I had a weird dream last night, that culminated with me playing this arcade game where you had to direct balls fired out of the machine a certain way to win candy. The machine malfunctioned, and spit out a lot of money at me. I mean, a lot, in assorted bills, even 100s. I turned most of the money in like you probably should…but not all of it. I stuffed a $75 bill and a few others I didn’t count into my pockets before turning in the rest. And then there was the dream a few months ago when I was angry at a (only really in dream) cat, treated it too roughly, and ended up killing it accidentally…
I woke up from each of these dreams feeling really guilty, even though these things didn’t really happen. Do you folks feel guilty for wrongful acts committed in dreams too?
before anyone says it, in the dream a $75 bill was legitimate currency.
In my dreams I’m usually some sort of Batman-riding-a-Tex-Rex-punch-Hitler-in-the-face-Laetitia-Casta-tonguing-god-among-men so the short answer is no.
Very occasionally. I went on this self-celibate kick for a while, and I always felt really guilty when I would violate it in my dreams. I also would feel guilty about smoking.
I also tend to feel guilty about eating things I’m not supposed to eat, but only while in the dream itself. Once I wake up, I wonder why I didn’t just enjoy eating things I can’t have, as, half the time, I’m aware that I’m dreaming when I do it.
Once I am awake enough to ‘let go’ of the emotional ‘flavor’ of the dream, no, I don’t normally feel guilty. But for a while after I wake up, yeah. The last major weight-loss regimen I embarked on was to cut out all the “white stuff”, potatoes (not counting sweet potatoes), rice, white flour, refined sugar. Two nights after I began this regimen, I had a dream that I was at a buffet, and everything was carb-loaded, and I was just scarfing stuff down left and right. I woke feeling tremendously guilty, and totally panicked.
Also, almost always, when I dream about my husband, he’s an asshole in the dream. Total asshole. Now, he is not really an asshole, he’s really a great husband, but in my dreams, he’s just about always a Jerk of Magnificent Proportion. I usually wake from these dreams really pissed off at him.
And once, just once, I dreamed that he only had 24 hours to live, and we both knew it, and we were planning how he wanted to spend his last day. I was depressed for about two days by that dream. Even now, more than ten years later, it makes me a little weepy to think of it.
Yeah, I do. Especially if it’s something I’m not known to do in real life… like cussing someone out or getting into a fist fight. That sort of stuff makes me feel incredibly guilty and upset. :mad: I hate those kinds of dreams. Where does that come from??
My wife does this too! Every now and then I get a slap to my shoulder as she tells me what an ass I was in her dream. Years ago I would get all defensive, but now I just hug her and say “there there, ‘Dream CCYMan’ is such a jerk.”
Sometimes it’s little stuff, like eating things I shouldn’t eat or doing something I’m consciously trying not to do. In those, I feel really guilty when I wake up, but relieved soon after that I didn’t actually do that thing.
Other times, I have really disturbing nightmares. Like there was one where I had killed someone’s baby. Those freak me out for longer because I end up wondering what it says about me that I could kill a baby, even in my dreams.
My dreams tend to be somewhat realistic, but with surreal elements. They don’t tend to be of the riding-a-zebra-on-the-moon type. They also tend to be pretty vivid and fairly organized. So while it’s easy to literally know what’s dream and what’s reality, the emotions tend to cross over from one to the other. They’re also, probably 60% of the time, pretty easy to interpret. Not like, “the black panther means I’m going to meet a stranger and the rain means I’m going to be unlucky in love” interpret, but like, “I dreamed that I was holding my nephew and he kept getting smaller and smaller until he was this tiny, fragile baby. That makes sense because I worry so much about people hurting him and feel like I have to protect him because he’s just a little boy and can’t fight back or understand what’s happening in his life”. So when I have a dream about engaging in a behavior from which I’m consciously abstaining (like eating a huge sandwich when I’m trying to lose weight), it’s easy to interpret. When it’s something I really never consider doing (like killing someone), I find it a little more disturbing.
I quit smoking 5 years ago and I still have dreams that I’m smoking a cigarette. When I wake up I’m appalled at myself - until I realize it was just a dream and I feel relieved.
I had an ex boyfriend who used to tell me his dreams where I treated him badly or dumped him with no pity. I didn’t do that in real life, but I started getting really annoyed with him for thinking I would actually do some of the stuff he was dreaming I did.
That’s it exactly. It makes you wonder if, underneath that thin veneer, you really are the sort of person who might steal opportunistically or get into a fist fight etc. That’s a disquieting feeling, isn’t it?
Ha, your dreams are pretty tame dude. I’d only feel a little guilty if your first example happened to me IN REAL LIFE, and I’m a pretty honest guy.
If I feel bad about something I did in a dream, it’s probably something BAD, as in likely to land me in the gas chamber IRL. It can be unnerving when you first wake up (Oh my god, how could I kill that person!?! What kind of person am I???), but then you realize that it’s just your reptilian brain taking over and having a little fun for a while. Nothing I can do about it.
Yes, and that’s another part of it exactly. What if you really are that person and you just don’t know it yet because the opportunity hasn’t presented itself? Scary stuff indeed.
I often have dreams where I have the* intention* to steal, but am prevented by circumstance. I usually feel guilty in the dream, and wake up feeling appalled by my own innate greed :(. I briefly wrestled with survivor’s guilt after dreaming of escaping a submerged car while my family drowned.
On the other hand, I have been pleasantly surprised to dream of selfless heroism on occasion. It’s usually just defending a stranger from public humiliation, but sometimes I grab a chainsaw by the blade to stop a homicidal maniac. ( I was very proud of myself for that one )
I’ve done things in dreams that, if I did them in real life, would be Major Felonies, not just petty theft. I don’t feel too bad about it. I know that I wouldn’t do them in real life.
I can’t help but ask: In your dream, who was on the $75 bill?
I’ve rarely dreamed about anything for which I’d feel guilty, but often I’d feel embarrassed or ashamed when I wake up.
What makes it worse is when you study Hinduism or even Multiverse Theory, both of which suggest your dream world is actually the real world, or at least a parallel dimension. Therefore, I shudder to think of how many times my Dream Self has shown up late for class, completely naked, and totally unprepared for the day’s exam…
I once woke up, got up and made a cup of coffee and while drinking it began working out how to escape if the cops came to get me. After a while I realized that the cops had no reason to come and get me. I had dreamed a forgotten dream that I was some hardened criminal on the run.
One time my wife was grumpy and uncivil and would barely talk to me for 2 days. When I eventually got her to tell me why, it was because she had dreamed I was having an affair with one of her friends. I laughed and she proceeded to tell me that it was my fault that she would have a dream like that.
Yeah. Especially since sometimes it’s really terrible things.
I had one a few weeks ago where I dreamed that I was with some friends at a house and just outside the house, at a subway (I’m not really sure how that worked), a friend of ours got shot and was screaming/dying. But then we decided not only not to go out and help (I guess out of fear of the killer) but also not to call the police and just to wait till she died. And we were pretty callous about it. It was so creepy and I remember waking up feeling really horrible about myself.
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