About two months ago, my intestinal tract demanded that I forgo gluten. After it making it’s case, I agreed and have cut out all gluten from my diet–breads, pastas, pizza, sandwiches, etc.
However, at several nights each week, I have the same themed dream: I’m usually hanging out with friends or family and we’re eating, and I’m eating, when suddenly I realize I’ve eaten several pieces of gluten filled pizza, or half a sub, or have finished off a BLT or a bowl of pasta. While I’m eating (in my dream), I don’t realize I’ve eaten a gluten-filled meal until I’ve just finished it, and then I’m like, “Oh, shit!” (ha!) Usually this wakes me up in a cold sweat.
I’ve done really well avoiding gluten in my waking life. I watch what I eat like a hawk and read the labels of EVERYTHING. Eating out, which used to be a joy, has now become filled with landmines and the pleasure has been zapped out of it so that I rarely eat out anymore. We recently had a party at work and I socialized with a glass of coke in my hand, but didn’t eat the food.
I’ve found substitutes for several of the gluten foods that I loved (pizza crust being one of them–it’s no where near the Papa Johns pizza that I used to love, but it’ll do when I’m dying for a pizza), so I haven’t given up 100% all foods–just those filled with gluten.
Any way, what dreams have you had that have woken you up in a cold sweat, or dreams in which you’ve drempt that you were doing something that, in waking life, you’d know better not to do?
I quit smoking several years ago- I still have dreams where I’m smoking, and I’m so disappointed in myself.
Once in a while I’ll dream that I’m smoking crack. I don’t feel any effects of it- I think that’s because I’ve never smoked crack, so I have no frame of reference for how it feels.
I sometimes dream that I’m pregnant. That’s always a very high-stress dream (nightmare)- I’d rather be a crackhead than pregnant at this point in my life!
Somewhat akin to Alice the Goon: I stopped drinking ten years ago…and still often dream about getting drunk. It actually kinda works: the mental dissociation involved in the dreaming state is a little similar to the mental cloudiness of being drunk. The erosion of short-term-memory, especially, is similar.
I once dreamed I was eating pizza…and had a huge corner of my pillow crammed in my mouth.
Some friends of mine, a couple, once woke up to find themselves well involved in sexual intercourse.
I sometimes dream about romantic situations where I meet someone in the dream and we’re flirting, dating, kissing etc. And it’s only afterwards that I remember “Oh shit, I have a girlfriend! Why the hell did I just do that?!”.
I was a speed freak for a year about half my life ago. I still dream about that sweet rush, then I wake up in a cold sweat. Breaking that habit was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it still haunts me 16 years later. One of the reasons I don’t have a TV is because seeing lines on a mirror makes me want some myself.
I’m female, age 34, and I have “wet dreams”. I don’t wake up in a cold sweat then
When I first started driving, I used to dream that I was driving along a [real life] road, there is a long straight, slightly downhill stretch followed by a sweeping 90º left, 100 yards [or less] to a sweeping 90º right turn. In the dream I’d be coming along the straight part, going faster and faster and faster, I’d make it around the left bend, but careen on straight through the hedge and do a Thelma and Louise style fly off the edge of a cliff. Then I’d wake up.
I do know there have been fatal accidents on that bend (there are at least 3 roadside memorial cairns) and every time I drive down that road I take my foot off the accelerator for fear I’ll re-enact my dream.
For about ten years, I had long hair. Looked good for a while, as I was a gothy boy, but when I got older, I ended up chopping it all off. I’ve had short hair again for over a decade at this point.
In my dreams, I’ll look in a mirror while getting ready for a date or something, and suddenly I have… not just long hair, but a long mullet. And I panic. I try to cut it off with dull scissors, terrified because I have no time to go get it cut properly, and I’m just sitting there unsuccessfully hacking away at the party in the back. I literally will wake up in a full-blown panic thanks to my dream mullet.
Maybe telling this dream will get the damn thing out of my head. I’m driving a car going down the road, and I suddenly realize that I’m in the wrong position, my head and shoulders are in the floorboard as if I were looking for a lost dime. I have only seconds to operate the brake pedal with my hand to avoid an accident. All I can think is “what the hell was I thinking?”
Mine are usually work related anxiety. I’m in court and have a complete lack of knowledge of what the case is about. I have to try to wing it, (never a good idea) and then I realize I’m not wearing my suit. I’m in jeans, and I have to ask the judge for permission to run home and change. I guess this is a variation of the common dream of being back in school and not being prepared for the final exam.
I have all kinds of recurring wacky themed dreams.
I still have my 12" Clown Knife fish but have forgotten to feed him for the past year and I’m frantically searching for feeder goldfish.
I’m pregnant or have a baby and don’t know wtf to do - but then the “baby” usually turns into a kitten.
I’m trying to pack the contents of my childhood home and not getting any help from my parents and have no boxes.
I’m in high school but don’t know what room my classes are in because I’ve lost my schedule and can’t find the damn office to get another copy.
I’m fooling around with some guy then slowly remember that I’m married.
The worst one was when I dreamed that I was sleeping in bed with my ex from when I was 16 (we’re still friends to this day) - it was so vivid, him spooning me from behind, all cozy in bed - and then I slowwwly woke up and remembered that I’m married to my wonderful, loving, caring husband…the cold fear shooting up my spine as I realized that I was in bed with another man…until my brain focused and I woke up for real in bed cuddled up to my wonderful husband. That one was freaky.
The standard late for class/slept through an exam/forgot I was enrolled in a class dreams. I’ve done the first two more often than I like, so it takes awhile for my brain to be convinced it’s 4:39 am, not 9:43 am, and I’m not missing anything except sleep.
I’m onstage and I’ve just sat down at the piano/stood in front of it to sing and I can’t remember the first note. OR I’m in an ensemble and I prepared the wrong piece and they’ve started playing and I’m about to have to come in… shiver This really happened to a pianist once. Ugh.
I occasionally have dreams about losing my temper and being in an absolute screaming, mouth-frothing rage at someone. I never do that in real life (and the fact that I keep everything bottled up is probably why it comes out in dreams…)
Those dreams are really uncomfortable. I am always grateful when I wake up and realize I didn’t scream obscenities at whomever.
I still dream once in a while that I’m smoking even though I quit over 5 years ago. I also have dreams where I’ve done something really stupid, like robbed a gas station and I can hear the sirens coming for me and I’m saying to myself, “what have I done? I’ve ruined my life, I’m going to jail!” and then I wake up.
I have these as well…they’re always about somebody who is causing me stress in real life, though. Still ,sometimes it takes that dream to clue me in that somebody is really fucking with me.
Two nights ago, I dreamed that when we woke up in the morning, my girlfriend was enormously upset that I had peed on her in the middle of the night. I was really desperately sorry, and scared because she said that some things just aren’t forgivable.
When I woke up I actually felt around in a panic to make sure I hadn’t.
For years after I got married I’d have a dream where I am standing at the back of the church in my wedding whites … and I look toward the altar and the groom standing there … is the wrong guy! Sometimes it’s an old boyfriend, sometimes just some random stranger. And I’m standing there, aware of all the people assembled in the pews, looking at me expectantly … and I’m thinking … yep … oh shit.
I also had a dream in my late 40s that I was pregnant. I’ve never been pregnant or wanted to be and I was absolutely horrified even after waking up. I told my husband about that one … he was just as horrified by that as I was! Becoming a father in his mid-50s is not something on his To Do list…
I had a dream once that I had killed someone. Not about the killing itself but that I had actually killed someone (no idea who) and was wanted by the police for murder.
When I woke up it seemed to take a long time to transition from sleep to wakefulness and it was really difficult to separate the dream from the real world. The experience was so vivid and felt so real that for a few days I was actually questioning whether I had done something and was blocking out the memories.
It took days to shake the feeling that the police would burst through the door at any moment to arrest me.
I quit smoking last year and have had the dreams where I’m smoking and feel the huge rush of relief when I wake up and realize I hadn’t slipped.
I dream sometimes of being chased by midgets in overly long overcoats and wide brimmed hats…I’m doing okay til I come to a short fence and CAN’T climb over it and they’re getting closer and closer. :eek:
I literally will wake up in a full-blown panic thanks to my dream mullet.