# Dream universes **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 26, 2022, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166 "2022-02-26T21:14:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2022, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/1 "2022-02-26T21:14:25Z")
Does anyone else have dream universes? My dreams are highly narrative, and usually pretty coherent. A lot of them are not so much recurring (although there are many recurring motifs) as sequential. There are a handful of locations and “cast members” that show up in more than one dream. In fact I rarely have a standalone dream. That I remember that is. Most of my dreams are about a location: a house, a hotel, an apartment. All the same handful of places, as far as my waking memory tells me. And sometimes a moving train, although I don’t ever seem to remember any other vehicle. No, wait, there is occasionally a car that suggests no relevance besides a conveyance between two more-significant locations. Of course sometimes, upon waking, I ask myself if I really remember multiple dreams in this or that location, or if that memory is from the dream itself; that a new place might come with dream memories of previous visits. Almost all my dreams are lucid, so I often ask myself these questions from within the dream itself. As far as recurring characters, there are of course specific family members who are nonetheless entirely different people from who they are in real life. There’s also a very specific gay couple, who has no real life counterpart as far as I can divine, whose relationship and circumstances have changed over the years I’ve been dreaming them, always in a reasonable narrative progression. I first met them as neighbors in a low rent apartment building, in an iffy neighborhood, and last night I went to a party at the huge beautiful old house they just bought. Most of my attention in this visit was focused on their furniture and wallpaper and carpets. Again, solidly rooted in location. I could of course go on–there are other narratives that progress in different plotlines, in their respective locations and with their respective characters (and even occasional overlaps and “guest spots”)–but I wanted to ask more generally about the dreams of others. Does anyone else experience something similar? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2022, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/2 "2022-02-26T23:49:06Z")
I cannot find statistics that are precise and reliable, but recurrent dreams/motifs are not-uncommon in both adults and children. It’s not just you. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/3 "2022-02-27T00:50:32Z")
Yes of course; I’m not _that_ solipsistic! I know there are recurring motifs in dreams, some of which may even be common among different dreamers. I’m talking about a dream universe, like a fictional universe where different works take place in the same fictional reality. Like how Quentin Tarantino’s movies may share characters, or in the sense of the MCU “unverse.” LeGuin’s Federation of Planets etc. I’m talking where plotlines, not just motifs progress in a forward manner from one dream to another; one night to another ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/4 "2022-02-27T01:12:23Z")
I have mentioned this here before I believe, but I go to what I call Earth 2 every single night. Similiar to this one in most respects, usual occasional dream illogic (weird ice hockey game last night with a drain in the middle of the ice). Almost always is in twilight, has what I call a numinous glow surrounding every sight or event. In a lot of ways more pleasant than this world. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/5 "2022-02-27T01:14:34Z")
Do the dreams’ “plots” reference each other? Across discrete dreams? ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/6 "2022-02-27T02:32:34Z")
I have a recurrent dream about unwittingly getting involved with a group I call The Redneck Mafia. It usually takes place at a house full of felonious rednecks. For some reason they like me, and I spend the entire dream trying to play cool and keeping them liking me while I try to figure a way out of the house Which I never can ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/7 "2022-02-27T16:34:44Z")
I have very visual, cinematic dreams. Like watching the Air Force battling spaceships in the night sky above me. The visual detail my unconscious mind can generate is amazing. I don’t really have sequential dreams like the OP. I do have recurring dreams, but just pretty much the same kinds of recurring dreams everybody else has— I’m back in school but I have no idea where my classes are, and I’m late for an important test or something. I also have lucid dreams every now and then. Sometimes I just realize I’m dreaming, other times I can actually control the dream, but the act of controlling the dream seems to wake me up. The last lucid dream I had, I was in a cabin on a lake, looking out a big picture window at the lake and I suddenly realized it was a dream. I remember looking out at the lake and the trees and vegetation on shore and being amazed at the fine detail. I decided to try to make a boat appear, and sure enough the front of a bass boat appeared in the left side of the window, moving to the right. I decided to let my subconscious surprise me as to who was piloting the boat, but I woke up before I could find out. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/8 "2022-02-27T16:59:51Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > a house full of felonious rednecks A subconcious metafore for "Merica? ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/9 "2022-02-27T17:05:45Z")
Whenever I have a dream in which I am “at home”, it’s the house I grew up in. Not the house I’ve lived in for the last 22 years. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/10 "2022-02-27T18:20:24Z")
I live west of a small city. In several of my dreams there’s another city just to its east, and there are a lot of stores I enjoy visiting: a big book store, some department stores that aren’t in this area in a bunch of strip malls. I wouldn’t mind if that city was real because we could really use some more shopping options. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2022, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dream-universes/960166/11 "2022-02-27T23:10:52Z")
I’ve had multiple dreams set in the same (fictional) huge movie theatre. They’re very vivid: it’s a bigger auditorium than any I’ve seen in real life, and it’s like the concert scenes from The Doors movie in the audience. Strangely, it’s even a towering multiplex. I wish I’d have those dreams more often, they’re wonderfully cinematic.