Meaning of “Lucid Dreams” by Juice Wrld

“Lucid Dreams” is a heartbreak song by American rapper and singer Juice WRLD. The lyrics of the song, which center around the heartache caused by a failed relationship, were inspired by problems the rapper was having with his significant other. According to the rapper, he made the song during a time when he and his girlfriend were having serious challenges in their relationship.

In the song, the rapper compares the sadness he felt following the demise of his relationship with his lover to experiencing a lucid dream.

FYI: A lucid dream is a type of dream in which the person dreaming is fully aware that he or she is dreaming. More often than not, while experiencing this kind of dream, the person dreaming can control the events and characters of his or her dream.

According to Juice WRLD, he made the song as a “therapy session” while dealing with his real life relationship challenges.

Facts about “Lucid Dreams”

“Lucid Dreams” is also known as “Lucid Dreams (Forget Me)”.

The song was written by Juice WRLD and music producer Nick Mira. Renowned English singer and songwriter Sting and Argentine-born guitarist Dominic Miller also received writing credits on the song. They are credited because their 1993 song “Shape of My Heart”, which was performed by Sting, is sampled heavily in “Lucid Dreams”.

Aside co-writing the song, Nick Mira also produced it.

The song played an immense role in transforming Juice WRLD into a household name not only in the United States but also across the globe.

It made its debut on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 74 and ended up peaking at the 2nd position on that same chart. This feat made the song the first song of Juice WRLD’s musical career to make it into the renowned Hot 100 top 10 singles. In the UK Singles Chart, the song peaked at number 10.

By 2020, “Lucid Dreams” had gained over a billion streams on the famous audio streaming platform, Spotify. It is therefore one of the platform’s most streamed songs.

As of 2020, this hit has gone 6x platinum in the United States. What this basically means is that it has sold more than 6 million copies in the country.

Speaking to No Jumper, Juice revealed that he wrote this song in a matter of just “twenty minutes”. According to him, he never in his wildest dreams expected it to be a hit. He was therefore beyond surprised to see the immense success it achieved.

The music video of the track, which is psychedelic, was released in May 2018.

Music Video

The song’s official music video (which can be seen above) was directed by noted American videographer named Cole Bennett. This was officially the second Juice music video he directed. The first was for the song “All Girls Are the Same“. As of late 2020, the “Lucid Dreams” video had garnered over half a billion views on YouTube, making it one of the platforms most viewed videos.

What musical genre is this track?

It is both a hip hop song as well as an emo hip hop song.

When was “Lucid Dreams” released?

On June 15th, 2017 Juice WRLD self-released his debut EP 9 9 9. “Lucid Dream” was one of the tracks on that EP. About a year later, on May 4th, 2018, the song was released again as the second single from Juice WRLD’s debut studio album titled Goodbye & Good Riddance.

Does “Lucid Dreams” sample any song(s)?

Yes, it does. It samples Sting’s 1993 hit single “Shape of My Heart”.

Lawsuit

Juice WRLD was sued for a considerable amount of money in October of 2019 by a rock band from Florida called Yellowcard. They allege that he plagiarized their 2006 song “Holly Wood Died” in the making of his own 2017 track “Lucid Dreams”. At the time, no one expected Juice WRLD to die less than two months later. But with that being the case, Yellowcard still opted to continue with the lawsuit.

Juice WRLD hated “Lucid Dreams”

Despite the track’s insane success, Juice told NME that he disliked the song. In a 2019 interview he had with the publication, he stated categorically that he hated the song “with a passion”. This wasn’t the first time he had expressed his hatred for the song. In 2018, he also said a similar thing while being interviewed by CUFBOYS.