dreyma "to dream" is one of Icelandic's classic quirky-subject verbs, and its quirk is the one English speakers find hardest to internalise: the dreamer goes in the accusative. You do not say ég dreymi — you say mig dreymir ("me dreams"), with the experiencer in the accusative case and the verb frozen in the 3rd person singular. The dream happens to you; you do not perform it. This page gives the (small, impersonal) paradigm, the cognate-object construction mig dreymdi draum "I dreamed a dream," and the metaphorical mig dreymir um "I dream of." If you take away one thing, take away the case: mig, not ég.
Conjugation
Class: weak (the -di/-mdi preterite), but used impersonally: the verb is locked at 3rd person singular and never agrees with the experiencer (because the experiencer is not a nominative subject). Experiencer: accusative (mig, þig, hann, hana, okkur …). Optional object: a cognate accusative (draum) or um + accusative for the metaphorical sense. Auxiliary: hafa — mig hefur dreymt "I have dreamed."
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að dreyma |
| 3sg present | dreymir |
| 3sg past | dreymdi |
| Supine | dreymt |
Because the verb is impersonal, the "paradigm" is really the same 3sg form across every experiencer — what changes is the accusative pronoun in front of it, not the verb ending:
| Experiencer (accusative) | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| mig (me) | dreymir | dreymdi |
| þig (you sg.) | dreymir | dreymdi |
| hann / hana / það | dreymir | dreymdi |
| okkur (us) | dreymir | dreymdi |
| ykkur (you pl.) | dreymir | dreymdi |
| þá / þær / þau (them) | dreymir | dreymdi |
| Experiencer | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| mig / þig / hann … | dreymi | dreymdi |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative | — (none; you can't command someone to be dreamed-to) |
| Supine | dreymt |
| Past participle | — (no ordinary personal-passive use) |
| Middle voice (miðmynd) | — (none) |
The key point the table makes visible: the verb does not inflect for the experiencer. Whether it's mig (singular me) or okkur (plural us), the verb stays dreymir / dreymdi. Compare a normal verb, where "we" forces -um; here there is no agreement at all, because the accusative experiencer is not a grammatical subject in the agreement-triggering sense.
The accusative experiencer: mig dreymir
Quirky-subject verbs cast the experiencer in an oblique case rather than the nominative. dreyma belongs to the accusative group (with langa "to want," vanta "to lack," þyrsta "to thirst"): the dreamer is mig, þig, hann, hana. Semantically this makes sense — a dream is something that befalls you, not something you actively do — but you have to override the English instinct that "I" is always the subject.
Mig dreymdi þig í nótt.
I dreamed about you last night. — mig (accusative) dreymdi; the dreamer is 'me', and the verb stays 3sg.
Hana dreymir alltaf í lit.
She always dreams in colour. — hana (accusative 'her'), verb dreymir unchanged. Never *hún dreymir.
Dreymdi þig eitthvað skrítið?
Did you dream something strange? — fronted verb + þig (accusative). The question form keeps the accusative experiencer.
The cognate object: mig dreymdi draum
dreyma can take a cognate object — a noun from the same root, draumur "a dream" — and that object is also accusative: mig dreymdi draum "I dreamed a dream." So a fully spelled-out sentence has two accusatives: the experiencer (mig) and the dream itself (draum / undarlegan draum). This is unusual and worth noticing, because it means the case of the dreamer and the case of the dream coincide.
Mig dreymdi undarlegan draum um gamla skólann minn.
I dreamed a strange dream about my old school. — two accusatives: experiencer mig + cognate object undarlegan draum.
Hann sagðist hafa dreymt sama drauminn þrisvar.
He said he'd dreamed the same dream three times. — supine dreymt + accusative object drauminn; the experiencer is carried by the reported subject.
The metaphorical sense: mig dreymir um
For "to dream of/about" in the figurative sense — to long for, to aspire to — Icelandic uses dreyma um + accusative: mig dreymir um að ferðast "I dream of travelling," mig dreymir um nýtt líf "I dream of a new life." Note the boundary: a literal sleeping-dream about someone is just the bare cognate/accusative (mig dreymdi þig), while the aspirational "dream of" takes the preposition um.
Mig dreymir um að flytja út á land.
I dream of moving to the countryside. — dreyma um + (að-infinitive) = the aspirational 'dream of'. Still accusative mig.
Hana dreymir um að verða læknir eins og mamma hennar.
She dreams of becoming a doctor like her mum. — metaphorical dreyma um; experiencer hana stays accusative.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég dreymi um nýtt hús.
Case error — the dreamer is an accusative experiencer, not a nominative subject. It's mig dreymir, never ég dreymi.
✅ Mig dreymir um nýtt hús.
I dream of a new house.
The headline error. dreyma never takes a nominative subject; the experiencer is always accusative mig.
❌ Við dreymum oft það sama.
Double error — no nominative subject and no agreement. 'We dream' is okkur dreymir (accusative okkur, verb frozen at 3sg).
✅ Okkur dreymir oft það sama.
We often dream the same thing.
The verb does not agree with the experiencer; even with "us," it stays dreymir, and the experiencer is accusative okkur.
❌ Mig dreymdi um þig í nótt.
Wrong sense of um — for an actual sleeping-dream about a person, use the bare accusative: mig dreymdi þig. um is for the aspirational 'dream of'.
✅ Mig dreymdi þig í nótt.
I dreamed about you last night.
A literal dream about someone is the bare accusative; um would shade it toward "I long for you," which is not what a night's dream means.
❌ Mér dreymdi furðulegan draum.
Wrong case — dreyma is an ACCUSATIVE-subject verb, not dative. It's mig dreymdi, not mér dreymdi (mér belongs to dative verbs like finnast, þykja).
✅ Mig dreymdi furðulegan draum.
I dreamed a bizarre dream.
Not all quirky subjects are alike: dreyma and langa take accusative (mig), while finnast, þykja, líka take dative (mér). Sorting the two groups is exactly what trips learners up.
Key Takeaways
- dreyma / dreymir / dreymdi / dreymt — an impersonal weak verb, locked at 3rd person singular.
- The dreamer is in the accusative: mig dreymir, mig dreymdi — never ég dreymi.
- The verb does not agree with the experiencer: okkur dreymir, not dreymum.
- It can take a cognate object in the accusative: mig dreymdi (undarlegan) draum — two accusatives in one clause.
- dreyma um
- accusative = the metaphorical "dream of / aspire to"; the bare accusative is a literal sleeping-dream.
- Don't borrow the dative mér from finnast/þykja — dreyma is in the accusative quirky-subject group with langa and vanta.
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- Accusative-Subject Verbs: mig langar, mig vantar, mig dreymirB1 — The family of Icelandic verbs whose grammatical subject is in the ACCUSATIVE: langa 'want/fancy' (mig langar í / að), vanta 'need/lack' (mig vantar), dreyma 'dream' (mig dreymir), gruna 'suspect' (mig grunar), minna 'recall/seem' (mig minnir), and the ache verbs verkja/svíða — where the experiencer is accusative (mig, þig, hann, hana, okkur) and the verb is frozen in the 3rd person singular, often with the object of desire in a further case after a preposition (mig langar í kaffi).
- langa (to want / long for)A2 — The impersonal accusative-subject verb langa (mig langar / mig langaði): the experiencer is in the ACCUSATIVE while the verb stays frozen in the 3sg langar, plus langa í + accusative for things, langa að + infinitive for actions, and the contrast with vilja.
- Quirky (Oblique) Subjects: OverviewA2 — Icelandic's flagship feature: a large class of verbs whose logical subject — the experiencer — stands in the accusative, dative, or genitive instead of the nominative, with the verb frozen in 3rd-person singular. mér finnst, mig langar, mér er kalt: why 'I' is so often mér or mig, not ég.
- vanta (to lack / need)A2 — The impersonal double-accusative verb vanta (mig vantar / mig vantaði): both the experiencer AND the thing lacked are in the ACCUSATIVE, the verb stays frozen at 3sg vantar, the þágufallssýki 'mér vantar' dialectal error, and the contrast with þurfa 'need to do'.
- Quirky Subjects in Syntax: Agreement, Raising, ControlC1 — The advanced syntactic evidence that Icelandic's oblique experiencers (mér, mig, honum…) are genuine grammatical subjects, not fronted objects — for learners ready to read linguistics-flavoured grammar. The page runs the classic subjecthood tests: quirky NPs occupy the structural subject position and invert in questions while keeping their case (finnst mér), they undergo raising and preserve their lexical case (honum virðist líka maturinn), they control the silent PRO of an infinitive (að leiðast ekki), and they bind subject-oriented reflexives — all while the verb agrees not with them but with the nominative or defaults to 3sg. This is the canonical evidence in syntactic theory that grammatical subjecthood and case-marking are separate.