fever dream

noun

plural fever dreams

1

a

: an unusually vivid, strange, or unpleasant dream experienced by someone with a fever

Roughly 94% of the people who had experienced fever dreams described them as negative, [Michael Schredl's] study found. They also rated these dreams as much more "emotionally intense" than their regular dreams.

—Markham Heid

… her tears fell fast and warm upon his face, so that in his fever dream he murmured: "Claudia, it is beginning to rain, let us go in."

—E. D. E. N. Southworth

b

: something resembling a fever dream especially in having a strange, unpleasant, or hallucinatory quality

… the final third of the film, which devolves into a fever dream of chaos and violence …

—Peter Suderman

The lyrics are a psychedelic fever dream of loss and regret.

—Marty Fugate

2

a

: delusion, fantasy

… our national fever dream of easy riches and bigger houses …

—Don Peck

In truth, one group lives within a bizarre fantasy world, sometimes hard to distinguish from a … shared fever dream, or group hysteria. The other looks life square in the eye, seeing reality for what it is …

—The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland)

b

: something that fully satisfies a wish : dream sense 4b

… a fever dream for fans of 2000s teen fare.

—Melissa Hank

… a rustic … fever dream for foodie hipsters who prefer sweetbreads and oysters to fried cheese and nachos …

—Steve Cavendish

Examples of fever dream in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Lake of Dreams show still feels like an oddly charming fever dream—projections, puppetry, and music best experienced from SW, Lakeside, or the aft-deck fantasy bar literally called Aft. — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 28 Sep. 2026

This all led to Primetime, Lance Oppenheim’s fever dream of a film which dramatizes the world of To Catch a Predator and builds toward the show’s misbegotten trip to Texas. — David Canfield, HollywoodReporter, 24 Sep. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1801, in the meaning defined at sense 1a