No one quite knows what they are or why we have them, but they say you’ve really started to learn a new language when your dreams are in that language. While it doesn’t answer any deep questions about the nature of dreams, a recent IFOP survey does give us some insights into the question “à quoi rêvent les français?”¹What do the French dream about?

Photo CC0 from John-Mark Smith at www.pexels.com

Just a dream

The results of an « [é]tude Ifop pour Tousaulit.com réalisée par questionnaire auto-administré en ligne 30 novembre au 1er décembre 2021 auprès d’un échantillon de 1 009 personnes, représentatif de la population française âgée de 18 ans et plus. »²An IFOP study for tousaulit.com conducted via automated on-line survey between November 30th and December 1, 2021 of 1009 people, representing the population of people 18 and older in France. give us insights into what is (not) keeping the French up at night …

• While the majority of those surveyed (93%) dream de temps en temps⁴from time to time, “Les femmes rêvent plus fréquemment que les hommes… et sont davantage sujettes aux cauchemars”⁵women dream more often than men … and are more often subject to nightmares.
• More than one-third of those surveyed (37%) identified the election of far-right candidat Éric Zemmour “comme […] président de la République en 2022”⁶to be president of the Republic as among their worst cauchemars.
• “Parmi les Français faisant des rêves, plus des deux tiers (71%) ont déjà rêvé être au travail.”⁷Among those who dream, more than two thirds (71%) have dreamt about being at work
• While “[p]rès de la moitié (45%) déclare faire autant de rêves réalistes que fantaisistes, [… p]lus d’un tiers des Français (36% de ceux à qui il arrive de rêver) font des rêves majoritairement réalistes, contre tout de même un cinquième (19%) qui en font surtout des fantaisistes.”⁸close to half (45%) say they are as likely to have realistic dreams as fantastic ones, […m]ore than a third (36% of those who remember their dreams) have mostly realistic dreams, while almost one-fifth (19%) mostly have fantastic dreams
• “Plus de la moitié des Français croient aux rêves prémonitoires (57%, dont 15% qui y croient « tout à fait »)”⁹More than half of the French (surveyed) believe dreams reveal the future (57%, with 15% believing it “completely”)

Et vous? A quoi rêvez-vous?¹⁰And you? What do you dream about?

A little random vocabulary

I always find if fun when a new word pops up and often it seems when it does, it does so in pairs … very appropriate in this case. The word is binôme and it means … pairs!

Both the new Amazon show Mixte, about one of the first coed lycées in France in the 1960’s, and the Netflix series Emily in Paris, which despite criticism, especially from the French, about its representation of Paris (the size of apartments, the cleanliness of the city streets, the attractiveness of the typical Parisien) and the French (“personne ne travaille avant 10h30, pause-déjeuner de 2,3 ou 4 heures, le béret, les croissants…”¹¹no one starts working before 10:30, lunch breaks lasting 2, 3, or 4 hours, berets and croissants …) was just renewed for two more seasons, feature students doing travail en binôme / working in pairs.

J’aime bien dormir! (I like to sleep well)

French Culture – What do the French think

• 1
  What do the French dream about?
• 2
  An IFOP study for tousaulit.com conducted via automated on-line survey between November 30th and December 1, 2021 of 1009 people, representing the population of people 18 and older in France.
• 3
  Find the mattress you need thanks to our articles, tests, opinions, and comparisons
• 4
  from time to time
• 5
  women dream more often than men … and are more often subject to nightmares
• 6
  to be president of the Republic
• 7
  Among those who dream, more than two thirds (71%) have dreamt about being at work
• 8
  close to half (45%) say they are as likely to have realistic dreams as fantastic ones, […m]ore than a third (36% of those who remember their dreams) have mostly realistic dreams, while almost one-fifth (19%) mostly have fantastic dreams
• 9
  More than half of the French (surveyed) believe dreams reveal the future (57%, with 15% believing it “completely”)
• 10
  And you? What do you dream about?
• 11
  no one starts working before 10:30, lunch breaks lasting 2, 3, or 4 hours, berets and croissants …