On a fairly regular basis, I used to have many of the unpleasant dreams mentioned here. But one night, I had this ridiculously awful dream. I say “ridiculous” because it was extremely unpleasant but also because the particular circumstances were so absurd that I had to laugh when I was finally jarred awake. I don’t recall having had any nightmares from that point onward.
Forgive the hijack, but I’m posting this because it seems that, for some of you, these recurring bad dreams are causing suffering in your lives. I suppose conscious (heh) effort is not the most effective way of dealing with the problem, but I think it’s a worthwhile pursuit. If you somehow learned not to wet your bed, you can probably learn not to suffer so much. Wake up in a cold sweat and your heart pounding? Screw that.
Things changed for me when I realized that nightmares are the brain’s way of trying to wake up the body, usually because of an upset stomach or something. Since having that realization, I’ll “get the message” but without so much trauma.
I have this dream as well, but in it, I am allowed to leap and jump at will. I call it my parkour dream. In fact, I started dreaming parkour before parkour ever became a thing. I like to think my dream invented it:)
*My teeth falling out, or I chomp down and one of my teeth is sideways, kind of like it used to be when your baby teeth fell out.
*Not being able to dial 911
*Not studying for a final or not realizing I’d even signed up for a class and realize I’m going to fail the class
*Being chased by someone, not usually a stranger but mostly a boyfriend or my husband after I find out he’s done something awful (e.g. cheated) – I’m running away with the intention of not coming back. I’m driving on the highway and he’s following me. I’m trying to lose him. I’m running out of gas. I have to decide whether to continue going in the direction I’m going, do a u-turn and go the other direction, or exit and try and find someplace to hide.
*Walking into an unfamiliar home and knowing it’s my house, even though it’s not my house.
Odd thing, I don’t get flight – I get sort of like levitation, and sometimes it’s like being on an immaterial skateboard, if I build up too much momentum I have to reach out and grab a lamp post or something to stop myself and then I spin around it.
I also get myself into continuities – recurring cross-references to other dreams, as if in an episodic TV series calling back to an earlier episode, complete with continuity errors as well. (A common one is I’ll show up in a dream clear out of the blue with a skill that I don’t have IRL (e.g. songwriting, airplane piloting, horse riding) and then I absolutely don’t have it for a while and then one day it’s back again just because the plot calls for it and “Oh, yeah, right, of course! I CAN do this! Slipped my mind completely!”.)
Yep, these are very common. Also a whole lot of other various lesions and injuries, not just teeth. And the uncompleted schoolwork seems to haunt a man for the rest of his life…
Sort of related to this, the one where every action you seek to take is ineffective – you can’t make the jump, you can’t turn in the direction you want, no matter where you head to they’re there to get you, you pump 10 bullets in them and they’re still coming, etc.
Yup. Wake up and go from to
OTOH there are also a whole bunch of other entirely inappropriate pairings. JRDreamself seems a whole damn lot less inhibited about where he sticks it.
YES! YES! A coherent “dreamworld geography” – including people, histories, neighborhoods, activities and events, buildings I keep revisiting that are fantastic recompilations of others; plus apparent in-universe favored airlines or bus lines that have nothing to do with the real ones.
Related to this, at all those various dreamcities, dreams involving househunting/moving into houses or being at temporary crash pads with ridiculous elements like having to climb a ladder from the bedroom through the kitchen to the bath (and of course you make the trip naked); or having an apartment or a room that you just show up after a loooong time to reoccupy and it’s more or less as you left it and it’s entirely unremarkable.
Where’s the option for “can’t remember my dreams”? The only dream people have mentioned I’ve had is the “unprepared for exam/don’t know where class is”, and that stopped ten years ago. When I was a kid I’d often dream about my mom’s life when she was a child, but I haven’t had those in decades.
I wonder if some if it is I have a tendancy to daydream. Perhaps my daydreams fill the slot other people have their sleeping dream memories.
Overflowing toilets. I developed a phobia about that when I was really young, probably about the time I was potty trained. Over the years I’ve dreamt about so many overflowing toilets, all shapes, sizes, locations - I think some of them were designed by HR Giger. I saw this thread yesterday and just last night I had this dream that involved a room with a fish tank and a toilet. The toilet of course was clogged with something and the water in it was rapidly approaching the overflow point, and then the water in the nearby fish tank suddenly started draining out and adding even more water to the toilet. How weird is that? I guess I really had to pee.
And food dreams. I get food dreams like the scenes in Harry Potter where there’s a huge dining hall table filled with every imaginable goodie, and it’s all mine. Except the dream usually ends before I’ve had more than a bite. Damn it.
I used to have these dreams where there was something goofy about my contact lenses. Like, I had lost one, and somebody found it, only the thing they found was the size of a frisbee, but yet I knew it was my contact lens and I had to put it back in my eye.
I also have this weird dream where, due to various complicated circumstances, I am in a health club or something like that, looking for the swimming pool, and I can find the pool, or I can see the pool, but I can’t get there from where I am. Or from anyplace else. Or it turns out I could get there, if only I had ridden my bicycle and gotten there via bicycle parking (only then I couldn’t get out).
These are not really bad dreams but kind of frustrating.
I checked the “heavy fists”, but really the situation is being unable to run or to fight the bad guys. The moving through molasses effect. I suspect that the reason these dreams are remembered is that they wake me up – I’m unwilling to participate in the dream scenario to the extent that fleeing or fighting would entail, so my legs don’t move and I wake up.
I used to get this. In my early twenties, I had an entire season’s worth of dreams about Space Nazis whose weakness was 24-hour convenience stores … I was a member of the 7-11 Resistance.
Isn’t that sort of weirdness just the nature of dreams? You open a door, and you see a lion inside the room, so you slam the door shut. Then you peek in a moment later, and there’s just a house cat - and you assume you somehow confused the cat for the lion, as if it was the easiest thing in the world to do, and you don’t think twice about it in the dream.
ISTM that dreams where people, places, and things don’t change their nature at any time during the dream are the exception, especially if the dream lasts very long.
I have the naked in public dream so often, that my dream self remembers it happening before, and my reaction is more along the lines of.
“Oh man, I forgot to wear pants again? I’ve got to stop doing this.”
I also frequently have the I forgot the class or schedule or whatever, although since being a TA, it has sometime been a class I was supposed to be teaching which is worse.
I blame this on the fact my mind is dreaming of going to class but then when I try to remember details (which class, what they talked about for the last few weeks etc.) there is nothing there because the class doesn’t exist. As I result I feel that there is a class I should have been attending but have no knowledge of.
Have the teeth falling out dream occasionally, and the breathing under water dream a few times.
My talking to the dead dreams is more along the lines of running into someone who I know is dead in real life. “Hey Jim, it’s good to see you I thought you were dead!”
I never fly in my dreams but I wish I would because instead I have severe acrophobia dreams where I am in a high place and desperately scared of falling off. I never do fall, but the fear in the dream is much stronger than any fear of heights I’ve had in real life.
Anyone have the trying to drive a car from the back seat dream?
Yes. That’s another one I forgot to put on the poll.
And sometimes, even when I’m not in the back seat, I can’t work the pedals because my feet are too big. When I try to press on the brake but I also inadvertently step on the gas causing the car to keep going when I really need the damn thing to stop.
I have often had dreams of lights not working properly, usually stuck ON, requiring me to unscrew them to be able to sleep (yes sleep in a dream, sorry insomniacs).
As for sex, yes, and often, both wanted and unwanted (rape like) situations.
I don’t remember my dreams. The only time I remember anything is when I’m close to waking. I don’t consider those true dreams since real world stuff intrudes on them. When I do have those semi-awake dreams they are hard to categorize. Generally they are like convoluted movies that constantly change.
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