Dream in Japanese

Dream in Japanese is 夢, said yume. Thirteen strokes, filed under 夕, the evening radical, with a stack of elements above it that once drew a sleeping figure. Like English, it covers both the dream you have at night and the dream you chase. Written in hiragana it is ゆめ, and in katakana ユメ.

Dream in Japanese

Dream in Japanese is 夢, and the spoken word is yume. Both senses are live. 変な夢を見た means I had a strange dream. 将来の夢 means what you want to become, and it is the question every Japanese primary school child is asked to write about.

Notice the verb. Japanese does not dream a dream, it sees one: 夢を見る (yume o miru). The on’yomi ム (mu) does the compound work, as in 夢中 (muchuu, absorbed) and 悪夢 (akumu, a nightmare).

The Kanji for Dream: 夢

• Character: 夢
• On’yomi: ム (mu), ボウ (bou)
• Kun’yomi: ゆめ (yume)
• Stroke count: 13
• General meaning: dream, vision, illusion, aspiration
• Radical: 夕 (evening), Kangxi radical 36, with ten strokes added above

It is taught in the fifth year of Japanese primary school and sits at JLPT N3. The stroke count is the reason it comes late: it is one of the busier characters a child learns at that stage.

Japanese Symbol for Dream

夢 has one of the best documented origins in the writing system, and unusually, it is a picture of a person rather than a sound puzzle.

The oracle bone forms show a figure lying on a bed with one eye drawn oversized and the hands restless. It is somebody asleep and not sleeping quietly. Bronze inscriptions added eyebrows above that emphasized eye and swapped the bed for 夕, the evening element, which is how the character acquired the moon that is still at its foot.

The modern shape preserves all four parts if you know where to look. The strokes at the very top are what became of the eyebrows. The 罒 band beneath them is the eye, turned on its side. The 冖 below that is the last of the sleeper’s body. And 夕 at the bottom is the evening. Eyebrows, eye, body, night, stacked in that order.

That 夕 element also links 夢 to night in Japanese, 夜, which is built on the same radical. Both characters are filed under dusk.

How to Write 夢 in Japanese

Thirteen strokes, strictly top to bottom in four tiers, which makes it easier to write than the count suggests.

The crown at the top takes three strokes. Then the 罒 band in five, written the way any enclosure is written: the left vertical, then the stroke that crosses the top and turns down the right side, then the two short verticals inside, then the horizontal that closes the base. Then 冖 in two, a short dot and a long stroke that runs across and turns down at the right corner. Then 夕 in three: the left-falling stroke, the curving stroke that turns and hooks, and the short dot inside it.

The proportions are the whole game. Each tier has to be squat, because four of them have to share one square. Beginners give the 罒 band too much height and run out of room, and the 夕 at the bottom ends up squashed flat.

How to Say Dream in Japanese

Yume is two even beats: “yoo-meh.” The u is short and lightly rounded, not the long English “you,” and the e is short as in “bed.” Neither syllable takes a stress. Mu in compounds is a single short “moo.”

Real sentences:

• 昨日、変な夢を見ました。(Kinou, hen na yume o mimashita.) I had a strange dream yesterday.
• 将来の夢は何ですか。(Shourai no yume wa nan desu ka.) What do you want to be in the future?
• 夢を叶えたいです。(Yume o kanaetai desu.) I want to make my dream come true.
• ゲームに夢中です。(Geemu ni muchuu desu.) I’m absorbed in the game.
• ひどい悪夢を見た。(Hidoi akumu o mita.) I had a terrible nightmare.

Words and Compounds With 夢

夢中 is the one to learn first. It literally reads as inside a dream, and it means completely absorbed: 夢中になる is what you say about a child with a book or an adult with a hobby. It has no negative edge at all.

And Japanese has a pair of words English lacks. 正夢 is a dream that came true. 逆夢 is a dream whose opposite came true, which is the phrase people reach for to console someone after a bad one.

Dream in Japanese Culture

Japan gives the first dream of the year its own name and its own rules. 初夢 (hatsuyume) is the dream you have as the new year opens. Because New Year’s Eve was traditionally spent awake, the dream that counts is usually the one on the night of January 1.

There is a ranking of lucky things to see in it: 一富士二鷹三茄子 (ichi-Fuji, ni-taka, san-nasubi), one Fuji, two hawk, three eggplant. Explanations vary. Mount Fuji is the highest mountain, the hawk stands for cleverness and strength, and 茄子 (nasu, eggplant) sounds like 成す (nasu), to accomplish. Another account holds that all three were favorites of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. You can read the whole custom in our page on hatsuyume.

Bad dreams have a remedy, and it is an animal. The 獏 (baku) is a dream-eating creature, familiar in Japan as early as the Muromachi period and drawn as a chimera: an elephant’s trunk and tusks, a rhinoceros’s ears, a cow’s tail, a bear’s body, a tiger’s paws. A child waking from a nightmare calls to it and asks it to eat the dream. The folklore adds a warning worth keeping: a baku still hungry after the nightmare may go on to eat your hopes as well, and leave you with an empty life. You will meet it again in our guide to Japanese yokai.

As a Tattoo

夢 is one of the most requested kanji in Western tattooing, and for once the popularity is deserved. It genuinely means dream in both the sleeping and the aspirational sense, exactly as people intend it. Thirteen strokes stacked in tiers make a tall, dense, architectural shape that suits a vertical placement.

Know the third meaning. 夢 also covers illusion, the sense that something is unreal or will not last, which is why 夢のような話 means a story too good to be true. That shade is part of the character, not a mistranslation, and it is closer to yugen and to the general Japanese comfort with impermanence than to a motivational poster.

Watch the pairings. 悪夢 (akumu) is a nightmare and 夢遊病 (muyuubyou) is sleepwalking. Both are 夢 plus characters that look harmless on their own. Kanji next to each other form real dictionary words rather than a sum of ideas.

This one has a real script decision. Japanese and traditional Chinese both write the character 夢. Simplified Chinese writes it 梦, which is a completely different shape built on 林 over 夕. If your reference image shows 梦, it is not Japanese, and copying it will give you a Chinese tattoo. This is the single most common way people get this character wrong.

Because the character is tall and stacked, it looks best inked vertically along the spine, the outer forearm, or the ribs. Keep it large enough that the horizontal bands stay separate. The 罒 element in the middle is the first thing to fill in as ink spreads, and once it does the whole character turns into a block.

Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview the character in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.

Related Kanji

• Night in Japanese
• Moon in Japanese
• Hope in Japanese
• Heart in Japanese

FAQ

How do you say dream in Japanese?

You say yume, written 夢. Two flat beats, “yoo-meh,” with short vowels and no stress on either. The verb matters too: Japanese sees a dream rather than dreaming one, so you say 夢を見る (yume o miru). In compounds the character switches to its on’yomi mu, as in 悪夢 (akumu).

What is the kanji for dream?

The kanji for dream is 夢, thirteen strokes, filed under 夕, the evening radical, Kangxi number 36. Readings are ゆめ (yume) and ム (mu). It descends from an oracle bone picture of a person lying on a bed with an emphasized eye and restless hands, and is taught in fifth grade.

What is the Japanese symbol for dream?

夢 is the written symbol, and it still contains its four original parts stacked in order: eyebrows, eye, body, and 夕 for the night. The cultural symbol of a good dream is different, and specific: Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant, the three lucky sights of the year’s first dream.

How do you write yume in Japanese?

夢 is the kanji and the standard written form. ゆめ is hiragana, common in children’s books, song lyrics, and given names. ユメ is katakana, which gives the word a stylized modern feel and shows up in band names and titles. All three are pronounced the same.

Is 夢 the same character in Chinese?

Traditional Chinese writes it 夢, exactly as Japanese does. Simplified Chinese writes it 梦, a different shape built from 林 over 夕. So the answer depends on which Chinese you mean, and it matters for tattoos: a reference image showing 梦 is not the Japanese form.

What is hatsuyume?

初夢 (hatsuyume) is the first dream of the new year, usually the one on the night of January 1, since New Year’s Eve was traditionally spent awake. Seeing Mount Fuji, a hawk, or an eggplant is considered lucky, in that order, a ranking summed up in the phrase 一富士二鷹三茄子.