In Your Dreams Ending Explained: The Real Reason Behind Stevie’s Mom’s Final Decision

Netflix's animated adventure 'In Your Dreams' looks cute on the surface, but it is absolutely playing with heavier stuff. It is about a kid trying to keep her family from cracking apart by literally diving into dreamland. And yeah, it gets weird in the best way.

What the movie is actually about

Stevie is the classic oldest daughter who wants everyone happy and fine at all times. At home, things are not fine: Mom has an out-of-state university job offer; Dad is clinging to their old life and his stalled music dreams. The arguments are constant. Stevie is terrified they are going to split, and she also feels like she is raising her carefree, oblivious little brother Elliot on top of everything else.

So when a path into the dream world appears, Stevie goes for it, dragging Elliot along. If she can find the Sandman, maybe she can build a perfect version of home where nobody leaves and nothing changes. That is the plan.

So... does Mom leave?

Kind of yes, kind of no, which is the point. The ending is deliberately open, because the filmmakers wanted it to feel like real life: messy, in motion, not tied off with a bow. Here is where everyone lands:

• Mom: She takes the university job. The family is moving.
• Dad: He finally pivots, planning to start a new band in the new town.
• The marriage: Not magically fixed. They are trying and giving it another shot.

Director Alex Woo has said they explored a bunch of different endings before choosing this more honest version that leaves the future a little undefined.

How Stevie actually gets out of the dream world

At first, Stevie writes off the dream world as kiddie stuff. Then panic about the family sets in and she pushes ahead, convincing Elliot to come with her. After multiple attempts to get through Nightmara, they reach the Sandman, who serves up exactly what Stevie wants: a perfect dream of home with the promise that she can stay if she waits out his giant golden hourglass. In a brutal moment, she even trades Elliot away to keep that illusion intact.

That is when the trap really springs. Stevie sinks so deep into the fantasy that she goes comatose in the real world. Inside the dream, everything looks ideal... except Elliot is missing. Meanwhile, in the waking world, Elliot comes clean about the magical book and insists the adults help. He jumps into the dream world himself, fights through his own nightmares, and reaches Stevie just as the Sandman's hourglass is about to run out.

The Sandman is not thrilled about losing his star dreamer. He unleashes his Sandlings, a swarming, cutesy-but-menacing army, to block the escape. Then Mom and Dad crash through the Sandman's gateway (they finally crack how to get in), and together they hold the portal open long enough for both kids to sprint through. Stevie wakes up, the family reconnects, and we leave them choosing each other, even without guarantees.

Yes, the stuffed giraffe matters

Baloney Tony, Elliot's floppy stuffed giraffe, starts as comic relief and ends up being the story's emotional key. In the Sandman's sparkling dream, Stevie gets the parents she wants but not her brother, and something feels off even if she will not admit it. Then she spots Baloney Tony, and it triggers a memory: she and Elliot won that toy together at Polly's Pizzeria, their childhood favorite. That shared moment opens the floodgates — the fights, the jokes, the adventures — all the little things that actually make a sibling bond real.

"We really struggled with how we were going to get Stevie to realize how important Elliot was to her, and we tried all sorts of different things. We tried to do flashbacks to earlier moments in the film to showcase and remind her when they worked together that they were able to succeed, but it didn’t quite work."

Woo says the team finally realized Polly's Pizzeria was the missing piece. Elliot loves Baloney Tony because it is tied to Stevie. That turns the toy into a compass pointing Stevie back to real life — messy, imperfect, and worth choosing.

So who is the villain here?

The Sandman looks like a benevolent wish-granter for most of the film, but his vibe curdles the longer you sit with him. He is not out to hurt anyone; he just cannot accept that real life comes with pain, change, and disappointment. Nightmara explains that she and the Sandman used to balance each other — good dreams and nightmares together — because fear and courage grow side by side. Then the Sandman got obsessed with keeping people happy, even if that meant trapping them in pretty lies.

He is the softest kind of antagonist: the one who offers a gilded cage. He wants Stevie to ditch reality for a permanent dream where nothing ever breaks. That is what makes him dangerous, and it mirrors Stevie's own urge (and, honestly, ours) to avoid hard feelings instead of facing them.

My take

'In Your Dreams' is fun and creepy in the right spots, but it refuses to sand down what kids actually feel. It gets how children soak up family tension and how badly they want to fix problems they did not cause. Stevie tries to control the uncontrollable; Elliot finds real courage; both arcs have surprising emotional bite.

The film is very clear on one thing: perfect fantasies are comforting and useless. They stall you out when you could be doing the imperfect, boring work of talking, listening, and changing. What actually helps is love, honesty, showing up for each other, and being vulnerable enough to say things are not OK yet.

'In Your Dreams' is now streaming on Netflix. Tell me how the ending played for you — too open, or just right?