This Is What It Means When You Dream About Committing A Crime

Whether it feels like you dream every night or you rarely dream at all, everybody does it. In fact, according to Medical News Today, most people dream between three and six times every night, with each mini movie only lasting five to 20 minutes. However, despite the fact that we are all constantly dreaming, around 95% of dreams have already been forgotten by the time a person rolls out of bed.

Every once in a while, it's hard not to wonder whether or not our dreams have meaning — especially after a particularly wild night of shut-eye. From other worldly dreams about flying to bizarre dreams about someone you know, some of our dreams have to mean something, right? According to a poll conducted by Newsweek, 43% of Americans believe that dreams reveal unconscious desires and wishes, as noted by Very Well Mind. And well-known psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud concurred. According to Freud, dreams are the roots to our unconscious. Therefore, by analyzing your dreams, you can uncover buried desires that lead to neurosis. 

Perhaps not all dreams have a deeper meaning, experts argue that there are certain dreams that might, from dreams about being on an airplane, to nightmares about having an affair, according to Best Life. Another type of dream that is said to have a deeper meaning? A dream about committing a crime.

It can be extremely unsettling waking up after a crime you just committed in your dream, whether the nightmare consisted of you robbing a bank or murdering another human being. First things first, remember it's just a dream! Regardless of what it felt like in the moment, you did not commit those crimes in real life. Surprisingly, violent or unethical in-dream events are not generally interpreted as a fear of crime, or a desire to commit one. While you may be hitting the true crime documentaries a little too hard, rest assured, you are not necessarily on your way to becoming the next Bonnie or Clyde. Instead, dreaming about an act of crime is actually a reflection of your inner feelings acting out, as noted by Odd Random Thoughts.

According to psychologist Ian Wallace, dreaming about crime usually results from an unconscious feeling that you are hiding something from yourself. From suppressing an old memory to burying a recent thought, this interior feeling that you are hiding can be either positive, negative, or even neutral. "The crime we have committed usually represents a conscious choice that we have made in waking life to ignore some of our individual needs and talents in order to gain social acceptance," Wallace explained to The Independent (via Best Life). Over the course of his 30-plus-year career, Wallace has interpreted over 150,000 dreams, so if there was ever someone we trusted with dream interpretation, it's Wallace!