9 Spiritual Meanings of Waking Up Crying From a Dream

It’s never a pleasant experience to wake up from a dream crying your eyes out. We’ve all been there at some point or another, though… haven’t we?

Please tell me, it isn’t just me!

Have you ever wondered what those tears mean? Could they be a message to you? A sign? Something for you to sit up and take note of? 

It does bring some concern to something that is happening in your waking life. So, don’t ignore this sign.

Let’s find out by looking at the many spiritual meanings of waking up crying from a dream.

Is it Normal Waking up Crying From a Dream?

If you have recently felt under a lot of pressure to hold the proverbial ‘stiff upper lip‘ (as the Brits say), it could be considered quite normal for you to wake up crying from a dream. 

The situation in the dream is not what made you cry.

In fact, the contents of the dream — everything else that happens — are irrelevant to your tears in terms of meaning.

What is making you cry is something in your waking life… except you’re not allowed to cry about it. Or you won’t let yourself. 

It’s unhealthy to keep all your emotions bottled in, with nowhere to go. 

Waking up crying, or simply crying in a dream, could be a big sign that you’re not letting yourself feel your emotions.

• Why are you masking them?
• Ignoring your emotions?
• Throwing yourself into work to avoid thinking about them?

Crying in a dream is your inner self’s way of getting those emotions out.

It doesn’t necessarily refer to sadness; it could mean any emotion you’ve been bottling up jealousy, anger, boredom, trapped, etc.

It could even be a sign that you’re not letting yourself feel happiness, or a range of other positive emotions. 

What does it mean Crying while Sleep and Waking up Crying?

First and foremost, if you start crying in a dream, it could be the noise or the movement of the crying itself that wakes you up. That, in itself, can’t be taken as a spiritual sign. 

It must also be taken into account that one can cry for any number of reasons.

I, for example, burst into tears when I am raging angry, because I’m not a confrontational person, and I don’t like conflict.

You may cry when you are happy, anxious, overwhelmed, confused, and any number of other emotions aside from just sadness. 

The message is personal to you, so you will need to take your ‘quirks’ and behaviors into consideration when interpreting it. 

Read about the spiritual Meanings of seeing yourself in a dream.

Spiritual Meaning of Screaming in Sleep

Are you experiencing a period of fear? Have you recently felt very angry towards someone or something?

Perhaps you’ve been feeling incredibly frustrated, or helpless? Screaming in your sleep could very well be linked to those things. 

Screaming in your dreams is spiritually symbolic to trying to ignore emotions that you are clearly feeling or suppressing them.

Rather than getting angry with a friend, or getting sad about a parent, or frustrated by a partner, you keep it all inside, bottling it up… 

And it is erupting out of your conscious as you sleep. 

It is time to face those emotions. If you keep trying to bottle them up, they’re going to find a way out. It isn’t healthy to ignore or suppress your emotions. 

9 Spiritual Meanings of Waking up Crying from a Dream

Waking up crying from a dream can be a sign of many things, and it can be interpreted in many different ways.

When you wake up, try to make note of all the things you remember about the dream, while it is still fresh in your mind.

You might find it helpful to keep a dream journal on your bedside cabinet. 

The more information you can remember about your dream, the easier it will be for you to interpret its meaning. 

1) Silently Screaming or Crying in a Dream

If you have been crying or screaming silently in your dream, your mouth open but no sound coming out, it is likely a spiritual sign of acknowledgment.

The universe can see your struggle. It understands the helplessness you feel. 

Sadly, the situation will not get better until something changes. As they say: nothing changes if nothing changes.

Something must shift in order for things to get better. 

It’s time to look at that helplessness you feel. What’s causing it? What can you do to remove the trigger from your life? What do you need to move forward? It’s time to start figuring it out. 

Read about what it means to dream of someone who died.

2) Waking Up Crying

If you keep waking up with tears streaming down your face, without any memory of what you were dreaming of, it could be the case that you have trauma or similar that hasn’t yet been dealt with. 

You can only stifle trauma for so long before it finally catches up with you.

It doesn’t matter how much you work or play or fill your lives with all manner of hobbies, the trauma will still be there. 

Most people need to do a fair bit of work before it turns from unresolved trauma to ‘resolved’ trauma.

This doesn’t mean the trauma is forgotten; it simply means that it has been dealt with. It was a problem; it has now been resolved. 

3) Crying in Dreams with a Partner

Although the spiritual message behind this dream might be obvious at first glance, the fact that a partner is in it, isn’t always part of the message. 

Crying in your dream, whether you wake up crying or not, could be a sign that you have events in your waking life that are causing you a whole heap of negative emotions.

This could be sadness, angry, frustration, etc.

Those events aren’t always related to the people or surroundings in your dream. 

A boyfriend or girlfriend making you cry in a dream could be related to work situations that are making you want to cry just as much as personal relationship issues. 

4) Great Sobs of Sadness

If you are crying hard in your dream, with great sobs and piercing wails, you could be releasing some of the negativity in your subconscious.

This is good in two ways:

• Some of the negativity will be gone, and you won’t have had to spend a huge amount of money in therapy to get there;
• The removal of negative emotions in your life leaves space for positivity. 

In some cultures, crying dramatically or loudly in a dream is a sign that good things are on the way. 

5) Crying with Someone Else

If you’re crying along with someone else in a dream, there’s a chance that someone else in your life is going to need your help in the future. 

Seeing someone else crying in a dream, whether you are or not, is usually a message from the universe that you should be open to helping.

It won’t necessarily be the person in the dream that you’ll need to help, but there will be someone out there in need. 

6) People Ignoring You Crying in a Dream

Are you dreaming about crying your eyes out, loudly, in front of a whole group of people? Are those people ignoring you, or brushing off your tears?

This might be linked to feeling ignored or not being listened to by people in your waking life. 

• Have you been asking a partner to do something, but they haven’t done it yet?
• Maybe you’ve been pushing for a promotion at work, but you don’t think you’re being taken seriously?
• How about asking a friend to do something, or not do something, to no avail? 

You’ve been shouting your message out from the rooftops (metaphorically), but no one is hearing you. 

In real life, perhaps it’s time to take a slightly different approach to the way you communicate. You might need to accept that the other person/people just aren’t listening to you and act accordingly. 

7) Bubbling Emotions

If your tears are backed with enough emotion to occur in your dreams, and then to wake you up, they are at risk of bubbling over in your waking life, too.

The universe could be sending you a little warning: Deal with your emotions or risk an emotional explosion. 

What’s driving you to literal breaking point right now? What situation instantly springs to mind when you read this?

Whatever it is, you’re going to need to find a way to resolve the situation and how you’re feeling before it comes out in a way you won’t want. 

8) Happy Tears

If the tears in your dream are happy tears, it is likely the case that good things are coming your way.

Although many dreams can’t be taken as literally as they appear, the ones that leave you feeling good, uplifted, or positive for some reason, are generally considered to be a sign of good things to come. 

9) Anxious Tears in a Dream

If you’re crying and feeling anxious in a dream, it’s probably not a good idea to make any big or major decisions in your waking life.

If someone is asking you to make a big decision, the universe is telling you to think twice about it. Is it really the right time?

Read about the spiritual meaning of muddy water in dreams.

Spiritual Meaning of Someone Crying in a Dream

It’s important to look at the relationship you have with the person crying in your dream. 

If you’re dreaming of someone you don’t know crying, it could be a sign that you’re trying to help someone in your real life. But you don’t really know if you’re doing a good enough job.

Maybe you don’t know how to help them, or your best efforts aren’t working. 

If you’re dreaming of a loved one crying, it could be both a positive and a negative omen.

In some cultures, this is considered to be a good luck sign. In others, however, it is a sign of troubling times. What’s your relationship with the person like in real life? It’s all important and relevant. 

• Are you on good terms? This means this person needs your help but doesn’t know how to ask for you. Reach out to them and let them know you’re always there to listen to them;
• Are you on bad terms? It means that this person is trying to reconnect with you but you’re pushing them away. Maybe you should reconsider to talk and solve some past issues.

Could it be a Spiritual Attack?

A spiritual attack is often thought of as a religious thing, but it can have as much weight in a spiritual sense as it can in your relationship with a deity. 

Spiritual attack is, quite literally, when you come under attack, spiritually, from enemies and adversaries. 

You aren’t being physically attacked, with punches and kicks. You aren’t being mentally or emotionally attacked either, with horrible words, bully, and offensive language.

Instead, you are being spiritually attacked. Someone is wishing bad on you, and they’re doing a very good job. 

Coming under spiritual attack can feel, in many ways, like a depressive slump. The following symptoms can be noted: 

• Exhaustion;
• Overwhelming feel of hopelessness;
• Other feelings of heavy negativity;
• No appetite;
• Unusual negative feelings (such as running away);
• Obsessing over small moments in your past;
• Self-sabotaging.

If you have any of those symptoms, it’s time for you to reconnect with your spiritual beliefs and ask the universe for protection.

Read about having a dream about getting shot and not dying.

Is Crying in a Dream Good or Bad?

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but crying in a dream is a bad omen or sign more often than it is a good one.

It is linked to feeling ignored, suppressed, and full of emotions you can’t release.

It is quite common to feel GOOD after a crying dream.

However, that’s usually because internal and suppressed emotions have been released via the medium of sleeping/dreaming. 

If the crying dream is a repetitive one, or you find yourself crying in lots of different dreams, it is time to pay attention to what the universe is trying to say to you.

Things won’t get better until you figure out what isn’t right, and then make it right. 

Final Words

There are many spiritual meanings of crying in your dream and each one brings a special message to you.

It’s time for you to acknowledge and embrace the emotions you’ve been ignoring. You can’t run forever.

It’s a sign to let go of what has been hurting you — or someone.

Allow yourself to feel the emotions that come up for you, and trust that they will lead you to where you need to go.