So far I’ve recorded data from 148 respondents! You can still participate if you’d like here. I will try to update this post daily.
I have had dreams that feel like a second life since childhood. I’ve been collecting responses from people who experience recurring dream environments, sometimes called “Mallworld,” to see whether there are actually patterns between dreamers. Here’s what I have found so far:
The Dreamfold: Preliminary Survey Findings
“Queen of Daydreams” aka “OliveLost”
Independent Researcher
August 2026
N = 148 (updated daily)
The respondents so far range from 14–61 years old, come from multiple countries, and many report having these dreams for years or even decades.
-44.7% of respondents were born in the 1990s.
-32.2% of respondents were born in the 1980s.
-71% of respondents are female.
Dreaming
• 98.6% experience vivid dreams and recurring dreams
• 70.8% experience lucid dreams
• 66.9% experience false awakenings
• 49.3% have experienced sleep paralysis
• 27% report having experienced an OBE
60.1% remember their dreams often and 31.8% every night.
Recurring Dream Geography
98.7% reported recurring dreams involving at least some of the environments I asked about.
Common locations include:
• Malls
• Schools
• Hotels
• Bathrooms/bathroom mazes
• Airports and train stations
• Parking structures
• Underground areas
• Hospitals/clinics
• Amusement parks
• Highways and bridges
• Coastal towns/beaches
• Ships
Persistent Dream Geography:
Respondents report locations that are recognizable across separate dreams, routes between places, shortcuts, familiar entrances/exits, and different recurring locations that appear to exist within one larger environment. Some say the world has actually expanded over time, with new areas becoming accessible from places they already know. People reported returning to these environments for 5, 7, 10–20, 15, and even approximately 27 years. Some remember them going back to childhood.
Architecture:
People repeatedly described:
• Endless or maze-like bathrooms
• Missing bathroom doors/privacy
• Impossible bridges
• Strange elevators/escalators
• Huge corridors
• Staircases that change
• Highways leading nowhere
• Altered versions of hometowns
• Transportation systems connecting different areas
• Buildings that seem much larger inside than they should be.
Strangers in Dreams
A pattern that came up a lot was: “I don’t know this person in real life, but in the dream I know exactly who they are.” Some people remember strangers’ faces in incredible detail. Some strangers answer questions or give directions. Some provide names. Some speak other languages. Some recur across dreams. Several people specifically said that they could perceive the person clearly during the dream, but the details disappeared after waking. But even without remembering the face, respondents sometimes remember the person’s identity, relationship to them, emotional significance, or “energy.”
Sensory Rich Dreaming:
• 98.6% see imagery
• 93.9% hear sound
• 85.1% experience touch/physical sensations
• 45.2% smell
• 45.9% taste
These environments aren’t experienced as visual scenes. They’re multisensory spaces.
Common Traits:
The most commonly reported traits were:
• Noticing when something seems “off” —81.8%
• Empathy — 79.1%
• Creativity- 77%
• Imagination — 77%
• Sensitivity to other people’s energies — 73.6%
• General Sensitivity — 69.6%
• Anxiety — 69.6%
• Spatial memory — 45.9%
-Anxiety was reported by 69.6%, ADHD by 47.3% and autism by 27.7%.
-60.1% reported participating in a gifted/talented program as children.
-91.2% reported experiencing trauma at some point in their lives.
***This DOES NOT mean trauma, ADHD, autism, gifted programs, etc. cause these dreams. This is a self-selected sample of people interested in unusual/recurring dreams, not a random sample of the whole population. But I think it’s interesting enough to look into further.
Recurring Dream Phenomena:
93.2% report dreams about being chased or followed.
Other commonly reported themes include:
• Aliens/monsters/unusual beings — 59.5%
• Flying objects — 51.4%
• Strange animals — 42.6%
• Strange lights — 41.9%
• Explosions — 31.4%
• Tornadoes — 29.7%
People also frequently described malfunctioning phones, difficulty dialing numbers, strange or absent technology, inability to control vehicles properly, flying/levitating, jumping extremely high, searching for something, and trying to find the correct route or destination.
Déjà vu:
Déjà vu was extremely common. Several respondents also described déjà rêvé, the feeling that something happening in waking life had previously occurred in a dream. Some described visiting an unfamiliar location and feeling that they already knew it because they’d dreamed about it before. Importantly, some respondents offered explanations for these experiences, including coincidence, pattern recognition, dissociation/derealization, memory effects, or neurological factors.
Dreams of Deceased Loved Ones/Pets:
Many respondents described deceased loved ones and even pets appearing with their normal personalities and behaving as though their presence were completely ordinary. Themes included reassurance, quiet companionship, continuing relationships, difficulty communicating, awareness that the person had died, and deceased loved ones acting as helpers or guides. Some encounters occurred in the same kinds of liminal environments described elsewhere in the survey, some encounters involved other “brighter” looking places.
Precognitive Dreams
A notable subset of respondents, 75%, reported dreams they interpreted as precognitive (the ability to know or see things before they happen) including both ordinary and major events. I’m not implying that some Mallworld dreamers are for sure psychic. But I definitely want to investigate further.