What Do Dreams About Poker Mean?

Why Talk About Poker Dreams at All?

On August 6^th, 2024, 888poker team member and streamer Aaron “abarone68” Barone shared on X his recent poker dream:

“Had a bad dream  last night and according to my fiancé, I was making ‘whimpering noises’ in my sleep.  What was the dream?  Well, let me tell you, it was something truly frightening…

I was grinding online poker and no matter how fast I acted, more tables kept popping up.  There were simply too many to click.  Try as I might, the tables filled my entire screen and I existed in a perpetual state of timing out while feverishly trying to sit back in.      

That’s it.  That’s the entire dream.”

His post motivated other players to describe their dreams and nightmares about poker.

One of the first was GGPoker Global team member and streamer Hristivoje “ALLinPav” Pavlovic who shared this one on X:

https://x.com/ALLinPav/status/1820922032206573606

Other players also put in their two cents — we collected a few notable examples:

Tom @allinonpope: Too many times I’ve dreamt of having the nuts and timing out as I spam click call facing an all in. I dream about poker almost nightly when I’m on the grind playing. Some are good, most are anxiety ridden nightmares lol. I did have a nice one where I placed 3rd in the main event and it was back on ESPN.

Wayno: I’m usually at a live table, the $ in the middle of the table is about 2 or 3 fee high, I make Quad Kings on the river, and I reach over to turn over my cards, and I can’t find ’em.

Stevie Cee: My recurring poker dreams involve me winning huge, but not being able to get paid for whatever reason.

yarbs: I had a dream once where i was playing a $25 3man jackpot and hit the top prize for 50k, had a big chip lead going into heads up. jammed A8s and immediately woke up.

What a Dream Is From a Scientific Perspective?

In 2024, science has a lot of theories about the essence of dreams, their causes and meanings.

For the most part, you’ll find similar ideas at the core of popular neurobiological and psychological theories connected to dreams. It includes a combination:

• Memories from different time frames
• Impressions, sensations, emotions and feelings  — especially recent and influential
• Ideas and conclusions based on experience
• Health issues connected to either mental or physical well-being

Still, even with similar core ideas, the meaning of the term “dream” differs between scientists.

For example, famous neurologist Sigmund Freud describes dream as “the fulfilment of a wish, repressed container, ideas or themes“. On the other hand, Director of DrEAMSLab Caroline L. Horton, uses dreaming in her essays less abstractly as “recollection of mental content from sleep”.

Doctor of Psychology Michelle Drerup prefers to call dreams “mental imagery or activity that occur when you sleep” suggesting that “our dreams might help us process and manage our emotions”.

Finally, the Cambridge Dictionary suggests to use “dream” for “a series of events or images that happen in your mind when you are sleeping”.

As you can see, these variants even though different make similar points (except for Fraud, of course).

We can rely on these similarities to agree on one thing: dreams mirror your life experiences in one way or another, often in an abstract way without traceable connection to specific situations, events or problems.

What Can Poker Dreams and Nightmares Tell Players? 

Let’s return to the dreams of real poker players we mentioned at the beginning of this article. Analyzing their content helps us verbalize the answer the question: What can poker dreams and nightmares tell players? 

First of all, if you had a poker related dream — try to recall it in as much detail as possible. Even write it down. This helps trace patterns — images, emotions and situations — to shrink the possible reasons for certain types of dreams.

Timing and events surrounding every dream are important too because your mind can use dreams to show you worries about something specific.

When you have a nightmare right after a brutal poker session, the connection between the two may seem obvious — still, don’t rush to any conclusions just yet. Review the content of your dream, your feelings and thoughts before and after.

More often than not, you’ll realize that it wasn’t the brutality of losing that made your dream bad but the underlying reasons connected to it. This could be the fear of going bankrupt or becoming unreliable for your significant other, doubts about career choices or even worries about your intelligence and poker skills.

After you’ve understood what’s going on, you’ll have the opportunity to change your routine or work on some issue with your therapist to make things better.

Aaron Barone, for instance, listened to his subconscious after his dream and later played less tables.

On the other hand, analyzing a pleasant poker dream — where you win, bluff like a god, or reach an important financial milestone — can help you find joy in the game or motivate you to work even harder.

Still, remember that poker dreams can also hint at some physical or psychological issues outside of the game. Human brains have an uncanny ability to connect unrelated things to help us understand something difficult or warn us about problematic areas.

I Have Poker Nightmares: What to Do?

Every nightmare is an warning from your brain about a serious physical or psychologic issues. If they occur rarely and aren’t identical, they could be relate to recent circumstances.

On the other hand, if nightmares comes as repetitive and very intense — players should consider visiting a therapist, psychiatrist, or neurologist.

You see, poker has an ability to trigger dormant traumatic experiences due to its highly stressful, risky and competitive nature. Stress from playing can also lead to development of serious illnesses up to hormonal disbalance that provokes response in the form of nightmare.