The thread about dreaming of rotten teeth had me wondering what everyone’s most common recurring dreams are, and how universal certain dreams are.
Mine would be:
The school failure dream. For me, the most common scenario is the end of the semester is coming up, and there’s a class or two I didn’t drop and haven’t shown up to or done the coursework for in weeks. Second scenario is I’m at school and have to clue where any of my classes are.
Teeth falling out. Typically, I’m talking in my dream and I feel my teeth getting loose until they simply fall out. It’s not all my teeth, but usually three or four.
Swimming. I’m a terrible swimmer in real life. I could do enough to stay alive in the deep end and pass swim class in high school, but it’s always been a struggle for me. In my dreams, swimming is the most peaceful, soothing recreation for me. Whenever I check into a hotel in my dreams, the thing I look forward to most is a swim.
Revisiting old places I’ve lived, but with everything jumbled around and half the geography reinvented.
Also, I have recurring alternate-life storylines and invented places that I go back every so often in my dreams, so there’s some fuzzy continuity between certain sets of dreams. It’s interesting to me how in my dreams I come with a backstory or set of invented memories that don’t correspond to anything in the real world, only in the dream world.
My most recurring dreams involve zombie apocalypse, ghost hauntings, alien attack or robot uprising. I’ve had those my entire life. I actually had the zombie one a few nights ago, but oddly enough the zombies were gone, it was just a few survivors.
I have the losing teeth dream, the naked-in-public dream, and the forgot-to-go-to-class-until-the-end-of-the-semester dream.
I have a frequent dream where either I find a whole new wing of rooms in my small apartment, or I have to move from my semi-crappy small apartment to an even-crappier hovel.
For some reason, I often sneak out and buy a pack of cigarettes in a dream. I haven’t smoked in years, and I don’t miss it.
Then there’s the dream where I’m trying to call my husband/an old friend I haven’t seen in years/for help but my cell phone has some kind of weird new operating system and I can’t figure it out. This is the updated version of the old dream where I need to phone 911 and keep getting it wrong.
Just about every night I have the dream where I’m trying to find the bathroom, but every one I go into is filthy or unusable in some way. Eventually, I wake up and go pee.
I seem to have eras where a recurring dream is common.
Early in my life, tornados were a common topic, and the dream would be me observing a twister from a (mostly) safe distance. I’ve always been fascinated by tornados and bad weather in general.
The missing class dream was common in college and for a few years after. It abruptly ended when I did a second degree.
I had a cousin of that dream, where I would be sitting in a BS class and wondering why I was there, because I had my degree already. I was probably subconsciously preparing myself for round 2.
Now, my recurring dream involves me as a firefighter/EMT, and I witness some big emergency. Bystanders are oblivious to the huge fire/plane crash/train wreck/something else happening. I try to call it in to the dispatcher by cell phone or my radio, and they don’t work.
Well there is another, and it involves a warm and sunny beach, lots of food and alcohol, and several babely wimmin who find me adorable…
ETA: Also had the new wing of living quarters, and revisits to old locations dreams, too.
Oh, I mentioned this in the other thread, but definitely the teeth falling out or rotting dream, and the toilet dream - a maze of filthy toilets with little or no barriers, all dirty, and me desperately having to use one, and men and women both in the room.
I still have the recurring dream where I’m in school and I miss a paper or something, and never graduate. I’ll be having that one ten years after I’m dead.
I used to have the dream with my teeth falling out. I’d have tooth pain, or something, then I’d reach inside of my mouth and my teeth would all come out in my hand.
I also used to have the dream in which I couldn’t speak or move. So effing frustrating!
The creepiest one is when one leg is significantly shorter than the other. I used to have those at least once a week for about six months straight. They’d feel so real, that I’d run to a mirror to confirm that my legs were the same length when I got out of bed.
Early sleep paralysis, or an actual dream? Because I get these, and still get them…I feel like I can’t speak or move, but I am SHOUTING for help. Since I discovered what it was, I’ve been mostly able to control it with exercise and potassium, but it still happens - though I am less fearful of it now, and try to take it as a really cool adventure into the weirdness of my own head.
When I read that something like 30% of the population has it, it really opened my eyes. No wonder cases of demon possession were so predominant. Some people even report something sitting on their chest, like a heavy weight - a succubus or incubus! Myself, I never get anything fun like an incubus.
I sometimes dream that I’m flying . . . but it’s more like swimming in air, having to stroke with my arms and kick. The problem is that I’m constantly rising and can’t stop. I’m looking down to a shrinking world and unable to return to it.
Actually, both, but I was talking about in my dreams. I’d be engaged in normal activity, then suddenly I’d be unable to move or speak. Of course, it always happened when I needed to move or speak the most! In real life, I’m over early sleep paralysis now that I know what it is. As a child, it was frightening; these days, I just wait it out.
I have the usual suspects (being nekkid, no exam prep, bad teeth, flying (in my case, it’s more of skimming). I also have recurring dreams about car accidents. Usually it’s either
a) I’m about to hit something, and. . . I. . . just. . . can’t. . . reach. . . the. . . brakes. . . in. . . time.
or
b) I’ve backed into something that I’m going to have a hard time getting out of (like a really big ditch, or a pond).
I also dream about my dead parents once or twice a year. It’s always the same situation: I’m just chatting up with them, and I realize, “Hey, wait, I thought we buried you.”
I’ve never had the rotten teeth one, but I sometimes do have a dream where my mouth and esophagus are full of some foreign substance, like hair, and I’m constantly pulling, and pulling at it like a magician with the silk hankies up the sleeve.
I fly often enough that I now know, when I start flying, it must be a dream and not reality. Sometimes I’m able to incorporate this into the dream and have fun with it. “Oo, I’m flying! Watch me freak out these non-flying mortals.”
Anyone have the frustrating experience of not being able to complete the simplest of tasks, like dialing a phone number or something? 25 attempts later and you’re still hitting the wrong numbers and people are growing more and more impatient at your utter incompetence? No? Just me? OK, I’m a tool.
I’ve been dreaming about my mother. She just died this past April.
The sad thing is, or maybe it’s happy, I don’t know, I always dream of her and my aunts and my dad, all sitting together like we used to when I was a kid. We were happier then, and everyone at least tried to get along. Now everyone is flung all over the place and no one gets along with anyone, and my mom at the end of her life distanced herself from everyone.
The one I have most often involves my living in some fairly grand place; a different one every time, but the decor is always beautiful and rich with detail. I was amazed how accurately the movie Inception captured this.
Next most common is the filthy toilet one. Prior to this thread, I’ve had other people tell me they have this one and I’m a bit fascinated that it seems to be so universal.
Never had a teeth-falling-out one; instead I seem to have ones involving ghastly but painless wounds to my arms or legs.
I seem to have ones where I still have one of my previous cars, and it’s in perfect condition, but during the course of the dream gets smashed to pieces.
Lastly, a depressing one in which I’m somewhere in Europe and run into my most significant ex, and she is completely indifferent or actively hostile to me. Those always mess me up for hours after I wake up.
-Being at school and not knowing where or when any of my classes are. It seemed like I hadn’t been there for the first part of the semester.
-Going to school, but everyone had to take their shoes off at the main entrance of the school. That of course resulted in a large jumbled pile of shoes. At the end of the day I never could find my shoes.
-Being able to fly, in various forms. One form I could sit down on the ground and sort of lift myself onto my hands and push myself forward, then before long I was fully flying. Another version is me being able to leap really high, like up onto a roof or into a treetop. Those are fun.
-Being at certain houses or places. Sometimes they are similar to places I’ve lived or frequented, but many times they are places I’ve never been. I tend to dream those over and over, dozens of times. One place is a hillside settlement of stone houses with low walls here and there, and one small road going through. Not sure if it’s a small town or one estate. There is a stone tower a little ways from the settlement. Which was sort of interesting because I went to tour an old mansion called Swannanoa over the summer that had a tower very similar to my dream, and I’d never been there before.
Interesting. I’ve never had it particularly that scenario (mainly because filthy toilets don’t bother me). If I really gotta go piss in real life and I’m sleeping, I’ll sometimes have the dream that I continually go to the toilet and am never able to relieve myself. (Thank goodness. I’m surprised we’re still aware enough of our surroundings to not wet the bed.)
This sounds really creepy, but I also get a lot of recurring “stabbing” dreams. When there are enemies to vanquish in my dreams, I usually have to do it with a knife or blade of some sort.
The can’t-quite-dial-the-right-phone-number dream is another one I forget about. I have several variants of that in which a simple task becomes endlessly repetitive and frustrating because I make a small error and have to go back and do it over and over again, never quite getting it right.
I’m a 35-year old male, and I’ve never had a wet dream. I do occasionally get sexual dreams (not all that often, maybe once a month or so), but I’ve never had them end with any “release.”
And last one I just remembered: I often cannot run very fast in my dreams. I think this is common to a lot of people. However, my way of dealing with it in dreamland is lean over and reach to the cracks between squares of sidewalk with my hands and use my hands to help speed me up. So it’s kind of like I’m running on all fours, but my legs still feel like they’re in a standard running position, rather than hunched over.
Ah, yes. Forgot about that one, too. With me, it’s a thick wad of phlegm in my throat that I pull with my hands, but can’t quite get out because it’s slimy and breaks apart.
