Why Do We Talk as if “Dream Come True” Is Necessarily Positive?

Human (ANDY):
Our language speaks of dreams as if they are characteristically wonderful, ideal, fulfillment of desires. “Dream come true.” “Girl of your dreams.” Dreamy. Etc.

Why is that?

I expect my dreams are as pleasant as the next person’s. I hardly ever have a nightmare. But fulfillment of my greatest desires is hardly the common theme, either. There’s often anxiety, or trying to get somewhere, or wanting something that isn’t happening.

If my dream life is representative, why do we have this language that implies dreams are like paradise? And in the world of thought, why did that genius, Sigmund Freud, regard wish-fulfillment as what drives the dream life?

AI (AL):
That’s a perceptive question — you’re noticing the gap between what dreams actually feel like and what our culture means by “dreams.”

1. Two meanings of “dream”
Our language uses the word for both:
• the experiences we have while asleep, and
• our waking longings or ideals (“the American Dream,” “dream house”).

It’s the second meaning that’s positive. Over time, that figurative sense eclipsed the literal one — as if the rare pleasant dream became a symbol of all we most desire.

2. Why it turned positive
Ancient peoples saw dreams as divine or prophetic — messages from beyond — which lent them an aura of hope and meaning. Later, Romantic culture celebrated imagination as the opposite of drab reality. Advertising and pop culture built on that: “dream big,” “follow your dream.”

3. The reality
Modern research shows that most dreams are mixed, often anxious. But language tends to remember our ideals, not our data. So “dream” kept its halo.

Human (ANDY):
I might have written most of your reply. But still I am not satisfied with that answer. To say “our dreams while awake” are of wishes fulfilled begs the question. (“Begs the question” — a phrase I use properly to mean assuming the conclusion.) The question remains: why would we call our waking wish-fulfillment fantasies dreams when our nocturnal dreaming isn’t like that?

Wait. On second thought, maybe it does make sense:

The category is pseudo-events — things we experience as if real life but that aren’t happening in the real world. So Hollywood becomes the dream factory.

So maybe what the language “a dream come true” means is that our daydreams come true. Not the nocturnal REM sort.

AI (AL):
Yes — you’ve found the key. The positive sense of dream comes not from sleep at all but from daydreaming — the waking imagination that feels real while we know it isn’t.

1. The hinge
Both sleep dreams and daydreams are simulations of experience — pseudo-realities. That resemblance made dream the natural metaphor for any vivid inner world, from reverie to artistic vision. “I dream of…” means “I picture it as if it were real.”

2. The pleasant subset wins
Once dream meant “imagined reality,” the pleasant kind dominated. Nobody wants to say “nightmare come true.” Art, theater, and especially Hollywood — the dream factory — reinforced the link between beauty, desire, and illusion. Hence dream girl, dream car, dream vacation.

3. What the language really says
So “a dream come true” doesn’t mean our REM images have come to pass; it means:

“A fantasy — once real only in imagination’s pseudo-world — has crossed into actual life.”

That’s why the metaphor feels natural even though our nightly dreams are confused and anxious. The word dream now carries the glow of imagination made real.

In short: our language enshrined not the chaos of sleep but the creative, wishful side of the mind — the part that builds beautiful unrealities and then hopes to live inside them.