Do you ever wake up confused about dreams vs reality?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

On Saturday I spent a couple hours organizing the basement, and will need to spend several more. Then the night before last I dreamed that it was imperative that I line up CDs on the bookcase that serves as my bed’s headboard, then also line something (?) else up in the part of the basement directly below my headboard. I don’t recall why but it was very important for some safety related reason that this mirroring of objects happened.

When I woke up, my first thought was that I needed to plan out my time after work to make sure that this task got done, and I very nearly asked Alexa to remind me at 4:30. I was awake multiple minutes before it occurred to me that this was nonsense and I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do in the basement.

That’s not the silliest thing I thought was real when I woke up, just the most recent. The silliest was probably when I dreamed that I was still in the hotel I’d arrived home from a few days earlier and tried to follow the instructions I’d been given in the dream to extend my stay by repeating a specifically worded request out loud to apparently an invisible monitoring system listening for guest requests. Or maybe it was another dream that caused me to sit up and clap…

This sort of confusion happens to other people too, right? I mean, I’m not too worried about it because this sort of thing has happened for years and if it was a bad sign health-wise I’d surely know by now, but I’m curious if other people wake up believing that dream stuff is real. And if you have, what sort of stupid things were momentarily compelling enough to convince you?

2

It’s happened to me. Something like dreaming that I’d forgotten to schedule an important meeting, and spending some time after waking up thinking about who I needed to contact about rearranging things, etc. Sometimes, it’s multiple levels of confusion, as I’m first relieved to realize that I’ve still got a week to make the arrangements for the meeting, and only after a few more minutes realizing that the whole meeting idea is nonsense.

3

This happened to me just this morning. It seems like when I’m having anxiety about being able to fall asleep, when I actually do fall asleep I end up dreaming that I’m in bed and still awake, and there’s something going on outside my bedroom window that’s keeping me awake.

Like last night I dreamed there was an Hispanic guy with a leaf blower right outside my window. And then he came over to the window to talk to me for some reason. And then when I woke up and it was quiet, my first thought was “Good, that guy with the leaf blower finally left. Now maybe I can get some sleep.”

4

Oh yeah. And then I get pissed at myself for stressing over stuff that my own brain has invented. How is this nonsense productive or good for you in any way? Stupid brain.

5

I had a case several years ago that was so vivid and fabulous that I still remember it (and still wish it WAS for real).

Background: I lived much of my adult life in or around the S. F. Bay Area, and often went for long day-trips around the area.

One night I dreamed I was on such a drive, through areas that I had driven through many times before. Readers of this thread who are familiar with the Bay Area will recognize some of this: Some fragments of that drive that I remember: I drove up into S. F. and then east across the Bay Bridge. (In real life: The approach to this bridge is a double-deck highway with a complicated architecture). In dream: The approach was a double-deck highway with a VERY complicated architecture. Next thing I knew, I was crossing one of the bridges (the Benicia Bridge) into the North/East Bay area. Next thing I knew, I was at the junction of I-580 and US101 in San Rafael. (IRL: There’s a big motel right there.) In dream: There was a multi-story building there that seemed to be part multi-level parking structure and part boat dealership.

Next thing I recall, I was driving up Route 1 towards Bolinas Lagoon, and it was getting dark. The water was black in the twilight and a full moon hung over the lagoon, reflecting on the water. Neat!

I was planning to follow Route 1 up the coast a ways into Sonoma County. But suddenly, I came upon a fork in the road that I had never noticed before! I knew that the left fork was the route I intended. But on a sudden impulse, I took the right fork because that was a road I had never seen before.

I was immediately driving up a winding mountain road in a very dense forest of fir trees – exactly the kind of scene you might see on some Christmas cards. It was getting vaguely dark, and misty, and there were some homes or cabins deeply hidden among the trees but I could just make out the light from their windows through the trees and mist.

After a few hairpin turns I came to the summit of this mountain and began going down the other side. This side (east-facing) of the mountain was nearly barren and desert-like with some sparse scrub brush here and there. It was full daylight here. I reached a road at the bottom of the hill and decided it was time to head back home, so I turned south-ish.

The scenery here resembled part of the Mojave Desert around Victorville, with some scenes from the back of my memory from 50+ years ago. There was some remains of a rock structure, and a cement quarry plant. (IRL: These were things that were really there.) And Joshua trees here and there (also a real thing).

That was the last scene of that dream. Then I woke up.

The dream was so realistic that I thought it had really happened, and I immediately began thinking of repeating that road trip. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t recall exactly what the route was, at least for parts of it. How did I get directly from the Bay Bridge to the Benicia Bridge? How did I get directly from there to US101 in San Rafael? And most of all, where exactly was that fork in the road that I had never seen before, that led up that mountain with all those fir trees?

The more I tried to mentally reconstruct that whole day-trip (night-trip?), the more it seemed to not make any sense. I finally began to figure out, with great disappointment, that it had just been a dream.

6

Very rarely, because my dreams are always so much better than my actual life. I do have some that are very disturbing, and wake me up and make me end up watching bad TV at 3 in the morning. Like last night. I watched a bullshit soccer match in Japan.

The dream? Complete bullshit, but there was lots of bloodshed, and a new pair of motorcycle gloves. Hey, can’t hardly make this shit up, buy you get to see it for free in yer eyelids now and then.

I blame the Tequila.

7

I remember once, when I was in my early 20s, I woke up and was entirely alone in the house that I was sharing. I made myself a cup of coffee, probably instant in those days, and sat down to drink it. While having my coffee I planned my escape route for when the police came to get me - out the back door, over the fence and run for the laneway across the main road. They weren’t going to take me in - no way. And then, I suddenly realized that I was not a hardened criminal, the police were not about to burst in to arrest me, and all my thoughts were just imaginings brought on by the remnants of some dream that I had been having when I woke.

It was truly one of the oddest experiences that I have ever had. It all seemed so real for many minutes and then, as soon as I discovered its origin, my tough guy mien just disappeared.

8

It was quite a long time ago - maybe when I was in college? - I dreamed I had a baby or was given a baby to raise for a friend… Anyway, when I woke, there was no baby, and I had a strong feeling of loss and sorrow. It was especially weird because way back then, I didn’t want a baby - there were things I wanted to do, plus I was single, so having/raising a baby wouldn’t have been a consideration at all.

Yet I still felt like something was missing for a little while there. Even all these years later, I remember that feeling.

9

Yes of course.

If it’s something amazing then I’ll realize immediately: “I need to go to that dreamlike University today, the one that’s on the top of a mountain and…oh wait, no”.

But if it’s mundane then it can stick in my subconscious for hours or even the whole day. And I might, rarely, even go through the motions of doing something before realizing it was based on a dream.

10

I have, on occasion, awakened from a dream so immersive and complete that I had to wrnch myself back to reality.

Of course, I can’t recall any of these now. One of the features of dreams is that they frequently evaporate unless one makes an effort to recall them, or somehow records the details,.

11

Four 50 weeks out of each year, no, cannabis use causes me to not dream/not remember dreams. For two weeks out of the year when I give up cannabis to effect my tolerance (a T-Break), I remember vivid, intense dreams. I often spend days thinking about my dreams. Some of those dreams I still remember years later.

12

Note to self: If you dream about a toilet, don’t use it.

13

https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-medical-staff-told-my-daughter-im-not-motivated-to-live/

Me? Never! :wink:

14

I had a very detailed, vivid work dream a few days ago that I still remember, which is extremely rare for me. In real life, I had analyzed two possible conflicts that day, and determined that we could represent the prospective client in each case. In my dream, I accurately recalled several details but mixed them up between various parties on the two cases, so I awoke in a cold sweat thinking I’d signed off on picking up a client who had previously Marsdened (fired, for a public defender) us. I had to reread my notes to convince myself otherwise.

15

I’ve had it happen once or twice, especially with extremely vivid or emotionally-charged dreams. I have a vivid memory of watching the birth of my first child and holding her in my arms even though I have no children and probably never will.

16

My dream/wake confusion and propensity for speaking/acting on said confusion is why I have a 9p cutoff for exciting video games.

17

I’ve had a couple roommates who keep their TV on all night. Most stations shift into infomercial mode after midnight, which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t the same infomercials.

The worst is N_genix’s boner pills, which but for the grace of God I could have sold. Instead, I sat listening to the poor unfortunates on the account as they patiently explained to the rubes, er, customers that N_genix has its own definition of “complementary” that doesn’t mean “free.” This distracted the caller long enough to not notice that he was signing up for a monthly subscription of fake testosterone tablets.

I wake up not yelling, “Don’t be a sucker! Frank Thomas looks like that because he works out, not because he takes a pill every day!”

18

For me it mostly comes from really disturbing dreams. Like a few times, I’ve had a dream that one of my kids died. In that twilight zone after awakening, I needed to walk myself mentally through entire previous day to reassure myself of which memories were real.

19

Does anyone here ever get Virtual Dreams confused with Virtual Reality?

20

I’ve not had any dreams of this type that I can recall. There was a movie from Y2K with Nic Cage, “The Family Man” in which this scenario was acted out to great detail: He had opted not to take an international scholarship in Business, instead staying and marrying his girlfriend, having a bunch of (really cute) kids and working at a local shop in a much lower position. Waking from this dream, his entire family evaporated…god that would have just about killed me. This has haunted me for years.

That’s pretty much me as well. I sometimes wake up convinced a dream was reality, but it is usually not memorable enough to stick around in my mind for more than a week or so, at most.