dream up

present singular third person dreams up · participle present dreaming up · participle past dreamed up · past dreamed up · participle past dreamt up · past dreamt up

1. To have an imaginative, unusual or foolish idea, to invent something unreal.

   Couldn't somebody have dreamt up a goddamn beach?

   2010, Christopher Nolan, Inception (motion picture), spoken by Fischer (Cillian Murphy)

   4 more examples

   It's as if he were giving a performance of some character he's dreamed up, and his pale eyes wander in search of effect even in his apparently wildest moments.

   1996, Steven H. Gale, Encyclopedia of British Humorists, →ISBN

   I am not arguing that I can dream up any reality I like.

   1999, John Louis Lucaites, Celeste Michelle Condit, Sally Caudill, editors, Contemporary Rhetorical Theory, →ISBN

   Since he had no way of returning to his homeland, and since remembering it made him suffer, he dreamed up a homeland he'd never had, […]

   2001, Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith, The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa, →ISBN

   The first decision was to give the railway a new name, and [Chris] Green is proud of the fact that 'ScotRail', which was universally welcomed, was dreamt up by him and his executive team: "No expensive consultants were needed and that was the most important decision we made."

   2026 April 1, Christian Wolmar, “Managers must be given freedom to make decisions”, in RAIL, number 1058, page 34