DREAMING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does dreaming mean? 

• DREAMING (noun)
  The noun DREAMING has 2 senses:

1. imaginative thoughts indulged in while awake

2. a series of mental images and emotions occurring during sleep

  Familiarity information: DREAMING used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DREAMING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Imaginative thoughts indulged in while awake

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

dream; dreaming

Context example:

he lives in a dream that has nothing to do with reality

Hypernyms ("dreaming" is a kind of...):

imagination; imaginativeness; vision (the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dreaming"):

air castle; castle in Spain; castle in the air; daydream; daydreaming; oneirism; reverie; revery (absentminded dreaming while awake)

woolgathering (an idle indulgence in fantasy)

Derivation:

dream (have a daydream; indulge in a fantasy)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A series of mental images and emotions occurring during sleep

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

dream; dreaming

Context example:

I had a dream about you last night

Hypernyms ("dreaming" is a kind of...):

imagery; imagination; imaging; mental imagery (the ability to form mental images of things or events)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dreaming"):

nightmare (a terrifying or deeply upsetting dream)

wet dream (an erotic dream (usually at night) accompanied by the (nocturnal) emission of semen)

Holonyms ("dreaming" is a part of...):

sleeping (the state of being asleep)

Derivation:

dream (experience while sleeping)

 Context examples 

Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

You must be happy, you sentimentalists, really and truly happy at dreaming and finding things good, and, because you find some of them good, feeling good yourself.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As to Mrs. St. Clair’s assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the window, he declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For years I’ve been dreaming of the bright green fields and the hedges of England.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was in an ecstasy, dreaming dreams and reconstructing the scenes just past.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

So up he flew directly, and a terrible scene took place, for Lucy was come to them by that time, little dreaming what was going on.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I dream of every body at Highbury when I am away—and when I have gone through my particular friends, then I begin dreaming of Mr. and Mrs. Perry.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I have surely not been dreaming, have I?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

How they laughed when the secret came out, never dreaming how many love letters that little post office would hold in the years to come.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)