Dreaming of vomiting: meaning and symbolism
Dreaming about vomiting speaks of what you reject: a burden, a reproach, or a secret trying to get out.
- Rejection
- Relief
- Speaking
Dreaming of vomiting at a glance
For you, the question is to name what you have swallowed for too long and what asks to come out.
What have you accepted or kept to yourself lately, even though it weighed on you?
Vomiting in a dream is an image of rejection: it sets the body aside and does not predict anything.
Case by case
- Vomiting in front of someone
- Seeing yourself vomit under others’ eyes brings shame to the fore: the fear of exposing yourself or causing discomfort.
- Feeling better afterward
- The relief that follows speaks of a weight set down.
- Feeling nauseous without being able to vomit
- An urge that stays stuck stands for a blockage: what you want to say or refuse does not come out.
- Spitting something out
- Spitting out means flatly refusing what was put in your mouth: an idea, a role, a reproach.
- Feeling: fear
- The fear of vomiting points to the fear of losing control and of saying or showing what you keep buried.
- Feeling: sadness
- Sadness on waking sometimes accompanies the grief of having held in so much, or of having to say goodbye to something.
What this dream brings up for you
- What did you feel while vomiting: disgust, shame, relief?
- Were there people around you, or were you alone?
- What is hard for you to “digest” in your life right now?
What it can mean
Throwing up what we have swallowed means getting rid of what does not go down. Language already says it: we cannot digest a reproach, we swallow a slight, we can no longer stomach a situation. In a dream, vomiting often stands for this movement: a burden, a grudge, or a truth held back too long is trying to get out.
Look at what you felt. Relief after vomiting speaks of a weight being set down; shame or embarrassment, of the fear of what others will think if you finally say what you think; disgust, of a flat refusal of what you are being asked to accept.
Depending on what happens
Seeing yourself vomit under others’ eyes brings shame to the fore: the fear of exposing yourself or causing discomfort. The dream questions what you do not dare to say in front of a witness.
The relief that follows speaks of a weight set down. It can accompany a word finally let out, a decision made, a grudge laid aside.
An urge that stays stuck stands for a blockage: what you want to say or refuse does not come out. What is weighing on your heart?
Spitting out means flatly refusing what was put in your mouth: an idea, a role, a reproach. The dream helps you spot what you no longer want to swallow.
Depending on what you felt
The fear of vomiting points to the fear of losing control and of saying or showing what you keep buried.
Sadness on waking sometimes accompanies the grief of having held in so much, or of having to say goodbye to something.
Anger tied to this dream shows an overflow: too many things accepted by force, too many demands left unsaid.
A joyful relief after vomiting speaks of a weight set down and a word finally freed.
Vomiting without distress suggests you are letting go of what weighed on you, without drama or reproach.
If this dream comes back
If vomiting keeps returning, note what weighed on you that day: a word held back, a request too heavy. The dream often serves as a safety valve for what the day did not let you say.
One small stepWrite down, for yourself alone, the sentence you keep stuck in your throat, without softening it.
A dream is read as a mirror of what you are living, never as an omen: no reading here predicts anything at all.
Read according to Freud, Jung, and research
In Freud, a dream image has no fixed key: only the person’s association pins it down. For vomiting, it would point to what you swallow in silence, shame, reproach, secret, and which seeks a disguised way out.
Source: Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (Die Traumdeutung), 1900, ch. II and III; Encyclopedia.com, “Dream Symbolism”On the subjective level, rejecting could stand for a part of yourself that refuses what the day imposes. On the objective level, the dream would point to a real situation or person. To amplify the image, note what disgust or relief reminds you of.
Source: C. G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (trans. H. G. and C. F. Baynes, 1928), 1st essay, ch. VI, pp. 87–88 (objective and subjective levels); Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works, vol. 12, 2nd ed. 1968), § 403 (amplification by association and analogy); reread on archive.org on October 15, 2026Under the continuity hypothesis, vomiting would take up a worry from the previous day, a heavy meal, an argument, a word too many, in a more vivid form. The context of your day helps place the dream.
Source: G. W. Domhoff, Finding Meaning in Dreams, 1996; cited by N. Rozen and N. Soffer-Dudek, Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1812, 2018Artemidorus judged that expelling bile or phlegm relieves present discomfort, since what has been expelled no longer bothers. An ancient reading, which saw rejection as a lightening rather than a loss.
Source: Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, I, 33 (German trans. F. S. Krauss, Artemidoros aus Daldis, Symbolik der Träume, Vienna, Hartleben, 1881, Krauss numbering; read on archive.org, BIUSante_55615)Dreaming of vomiting: your questions
What does it mean to dream about vomiting?
Vomiting in a dream stands for rejecting what weighs on you: a reproach, a grudge, a secret kept too long. The relief or shame you felt points to the lead. The image says nothing about your body: it speaks of what you cannot digest in your days.
Does dreaming about vomiting announce something?
No, no dream announces what is going to happen. Artemidorus saw a lightening of present discomfort in it; al-Akili’s compilation (1992), which draws on Ibn Sirin, the return of what belongs to someone else, a revealed secret, or repentance: ancient readings, reported with no value as an announcement. What remains useful is what you are trying to reject.
Why do we feel better after vomiting in a dream?
Because the dream stages a weight being set down: a word said, a burden put aside, a refusal finally voiced. The relief is a valuable clue, that of an inner movement coming to an end. Ask yourself what you have to set down in waking life.