Memes From Dreams / This Meme Came To Me In A Dream

Submission 10,997

Part of a series on Surreal Memes. [View Related Entries]

About

Memes From Dreams, also known as This Meme Came To Me In A Dream, refers to a category of memes that have appeared in people's dreams. Upon waking up, they then feel compelled to make the meme. Memes inspired by dreams are often surreal or ironic in nature. The concept was first popularized on Tumblr in 2016 but has since spread to other platforms like Reddit and Twitter.

Origin

The first known meme to come from a dream is BODE. On November 27th, 2016, Tumblr^[1] user loghain, posted an image of a cat with the word "BODE" written over it. They stated in their post that they'd had a dream in which a new meme-trend was circulating of people putting "BODE" (short for "bodacious") over images of fat cats. The post (shown below) received roughly 50,000 notes over the course of three days. The post has since been deleted, however.

Spread

BODE continued to trend across Tumblr going into the rest of 2016. For instance, Tumblr^[2] user oh-yeah-mr-krabs posted an image (shown below) of a different fat cat with "BODE" written over it, effectively adding to the trend. The meme (shown below) received roughly 2,500 notes in one day. However, this post has also been deleted.

In late 2018, the subreddit /r/thomastheplankengine^[3] was created as a place for users to share memes they'd seen in their dreams. The first meme that was posted to the subreddit was posted on October 28th, 2018, by Redditor^[4] seventeenth-account, who captioned it, "I don't dream much, but when I do, I think i'm on acid." The meme (shown below) received 67 upvotes over the course of three years.

Reddit's /r/thomastheplankengine grew in size in the following three years. As of November 2021, the subreddit has roughly 47,100 members.

Memes from dreams began appearing on Twitter starting in April 2020. For example, Twitter^[5] user @milkystar64 posted a meme they made after a dream on April 9th, 2020. The tweet (shown below) received roughly 17,000 likes over the course of a year and a half.

In February 2021, the meme Yass Pills was similarly inspired by a dream. On February 11th, 2021, Twitter^[6] user @haoeru tweeted a meme featuring Family Guy's Lois Griffin with the caption, "i tried recreating the meme that appeared in my dream." The meme (shown below) gained roughly 65,100 likes over the course of nine months.

The meme trend known as Wiseposting was also inspired by a dream. On May 23rd, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @materialgirlrap tweeted about having a nightmare where everyone on Twitter was doing something called "wiseposting," vaguely related to the Wise Confuscious meme. The tweet (shown below) received roughly 47,100 likes over the course of six months.

The following day, on May 24th, 2021, Redditor^[8] dealsnbusiness1999 posted the first meme to visualize the tweet to the new subreddit /r/Wiseposting.^[9] The meme (shown below) received 284 upvotes over the course of six months.

Overall, memes from dreams continued to appear on /r/thomastheplankengine, Twitter, Tumblr and 4chan going into the rest of 2021, popularized by the above examples.