Key points
- Locations in dreams ground the dream experience.
- The details of location provide a sense- and memory-based reference point.
- The locating aspect of dreams is a lens for understanding a specific point of view held by the dreamer.
It first popped up as a subreddit in 2021 asking about shared dream spaces. Descriptions of sprawling places resembling indoor malls were posted, with food courts, multiple levels, endless stores, and escalators. Familiar locations in waking time, in dreamtime, they appeared as strangely deserted, too crowded, or jammed with amusement parks, bathrooms, or eerie alleys of shops that meandered aimlessly
Coined “Mall World” dreams, they share uncanny physical commonalities as well as evoke a sense of recognition, déjà-vu, and sometimes even fear or confusion. A woman posted a drawing of the mall that appears in her recurring dreams on TikTok, and it went viral, with people around the world claiming to be dreaming of a similar place
Could we really all be dreaming of the same location? If so, what does this mean?
Location, Location, Location
Life experiences occur in places. Not just any places, but specific ones. Think about high school, for example, the primary site of our adolescence. From the sweaty anxiety of getting singled out in class to the warm feeling of belonging sitting with friends at lunch, school, as a place, is recalled not so much by name or geography but by the senses, emotions, and memories that accompany our time there
Perceptual geographer Yi-fu Tuan writes that we know that something is real when we can apprehend ittaste, touch, or sound of something. These sense-based experiences place us in both time and space. Without that physical ground, experience is abstract
Most dreams start with a description of location. Location in dreams is a creation of the dreamer’s mind, and often an amalgam of experiences. We may dream, for example, that we are sitting in our 10th-grade science class, but our desk has our waking-time office computer sitting on it. Or, we may dream of our current house, but notice it is decorated with furniture from our childhood. Each of these settings carries its own memories and sense-based associations. Incongruously appearing together, they provoke a new perspective or understanding.
In my book The Secret Mind: Unlock the Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life, I write about something I call the “locating aspect” of images in dreams. Like waking time, dream locations place us in a specific time and space. Unlike waking time, however, because of the created aspect of these locations, they not only set the scene, but they also describe the perspective from which the “I” part of the dreamer will navigate the environment. They are the depiction of the dreamer’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual present-tense experiencing.
Take the office computer in the 10th-grade science class example. The feelings, memories, emotions, and sensations of what it meant to be in 10th-grade science class will shed light on the dreamer’s current waking-time experience at work. Maybe the dreamer aced science class, or maybe science class brings back the anxiety of a failed project. Everything is in the details. The feelings and the specifics of the memory—including how the dreamer responded to the situation—tell us about how the dreamer is feeling and responding in waking time.
The locating aspect gives us a window into our inner space as it is relating to how we are seeing and behaving in our waking time. Like any good map, by pinpointing where we are, we can navigate somewhere else. If a dream is presenting a scenario of seizing up in anxiety around a work project as our current point of view, we can, in waking time, choose to draw from other life experiences and shift our emotions
A Shakespearean Question: What’s in a Mall?
I’ve had a Mall World dream, and I’ll bet you’ve had one, too. Malls are a significant feature of modern life where shopping, entertainment, eating, and socializing come together; an indoor “window to the world.” IPSOS Consumer Tracker shows that even Gen Z, the children of the internet, are still going to malls, which, they postulate, operate as a “third space” between school or work and home
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In addition, around the world, most malls somehow look the same. I’ve been in shopping malls from Phnom Pehn to Entebbe, Cedar Rapids to Warsaw, and they have been laid out in more or less the same way. While the goods in these stores may vary, they are all designed to bring a distinct sense of uniformity to the experience. The inside of a Uniqlo in Bangkok is going to feel much like the one in Paris, for example
Given this, it’s not surprising that the Mall World dreams share similar features, or that so many people have had a Mall World dream. Malls have become cultural fixtures that, like schools, are the site of specific experiences that become part of our sense-based and emotional memories
But what’s in a mall? It depends on how the dreamer has experienced it. For some, it represents the bright oasis of freedom that came with shopping with friends during their teenage years, while for others it’s always been a featureless nightmare. Some of my clients have been dazzled by the treasure trove of goods they discover in malls in dreams, while others have pushed against the tide of shoppers, desperate to find a way out
Interestingly, the online group that has grown up around “Mall World’ has become a real place for people to connect over their dreaming experience. It demonstrates another truism: Dreams are both individual and collective. While the specific experiences we have are unique to us as individuals, we all share common human feelings. All of us have been dazzled at one point by abundance, overwhelmed by too many choices, anxious about presenting a project, and desiring to ace a challenge. These moments, experienced in waking or asleep, bind us together in community all over the world. You may not have the same dream I do about being in a mall, but we’ve had the same feelings, at one time or another.
Buckner, Bonnie (2025). The Secret Mind: Unlock the Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life. Urano Publishing
Roy, Jessica October 16, 2025. Are You Dreaming of Mall World? You’re Not Alone. Retrieved June 21, 2026 from https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/style/mall-world-dreams-tiktok.html
Tuan, Yi-fu (1977). Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience.University of Minnesota Press
