have meant.
Spiritual Meanings of Dreams About Falling
1. You Feel Uncertain about the Future
If you are falling into “the unknown,” or you are simply falling from great heights, then it might be a metaphor for your feeling of uncertainty. These dreams often manifest when you are undergoing a major change in your waking life, such as a career shift or moving places.
These major life changes can bring about an unfamiliar routine, places, people, and environments. With a lot of aspects of your life shifting away from what you’ve been accustomed to, you might feel anxious and scared of what the future may bring with these stressors.
These dreams display your hesitation of moving forward from a new starting point. However, you need to chin up and be confident about the decisions you made that led you to this position. Growth as a person rarely comes from a place of comfort, and maybe this uncertain future may hold better opportunities for a better life. This phase is often temporary. Believe in yourself.
2. You Feel Hopeless
If you dream of falling into an unknown, it might mean that you feel hopeless. The unfamiliarity of the place and the feelings of helplessness you experience throughout the fall can be manifestations of your hopelessness. With no solid ground to land on, you might be grasping around for any foundation that you can hold on to, finding nothing.
These kinds of dreams can become relatively common when there are things in your own life that just aren’t going the way you wanted them to be, or when you found yourself in a bad situation and can’t seem to find a way out. Dreams like these easily exacerbate your negative emotions in real life, so make sure to get your grip back and do your best from getting out of sticky situations.
3. You Believe You’re Falling Behind
When you lurch or take a step forward, you may sometimes find the floor is gone. Instead, you continuously fall forward into a dark abyss. Or, you might have tripped forward, then still meet that pitch-black darkness hugging you as you fall into nothingness. Despite falling forward, this dream might indicate that you are worried about falling behind in some areas of your life, especially in your career.
You might be so preoccupied with the anxiety of falling behind or making a mistake that could cost you your job or career. Although this is not an uncommon feeling, you might need to be more confident about your work. If you feel like you’re not doing enough, then try to improve upon your skills and keep up with the trends of your industry.
4. Someone is Drifting Away from You
There might be scenarios when instead of you, the dreamer, you see someone else, often a close friend, fall in your dream. You might be trying to reach out to them, yet they’ve gone too far, falling away into a place you don’t know.
You might be feeling that your friend is drifting away from you. It’s not necessarily because of a disagreement, but sometimes you feel that you haven’t been in touch with them lately, and you worry that they are not in a good place right now. It can also be that you know that they are feeling hopeless now, yet you are not in a position to help them out. Thus, you also feel a sense of helplessness.
Try to initiate contact and support this friend of yours. Many struggles are hidden from the human eye, and if you are truly their friend, they will be willing to share their problems with you.
5. Someone Might Betray You
If you feel that someone pushed you off from a high place and then you fell, that might be a sign that someone around you might betray you. Most of the time, you might not know the identity of the person who pushed you. It can be a friend, a family member, or a coworker.
Sometimes, instead of feeling that someone pushed you, you might have felt pain as you reach the end of your fall. In these cases, you might need to be wary about the people around you, as they are prime suspects that might leave you helpless. Try not to expose a lot of vulnerability to people you don’t trust a lot, and be alert with those you’ve shared a lot about yourself with.
6. You Are Fixing a Situation That’s Getting Out of Hand
When you are holding on to something and you’re about to fall, that might be an indication that you are trying to fix a life situation that is getting out of hand. This also applies to nightmares where you are about to slip and fall. The situation may be related to friends, relatives, and work.
These dreams often come up when the situation is at its tipping point. Soon enough, the situation might become bad enough that it can greatly affect you negatively. This dream manifests the danger of being close to distressing situations that can tip you off emotionally.
7. Something is Ending in Your Life (that Needs to Be Fixed)
There might be times when you don’t fall indefinitely in your dreams. Instead, you can reach the cold, hard floor and you lie down there, weak and helpless. Just like the fall ending at rock bottom, it might also mean that something in your life is ending. It can be major setbacks in your career or your relationships.
As a warning, this dream can also give you clues about how you can stop it from ending. If you fell on your back, that indicates you need more support from other people to push through this crisis. If you fell on your hands, you might need more than just moral support; you need direct help from people around you.
Conclusion
Dreams about falling are often thought to be bad omens. Dreaming about being in a dangerous situation can put you in a panic after you wake up from such nightmares. However, there might be times when these dreams may not have a significant meaning to you at all. Perhaps you saw a scene about falling before you slept, and it left an impression on you.
However, if you feel like there’s a spiritual meaning behind these cryptic dreams, then we hope that you found what that might have meant in this article. We try to cover all common interpretations for these dreams, as each dream can mean differently according to the person and the context they’re put in.
