I have discovered that most folks of my acquaintance don’t have a special place where most of their dreams take place. I don’t think I always did, but as I have gotten older, I have come to understand that I dream in a landscape that I recognize, and have mapped in my head.
Distances in my dreamscape are changeable, but the features remain relatively constant. I know that, for example, if I leave the house and head downhill and left, I will reach the dock, where I can take the rowboat to the submerged villa. If I leave the house and run to the right, and take the first turning to the left, it will take me to the series of three alligator infested ponds, and beyond them, the meadow. The middle fork will take me to path along the river, and so on. I grew up in Florida, in what at the time was mostly bayou, so that is probably why so much of my dreamscape mirrors that.
For many years now I have also been able to alter frightening dreams, (something I think many can do), my guess is that I become frightened enough to almost wake, and then chose to guide the end of the dream. I have learned to use the landscape to my advantage (All those gators are great for dispatching enemies).
I just recently started asking friends and relations this question, and so far, no one else seems to have a “dreamland”. Surely I am not alone? Maybe I am crazy . . others have long held that opinion.
I would love to hear from others who might be able to relate.
I have a couple of them - one is a red-brick industrial city on spectacular hills around a chain lakes in the Eastern Woodlands. Another is a magnificent beaux-arts city on cliffs above a bay. Sometimes it’s months or even years between visits, but they’re always the same, and usually deserted.
I also have a fairly distinct dreamscape that is actually fairly extensive…although I think I may be fabricating the relationship between the various areas. In my dreams, if I leave my apartment and start walking down the street to my north, I will encounter a library which isn’t there in real life ( it’s a strange place, you clear the security turnstile BEFORE you get to the book checkout area)…also the street is much longer in my dreams and takes me to other “dream” places…IRL it is s short street that dead ends at the water.
And that’s just the beginning. there is a seaside resort that is bordered by a university of some sort on the right, you can take a train that travels in the other direction and you will come to a really really large sprawling shopping mall…which also contains some really really luxurious apartments. There are lots of trains in my dreams ( not suprising since I live in the NYC area ) but they have open cars like roller coasters and tracks with lots of twists and turns and bizarre platform layouts.
And I spend lots of time on a big cruise ship …although I’m not sure where in the dreamscape it docks…I have never embarked or disembarked, mostly I am just looking for a my stateroom but I cant find the key and can’t remember the room number or where it is…sometimes I know it’s the last day of the trip and I haven’t done any of the things I wanted to do.
And there is a huge natural cavern that goes for miles and miles but can be traversed in an amazingly short amount of time
My dreamscape has cured my chronic insomnia, if I close my eyes and walk around my dreamscape I will fall to sleep almost immediately, no matter what…in fact I am having trouble staying awake now as describe the places.
My dreamland used to be less well defined, but as I get older, I have apparently dreamt enough dreams there to have solidified the layout, and for the most part, the distances between features. For many years now, I have not added anything to my dreamscape, but I am now considering using guided imagery to do just that… walk to the meadow and see what lays beyond it, as I certainly would do IRL.
Not a landscape outside my house, but I have had several, different, dreams about the same terrain: a slot canyon with a brook running through it that bisects a round sandstone mountain that rises up from a fairly flat landscape. What makes it even odder is that there are two tributaries to this brook that also bisect the monolith that come in from each side, a quite impossible state of affairs in the real world.
I also have a large university and a seaside amusement park in my recurring dreamscape. A huge European-style cathedral on a hill oposite the hill with the University. There are shopping areas, too, and theaters. Every time I find myself there, I feel at home.
I don’t necessarily have the same dreamscapes when I dream, but I tend to have the same themes and reoccurring characters. I dream quite often about “bedroom” behavior or historical romantic fiction, and I also incorporate myself either from a third person omniscient perspective or a first person feeling the action and every thought or decision. Apparently I am a huge perv in my dreams, but not IRL. I am actually pretty conservative. I am sure that is super Freudian.
Not crazy at all, but a talented dreamer with who is able to carry the memories over into waking life. Being able to alter frightening dreams is a useful skill, and the sense of comfort and control is good to take into waking life.
My dreamscape has refined itself with age, I’m old ( 55 ) which is why it’s so well defined. It’s strange, even though I seldom travel from one dreamscape area to another in the dream, if I’m visualizing one area I sort of know the relative location of the other areas.
And so much of it comes from life experience, I work in really large high-end homes so I think that’s where all the house and apartments that go on forever come from.
And there is so much more than I’ve described, right now I’m thinking of a resort that is vaguely reminiscent of a strip mall—with lots of neon and chain restaurants…the thing about this place is it is a short walk from this old converted house I used to live in ( in my dreams, that is )…whenever I’m at the resort ( in my dreams …when I’m not looking for the room whose number I can’t remember) I’m always telling people that the house I used to live in is right over there.
And I remember one particularly vivid dream from several years ago when I was on the grounds of the university and I felt myself start to wake up. I was really trying to hang on to the object I was holding ( can’t remember what is was ) and feeling that it would be a really wonderous thing if I could take it with me when I woke up back to real world. Of course when I awoke I was empty-handed.
Might want to mention that I sleep a lot, especially for someone older – 8 to 10 hours a night, at least. I have friends that think I’m addicted to sleep, they may have a point.
I have a lot of recurring dreams and some time ago I decided to make a list of the places in which they are set… I came up with dozens. (Not all are recurring, some were just particularly vivid and memorable single dreams.) They include:
A ruined city with unseen but scary inhabitants
An old (1950s-era) “tourist town” (all diners, arcades, ice cream shops etc.)
A campus (university, seminary, or something) with stately architecture and monuments
I have very vivid complicated dreams but can never remember any kind of background beyond what is pertinent to the dream. If I don’t discuss a dream upon awakening I will loose it very quickly.
I have two that I can think of off the top of my head.
The first is a post apocalyptic landscape that includes a large house on the hill. the terrain is gray, and dead looking, with dead or dying trees all around. Usually the members of the house, which change with each dream, are fighting hordes of Zombies/vampires/ghouls/werewolves/robots.
It seems to be brought about by stress, but I can’t really pin it down.
The second one is a vast open plain. I have a small ball like object that I need to get across to the other side. with every step I take, the ball thing grows in my hand. the faster I go the faster it grows, until I can’t hold it anymore, and it collapses around me, smothering me.
This one comes whenever I am about to get really really sick, like with strep, or the flu.
Wierd.
I used to-it was basically my town, but with a number of fairly subtle differences-the Live Oaks for example were twice as tall as they are. Haven’t dreamed of it in about a year or so now.
I have had recurring dreams too, but they are different from the dreamscape that I usually inhabit. I have also had several “prophetic” dreams, and they are different than the recurring dreams, in many ways. Actually, only one has been truly provably prophetic, there have been three others that may or may not have been truly prophetic, but I took them as warnings, and when circumstances seemed to be aligning in a way to match my dreams, I immediately changed things, hopefully thwarting my dreamt of catastrophe.
I think it is very interesting how many have urban dreamscapes. I am wondering if it is because you live in urban areas, or grew up in urban areas. I live in Orlando, now a city, but in my childhood, a vast wilderness of bayou, upland pine woods, cow pastures and orange groves. I love the outdoors, and spend every available moment there, and I think that’s why my dreamscape is so pastoral. There are, at least so far, no paved roads at all… any real traveling is done in my trusty rowboat, a replica of my first childhood boat. I know the features of the landscape so well that even though I am on water, I know what is below my boat, just as I know what’s on every shore.
Another thought… some of you have elements that are impossible IRL… my submerged villa, for example, appears to be Roman (as yet undiscovered in Central Florida!) and remains perfectly preserved, whether or not it is underwater. Also, one of the shores I can reach in my rowboat is actually the Atlantic, and looks a lot like Canaveral National Seashore Park. Do you think more of your dreamscape is practical or fantastic?
I have several, and they are not connected.
My favorite is an underwater town. It is deserted, but in perfect condition - the walls are smooth and pastel (adobe? wouldn’t work underwater, of course). The streets are still streets, but nobody walks on them, I swim above them. Fishes hover and scoot around like birds do in a normal town… there are corals placed like decorative trees and parks. You can swim in a window (all the windows are open) and see the furniture. The rooms are sparsely furnished and most of the furniture appears to be built in.
I always approach this place by finding myself swimming downward through ever more pressurized water, until it is difficult, but not impossible, to breathe.
It took me years to realize that I dream this place when I am having a mild asthma attack in my sleep, because the labored breathing triggers it.
Since my asthma is under much better control these last several years, I don’t see it as often. I miss it in a sort of weird way.
I’m happy and relieved to see that other people have dream landscapes. I’ve had the same alternate dream life for decades.
The house is always the same, and it’s in the U.S., a white house with a veranda and a trellis that masks the space under the steps. The kitchen has a turquoise phone that I keep wanting to replace but never do. Next door there’s a grocery store next door.
What is particular about this dream is that I have many dream friends and neighbours. Once, in the dream, there was a gathering in my house and I asked a guest where I had met him. He replied that I’d met him in a dream 2 months before. Another special feature is a baby’s room. It’s empty, and when I see it I always yearn for a baby who once was there.
At one time, when in real life my husband had just died, I remember wondering in my dream if I could spend the rest of my life “there” instead of going back to the awake world.