Drømme ("to dream") belongs to the smaller of the two weak conjugation classes — the -te class — and it carries a spelling feature English speakers regularly trip over: the doubled -mm- that holds firm right through the past tense (drømte, not *drømede). Just as important as the conjugation is the preposition: in Danish you dream om something, never af or om at by reflex, and getting that little word right is what makes the verb sound native. Below you will find the full paradigm, the three core tenses in natural sentences, and the everyday expressions built on drømme and its noun en drøm.
Principal parts
| Form | Danish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | (at) drømme | to dream |
| Present | drømmer | dream(s) |
| Past | drømte | dreamed / dreamt |
| Past participle | drømt | dreamed / dreamt |
| Imperative | drøm! | dream! |
Present: drømmer
The present drømmer is the same for every subject. Use it both for what happens during sleep and for waking ambitions.
| Subject | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| jeg | drømmer | jeg drømmer tit om dig |
| du | drømmer | du drømmer så stort |
| han / hun | drømmer | hun drømmer om at blive læge |
| vi | drømmer | vi drømmer om et hus på landet |
| de | drømmer | de drømmer sig væk |
Jeg drømmer næsten hver nat, men jeg husker det sjældent om morgenen.
I dream almost every night, but I rarely remember it in the morning.
Hun drømmer om at åbne sin egen café en dag.
She dreams of opening her own café one day.
Past: drømte
The past is drømte — the -te ending welded onto the double-m stem. This is the single most error-prone form, so say it out loud: drøm-te.
I nat drømte jeg, at jeg kunne flyve.
Last night I dreamed I could fly.
Som barn drømte han altid om at blive astronaut.
As a child he always dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
Present perfect: har drømt
The perfect takes har plus the participle drømt. Like nearly all verbs describing an activity rather than a change of place or state, drømme uses har, never er.
Jeg har drømt om den her dag i årevis.
I've dreamed of this day for years.
Har du nogensinde drømt, at du faldt?
Have you ever dreamed that you were falling?
Past perfect: havde drømt
Det var præcis det hus, hun altid havde drømt om.
It was exactly the house she had always dreamed of.
Drømme om: the heart of the verb
The construction drømme om + noun or + at + infinitive is how you express what you long for, hope for, or fantasise about. With a full clause, you can keep om and add a that-clause, or drop straight into at:
Vi drømmer om en lang ferie ved havet.
We're dreaming of a long holiday by the sea.
Han drømmer om at vinde i Lotto og holde op med at arbejde.
He dreams of winning the lottery and quitting work.
Jeg drømmer om, at vi en dag flytter tilbage til Danmark.
I dream that we'll move back to Denmark one day.
The noun en drøm and the adjective drømmende
The related noun is en drøm ("a dream"), plural drømme — which happens to look exactly like the infinitive, so let context tell them apart. The present participle drømmende means "dreamy" or "wistful."
Det var en mærkelig drøm — jeg kan stadig huske den helt tydeligt.
It was a strange dream — I can still remember it vividly.
Hun stirrede drømmende ud ad vinduet.
She gazed dreamily out of the window.
Common collocations and fixed expressions
- drømme om (+ noun / + at) — to dream of, dream about
- drømme sig væk — to drift off into daydreams ("dream oneself away")
- en drøm går i opfyldelse — a dream comes true
- drømme stort — to dream big
- i mine vildeste drømme — in my wildest dreams
Jeg havde aldrig i mine vildeste drømme troet, at det kunne lade sig gøre.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be possible.
A natural exchange
— Hvad drømmer du om for tiden? — Helt ærligt drømmer jeg bare om en uge uden vækkeur. I går drømte jeg, at jeg sov til klokken tolv. — Den drøm kan vi godt få til at gå i opfyldelse i weekenden.
— What are you dreaming about these days? — Honestly, I'm just dreaming of a week without an alarm clock. Yesterday I dreamed I slept until noon. — We can definitely make that dream come true this weekend.
Common mistakes
❌ Jeg drømmer af en ny cykel.
Wrong preposition — drømme takes om, never af (a direct copy of English 'dream of').
✅ Jeg drømmer om en ny cykel.
I'm dreaming of a new bike.
❌ I nat drømede jeg noget mærkeligt.
Wrong past — drømme is a -te verb, so the past is drømte, not a regular -ede form.
✅ I nat drømte jeg noget mærkeligt.
Last night I dreamed something strange.
❌ Jeg har drømte om dig.
Wrong form after har — the perfect needs the participle drømt, not the past drømte.
✅ Jeg har drømt om dig.
I've dreamed about you.
❌ Hun drømer om at rejse.
Lost the double-m — the stem keeps -mm- throughout: drømmer, drømte, drømt.
✅ Hun drømmer om at rejse.
She dreams of travelling.
Once drømme is solid, pair it with sove — the verb you do most of your dreaming during — and review how Danish links verbs to their objects in the prepositions overview.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- SoveA1 — Full reference for sove ('to sleep') — principal parts, the strong o–o–o vowel pattern across all core tenses, and the everyday expressions sove over sig, sove længe and falde i søvn.
- Weak Past: The -ede ClassA1 — The largest, productive class of Danish regular verbs — past in -ede, participle in -et — and the safe default for any verb you don't recognise.
- Danish Prepositions: An OverviewA1 — Why Danish prepositions are easy grammatically but hard to choose — and how to learn them by Danish logic instead of English glosses.
- The Present PerfectA2 — How Danish builds the present perfect with have (or være) plus the past participle — and the one rule English speakers need: definite past time takes the simple past, not the perfect.
- Danish Verbs: An OverviewA1 — A big-picture map of the Danish verb system — no person agreement, one present and one past form per verb, compound perfects, the passive, and modals.