Do you dream in German?

To answer simply – yes. But what I actually find interesting is how I dream in German.

I work in a bilingual environment, meaning there are some words that I only really use in German and others that I only really use in English, depending on what I am speaking about. Sometimes I even have to think twice when using the words that I usually say in German, in English. Not because I have forgotten them, of course, but because I don’t associate the English word with the subject at hand.

And this is exactly what happens when I dream in German. For example, I once dreamt that I was with a group of friends, some English and some German. Throughout the dream I would smoothly switch between languages, depending on who I was talking to, with no problem at all. The strange thing is, this actually doesn’t go so smoothly in reality. When switching between languages during a conversation, my sentences turn into a weird mixture of English and German, usually followed by laughter and a “You know what I mean!” or “Du weisst was ich meine!”

So yes, I do dream in German, but so far, only when talking or thinking about things that I associate with the language itself. Perhaps my excellent ability to switch between German and English whilst dreaming shows that my skills are developing quicker than I thought. Or maybe it shows that smoothly switching between languages isn’t just on my mind during daily conversations but rather my sub-conscience too.

What do you think?