«طِلِعِ النَّهَارْ مَا الْتَقَى شِي»

The saying pictures a sleeper who spends the night enjoying riches or successes in a dream, only to wake at daybreak and find nothing. It mocks hopes that have no footing in reality and vanish the moment they are tested.

The saying names no particular person, so it can apply to anyone who lets expectations run in every direction and builds on fancy rather than real prospects. Such imagined gains evaporate once plain daylight, meaning real circumstances, arrives.

Use it about someone whose plans rest mainly on wishful thinking, either as a gentle warning before the disappointment or as a wry remark afterward, when the hoped-for gains have come to nothing once reality set in.