I was participating in a “dreaming about TV shows” thread when I realized the few dreams I remember involve getting fired from work. (I used to have the infamous “test dreams” for years, but not in about 5 years). That’s really odd since I’m as safe at my job as anyone, and my work department hasn’t fired anyone in ages. What kind of dreams do you tend to have? Are they mostly negative or positive? And do they fall only in certain categories, or are they about all sorts of things?
I would categorize my dreams as mostly personal. I dream of my deceased parents. I have a recurring dream of my Mother showing me a book, with a stern face. I cannot see what is in the book, although I know it’s important. I always wake up concerned and apprehensive.
I dream of caring for an unfamiliar baby occasionally. I always thought it was my biology changing as I got older. I then thought it was my future grandkids I was seeing, but no, they never have looked like the dream baby. I do believe some dreams can be a foretelling of future events.
I don’t drive, I never have. But a lot of my dreams are about driving. The majority of my dreams are, in fact, either about travelling to somewhere, or having arrived somewhere new exploring the location (sometimes illicitly).
I read once that scientists who study dreams believe dreams are rehashing the day’s events. Things that happened that day, things you thought about or worried about. I believe that is true. When dreaming you are going over the things that are happening in your life at the time or what you are concerned about or worried about from the past or future.
I know I dream a lot but generally I don’t care about the dreams I have and I think they know it.
Last night it was a windy night. I often woke up to hear the gales of the blizzard beat against our windows. Snow plows passed by our apartment building twice at down and then there was an ambulance too. Every time I woke up I felt I had been pulled out of a circumvoluted dream but I have no idea what that oneiric activity was about and I’m okay with it.
I regularly get dreams which are like action movies/video games with a long and nonsensical plot, often fighting against zombies/terrorists/robots/generic video game enemies. And whether I’m commanding a space ship or holding a gun, my weapons never work properly.
I very often have vivid, often long, “movie like” dreams with intricate plots. I’ve kept a dream journal for years which helps me to remember them, so mine may not be any more extravagant than anyone else’s, I just retain more of them(?)
The other kind of dream I have regularly involves me trying to get home and I know there are two ways, one being extra long and / or perilous , and I can never remember how to locate the correct one, even though I know I’ve taken it before. Pretty clear it’s about me trying to find my way in life.
Recurring themes (besides the obvious I need to pee ones*) are usually negative/stressful:
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I haven’t shown up for work and I haven’t let my boss know (my job is relatively secure and we get along well)
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I don’t know for sure if my Mom is dead or not (I am still in denial that she died in real life)
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I still have the test nightmare in a few forms, even though I was last in the school 25 years ago :rolleyes: - I can’t sign up for class, I can’t get into my mailbox, I can’t access email, I don’t know what my schedule is or where to go
*Those have morphed from “I can’t find a useable toilet in the huge bathroom full of toilets” to “I can’t find a toilet in this house so I am just going to pee into this other piece of furniture”
I do drive but dream about my car taking off and flying. Or crashing into something, and then I jerk awake. Oh, or I dream that I have been driving for miles while asleep and I don’t understand how I stayed on the road all that time and didn’t hit anyone.
Almost entirely negative, and falling into two main categories: imminent death and impossible obligations.
Imminent death dreams are dreams where I’m about to die, usually as a passenger in a car that’s about to crash. Often, I’m the passenger in a car with no driver, and a backseat passenger at that, so I try to lever myself into the driver’s seat as the car speeds merrily along the highway. Sometimes, there’s a driver but the road is so slippery and we’re going so fast it doesn’t matter: We’re going to go off the road and plummet thousands of feet to our deaths among those giant pine trees which tower miles above this massive elevated highway.
I once had an imminent death dream where I walked into a warm, still body of water, like a warm swimming pool, and suddenly I couldn’t feel anything under my feet so I began to sink. I woke up when I felt the water begin to reach my mouth. It was amazingly realistic, much moreso than my usual dreams.
Impossible obligation dreams are dreams where I must do something I cannot. One of my oldest dreams I can still remember are of this type: I was walking outside near the house I was living in at the time and I came upon a cyclist in full cyclist gear (you know, the spandex outfit) fixing his bike. He asked me to go inside and get him some water, as it was a hot day. I went inside and it was suddenly night, and I felt bad I didn’t get that guy his water. I then went down to my bedroom, looked out my window, saw a girl in a soccer-ball patterned dress with a skeletal face, and woke up quite suddenly.
My school dreams fall into this basic form, as well: One recurring school dream involves me having to go back to college to learn basic algebra, of all things, and ending up alone in a dark classroom (not pitch black, just… darker than any reasonable person would have it, like a windowless room with the lights off) made of unadorned cement with long desks with the knowledge I have assignments to hand in and absolutely no way to do that. Yeah, as per usual for these dreams, I’m a college graduate and I graduated from a degree program which required two semesters of calculus, so there’s no way I’d have to take basic algebra ever again.
I sleep in my underwear, so I’m often outside in my underwear in my dreams. Nobody else in my dream ever seems to notice this, but I’m always embarrassed by it.
Whack.
I’d categorize dreams as “Things I Know Exist But Only Because Other People Tell Me About Theirs”.
Mostly school related, often living on some campus, often including getting lost. I also often wind up cuddling with people at some point, and can occasionally fly. I may know I’m dreaming while I fly, but it’s still not really “me,” as I still believe the scenario I’m in. And if I force myself to wake up, I may not actually be awake.
I’ve never had a test dream. I have had naked dreams, but I recognize they are dreams and will everyone to not care or notice.
Same here - non-driver who dreams about driving. I think mine are basic anxiety dreams, as I inevitably have a very sketchy sense of controlling whichever extremely unsafe vehicle I find myself driving.
The usual. I’m just hanging out with the Princess, chilling, and then that little bastard Flip shows up and ruins things.
The usual. I’m naked and oiled up in a writhing mess of big hairy men.
My workplace dream is that I’ve been shirking my responsibilities for so long, that now everything is done by somebody else, I haven’t done a thing for years, and I’m afraid somebody will notice that, so I’m always under pressue to look busy…
I also have the “printer ran out of paper” dream where I can’t do what I’m supposed to do because of missing documents or materials.
Common themes:
I’ve misplaced something and spend the whole dream searching and searching for it. Similarly, I’m lost in some location and endlessly walking trying to find my way to my goal. Both of these can feel like hours in-dream.
In real life, I collect fossils and meteorites, but aren’t lucky enough to be in an area where I can actually find many on my own. Sometimes I’m in dreams where I’m at a site where I’m collecting one or the other abundantly.
Dreams about beachcombing (which combine the elements of “finding stuff” and of “walking for miles.” Except in my dreams involving the ocean, there is almost always an extremely high tide or a tsunami at the end.
Lots of other dreams involve bodies of water–lakes, ponds, small rivers. Usually filled with large fish of various types.
Dreams very often involve people that I haven’t seen in decades and rarely if ever think about in my waking hours (even people that I barely knew in passing at the time I knew them.) Also often long-dead relatives.
Many dreams involve specific locations–during the dream I know that I’ve dreamed of that location many times before. But once I wake up, I don’t know if I’ve really had that dream before, or if a false-memory of past instances has been put in place.
I sometimes have problems on “coming out” of dreams reestablishing what is real–for instance, I once had a dream involving my being a teen, having emotional problems, acting out in a criminal way, being arrested and institutionalized for a few weeks or months. It was one of those dreams that feel like they last a long time, and when I woke up, I had to lie there for a long time trying to figure out if that was something that really happened to me or not, the memories felt so real. (It didn’t.) Less disturbingly, I once dreamed about injuring my injuring my arm and having to wear a sling, and on waking up having to think hard to decide if that actually happened. (It didn’t.)
Walking around naked in public is a common one, as is the frustrating one where I can’t find my apartment or my car. Sometimes I’ll have a followup dream where I’m trying to describe to someone the contents of my previous dream.
Oh, and the ones where there’s an emergency and I cannot dial the phone correctly.