DreamTok: Nightmarish TikTok trend has women crying babies after giving birth in dreams

TikTok’s ‘DreamTok’ subculture has seen a wave of young women revealing their dreams of giving birth to a child. The term “dream babies” is frequently used to describe that segment of the subculture where women openly share their particular dream experiences. The majority of young women who claim to aspire to start a family have formed relationships through videos. However, it has also had a detrimental effect on other people, making them realize that they will never want to have children.

The majority of women admitted to experiencing real loss and grief after realizing the child was just a dream. Others claim to have repeatedly experienced the same dream and even developed a bond with the dream child. People have been talking about having kids in their dreams for a long time, but recently the trend on TikTok seems to have gained momentum as several viral videos have helped give this category its own hashtag. The video-sharing platform has often made headlines for the wrong reasons, especially due to the influential culture where teenagers and children tend to imitate online trends. Many state governments have also called for the app to be banned, citing the dangers it poses, from being a den of pedophiles to leaking government secrets.

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Hailey Case, a student at Kansas State University, claimed that she dreams of giving birth or having a baby two to three times a month, as reported by Insider. Case said it was “incredibly shocking” to wake up from a dream that feels so genuine.

Case said: “When you have a dream baby [it] just feels instinctively motherly, so when I wake up, my body knows it’s awake, but my mind is trying to catch up. She made the decision to share her dreams of giving birth to a child in December 2022 after seeing other women posting about theirs.

“I feel like it’s a demonic attack”

Case’s TikTok has garnered over 16,000 views and more than a dozen comments from viewers recounting similar experiences. In one of Case’s TikTok videos, many people shared their experiences. One person wrote: ‘I can’t stop thinking about my dream baby. He was so beautiful’

@hhaileycase this is so real, just waking up to make the loss feel even more real… #dreams #fyp #dreambaby #babydream #loss ♬ origineel geluid – SPEDCVSMICS

Another person wrote: “I just dreamed about a baby last night. I woke up and cried because I realized that this beautiful baby girl does not exist in this world. Maybe A day.” A third person wrote: “I always say I don’t want kids but I just woke up from a baby dream and feel lost without him.”

One person wrote, “I wake up and look for them all day the next day. I feel like it’s a demon attack because it’s a teasing that causes pain.” This other person who shared her traumatic experience wrote: “I dreamed that I gave birth to a baby and I was in happiness. I tried to breastfeed him and when I looked down, He was a long-haired Chihuahua… traumatic.”

“It’s like a state of mourning”

Case revealed that she felt connected to others, but it also made her more pessimistic. She said: “The response made me really sad, scrolling through comments from people who shared their dream baby’s name, saying it was so real. The intense emotion feels a bit surreal because we It’s very easy to separate dreams from reality.”

Case asserted that since dreaming can elicit a genuine and powerful emotional sensation, it is difficult to explain this imbalance. “It feels like a state of grief, in some sense of the word,” she said. Case said he’s noticed an increase in dream baby videos in recent months.

Case acknowledged that it “feels weird” to “admit you’re saddened by a dream experience”, but suggested that perhaps hearing others talk about their nightmares has made it less distressing for them. individuals to discuss it. She said, “I don’t know if this came out of nowhere or if someone suddenly decided to share, and everyone had the courage to share.”

What does a psychologist think of the “dream baby” trend?

Dr. Dylan Selterman, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on dreams and social interactions, there is currently no research on these types of dreams and the suffering they are linked to, according to Insider. But, he says, it could offer women a way to view motherhood or life and loss in a whole different context.

Selterman said: “People may be prone to feelings of grief or loss because the baby in the dream corresponds to another child or a family figure in the person’s life. This is perhaps be how their mind copes with a different kind of loss.”

Selterman also proposed that what individuals call an “attachment” to an invented or imagined child might actually be a desire for motherhood. He claimed that there is enough data to demonstrate that sharing dreams forges social relationships, so he is not shocked that dream babies have gained such popularity on TikTok.

This article contains comments made on the Internet by individuals and organizations. cannot independently confirm them and does not support any claims or opinions made online.