Forgettable. If I remember fragments more than a few minutes, it’s a miracle. And even then, it never lasts more than an hour or two after that.
My dreams never make any sense, even if I can remember them. Stuff just happens randomly. Maybe that is what makes it hard to remember.
I think dreams are just random discharges in your brain. Dream interpretation is mostly like a Rorschach inkblot test - what patterns you see might give some kind of insight into what you think, but you are mostly reading meaning into it rather than drawing it out.
Except for the dream about me, the Soviet gymnastic team, and the vat of butterscotch pudding. That one means something.
Regards,
Shodan
I have extremely cinematic dreams, too. The plots are pretty coherent, and the settings usually come with a lot of backstory as well as vivid imagery. (My most recent one was in a city that would have fit right into a Studio Ghibli film.) Sometimes they occur in an episodic series, like my Armor dreams. I’m always a character in these dreams, but not necessarily the main character. (The exception being nightmares, in which I always seem to be the protagonist.)
Not all my dreams are like that, of course–I’m also prone to “searching” dreams, in which I wander through large, confusing places (mazes, caves, fog-shrouded cities) looking for something and being stalked/attacked. I don’t recall ever having one of the “standard” anxiety dreams, though.
Years ago, in a thread of common bad dreams on the forums, I made an informal tally of the dreams reported, and some rather strong patterns emerged.
The vast majority of my dreams are pretty prosaic.
Things going wrong at work.
I’m back in school, and have a test for which I am not prepared, or a term paper is due today which I have not even started.
I am with a beautiful woman, and we are about to have sex, when one of my parents walks in and interrupts.
I have cinematic dreams sometimes. Here’s an old thread about two of them.
I particularly enjoy my flying dreams. Not falling but flying. That is I will myself to levitate in the dream. These types of dreams invariably take place in familiar locations. I typically spend much of the dream ‘testing’ my newly discovered ability and attempt to see how high I can go or experiment with how much directional control I possess, or fast I can travel. The method of flying is always the same and it requires a certain mental effort as I concentrate on movement. These dreams are of the hyper-realistic sort where one finds themselves questioning whether it was for real or not when awakened. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up disappointed to finally realize it wasn’t real.
In nearly all my dreams, I don’t talk to anyone and no one talks to me. I’m just trying to get somewhere, though there’s often no specific destination most of the time. Often I’m in very large building such as an airport terminal or a huge office building/convention center. Sometimes I’m in a hospital instead.
Stairs and escalators can be annoying in these dreams because I often have to go down a half flight and go up another flight to get to a certain floor and then go around a corner and repeat some combination of stairs and escalators to get to the next floor.
Elevators in these dreams rarely let me off where I want. I have to go up and down several times before getting a floor near my destination and then it’s back to the stairs and escalators.
And of course, as** Darren Garrison** mentioned, restrooms tend to be full of toilets that are unusable.
For the last three or four years I’ve had lots of dreams where I’m in houses or apartments that I have just moved into and am wandering around feeling their strangeness. They’re never anything fancy and there isn’t much furniture, much less anything I’ve brought with me. These are often just part of other dreams in which other things happen.
The only dreams I remember are the ones that wake me and they are invariably about having to pee and not being able to find a suitable place to do so. Then I wake up and guess what. I am just afraid that one of these days I will find a suitable place to pee and do so.
I share this fear. One day my tubing will start to fail, and then all hell may break loose during beddy-byes time.
I often dream I am at work trying to do things with equipment that doesn’t work. Then in the dream I remember I’m retired and don’t have to work anymore and try to leave, but then I can’t find the exit. Or I can’t find my car in the parking lot.
The theme of all my dreams is frustration. I’m trying to use a phone that doesn’t work. The road I’m driving on just ends in someone’s backyard. I’m trying to get home but can’t remember where I live. I’m doing dishes and people keep bringing me more just as I’m getting done. I’m trying to shoot a gun that doesn’t work. And I don’t even own a gun.
The only time they are kinda fun is when I realize I’m dreaming and try to control them and do something fun. At which point, I wake up.