it’s common enough to have an XKCD:
I’ve had the teeth one a couple of times, but I’m a relentless clencher/grinder so I thought it was more or less because of that.
I’ve a few recurrent themes:
My teeth chip and shatter.
I’m in prison as an inmate (probably the scariest).
I’m flying an airplane (which I’m capable of doing) but having difficulty landing it properly.
I get bitten by snakes, or shot or stabbed with things that make me bleed profusely. I am either going into paralysis or bleeding out when I wake up.
In one I was coming out of a coffee shop and a Vietnamese woman was screaming, I ran over to help and found out she was bitten by a venomous snake. To calm her down so we could get to a hospital I picked up the snake and let it bite me just to show her she had nothing to fear. When I approached another driver in the parking lot for a ride to the hospital the venom started kicking in and I couldn’t talk.
Yup, had those dreams for decades after leaving college. In recent years, it’s morphed into renting a brand new apartment, time passes, and then suddenly I realize not only have I not paid rent in six months, I haven’t even been there and can’t remember the address.
Used to have nekkid dreams all the time, until one time I said “Fuck it!” and decided to enjoy my dangly freedom. Oddly, once the nakedness no longer bothered me, I stopped having those dreams altogether.
I have all the school ones. I don’t know where my classes are, can’t fine my schedule, haven’t been to class all year and need to take the final. I haven’t been to school in 32 years and still have those!
I have also had the naked in public one, the teeth falling out one.
I have one about houses too. It’s always a house that we have owned, and I find out there is a whole other floor or wing or sometimes just a room that I didn’t know about. I am always pleasantly surprised. Sometimes these areas are filled with antiques of other stuff that the previous owners left behind and I have so much fun going through all of it.
Another disturbing one I have is the one where I can’t move fast, it’s like I have a cement leg that I have to drag behind me. Or I am trying to drag myself up a very steep hill. And if I have to make a phone call I misdial it every time.
It’s amazing that so many of these are universal. I wonder why that is.
[QUOTE=owlfan;20218202
I have one about houses too. It’s always a house that we have owned, and I find out there is a whole other floor or wing or sometimes just a room that I didn’t know about. I am always pleasantly surprised. Sometimes these areas are filled with antiques of other stuff that the previous owners left behind and I have so much fun going through all of it [/QUOTE]
That’s a stress dream for you? That’s one of my favorites!
Exactly. Mine are very similar, usually I am trying to go “home”, but it’s so far. Sometimes there’s mud I have to slog through. Sometimes I’m scooting myself on a tiny skateboard or actually crawling on hands and knees. Dreadful. 
The two common themes: 1) I have to move to another location and am due to leave by car/truck shortly, but there’s tons of stuff to sort through and pack and I’ll never get it done in time (a variation on this is getting off a plane and realizing that I can’t carry all the baggage and miscellaneous crap I somehow got on board).
2) the tried and true angst of being signed up for a bunch of courses which I have irregularly attended or never been to, don’t know where they’re being held, and of course exams are coming up. Or I keep having to repeat my time in college while realizing that I’m much older than the other students, have never had a real job and the prospects for such are diminishing rapidly. 
At least there was something different a couple nights ago. I dreamed I had a dog that was really a large book, but somehow I could rub its belly.
Oh, yeah, I get the teeth one, too. Until this board, many years back, I didn’t realize it was as common as it is. It usually starts with a loose tooth in my mouth, and then, next thing I know, they’re all falling out and I’m spitting out teeth. Wonder why it’s such a universal dream? I know I started having them before I knew it was “a thing,” so it can’t be influenced by being primed for it by hearing stories of such a dream. Otherwise, I don’t really think about teeth or have any particular worry about them or anything. Why that dream but not, I dunno, my bones turning into rubber or my fingers falling off or something like that?
The one common one I’ve never had, or at least I don’t remember having, is the naked one.
I’m riding in the back of a passenger jet somewhere, and the pilot is flying in crazy dangerous ways, taking off under a bridge and banking between skyscrapers.
Then I realize there’s no pilot, I’m supposed to be flying, but it’s pitching and rolling and I can’t crawl to the controls. Then somehow we’re on the ground, taking off to repeat the whole thing.
I didn’t know any of these stress dreams were so common when I was regularly having them. Personally, I don’t think dreams have a much deeper meaning than to reflect your current mood. But it’s really interesting that for so many people the dreams are almost exactly the same.
I used to have that one frequently. I sometimes had an underlying awareness that the reason I had never been to these classes was “I’m not in school and I have a job”, but I still freaked out in the dream.
The one I have most often is the airport dream. I’m late for the flight, I can’t remember what airline, I haven’t packed, I cant remember where I’m going.
One time, the dream had an unexpected suprise ending. That time, I stopped a security guard at the airport and I asked him where I could find my flight. He got a funny look on his face and he handed me his phone and said " you need to call your family NOW" so I dial and when the phone is answered I hear my Mom screaming in the background " She’s dead! Her plane just crashed and she’s dead!
An amazing twist on the standard dream
Pretty much the same. Someone is waiting for me to be somewhere important and time based, like a flight, and I can’t get there and on top of that, every phone I try to use to tell whomever is expecting me, is just incomprehensible to me, or doesn’t work
This. And I talked to so many people who have the same nightmare…
Don’t understand why. It’s not like this ever happened to anyone, really. And AFAICR, colleges was not an academically-stressful time for me.
I am absolutely flabbergasted by all of the dreams that we commonly share. I had no idea. I feel so … well, not so odd and confused by having these dreams. Thanks Dopers for chiming in. Had I never joined I would have continued thinking that I was losing it.
I sometimes dream I’m on stage playing guitar (it’s always one that I actually own) and it makes no sound.
I used to get the “naked in public” and the “school exam” ones, but don’t anymore.
I’ve had the “secret rooms discovered in the house” dream too.
Lately, I’ve been dreaming that I’m awake and am desperately trying to get to sleep. I find a bed, or a couch or something and curl up, but then the room starts to fill with people, and I have to get up, grab my pillow and try to find another place. And of course it all starts over again.
I honestly finally wake up and feel exhausted because my mind thinks I’ve been roaming the house looking for sleep.
Another one is dreaming that I’m at work and suddenly porn starts popping up on my computer. As quickly as I can close a window, another one appears. And of course I’m not alone. Other people are gathered around my monitor at the time. It’s horrifying!
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I’ve had that one too!
Slightly different take on this, but I’m not sure it deserves its own thread. It might, in some way, fit under “stress dreams” but from the other direction:
I often have dreams where I want to participate in an idealized activity or go to an idealized place where I feel happy and free. There are generally two of these dreams for me:
One is a swimming dream. In real life, I am a terrible swimmer. It is not a relaxing activity for me. I swam well enough to get an A in my high school gym class, but only was able to do enough to pass the tests. Can’t tread water well, the whole activity is a way to prevent me from dying in the water. But in Dreamworld, I’ve had multiple dreams where all I look forward to is going for a swim in the hotel pool, the lake, whatever, in order to relax and get away from the world. It’s the most relaxing activity I could think of in Dreamworld.
The other is going to certain place in Scotland (Port Appin) where I lived and worked for two months twenty years ago. It was not a fun job (kitchen porter), but it was a beautiful place. I constantly have dreams where I’m traveling internationally trying to figure out if I can manage a way to take a quick day trip back to that place. Maybe once or twice I was able to find myself back there, doing a long run by some fictionalized stream and flower-filled field, feeling much the same way I do in my swimming dream: like I’m at peace and somehow “home.” (I did run daily along the trails and loch there, but the geography in my dreams is quite different, and the runs weren’t anywhere near as relaxing as they are in my dreams.)
Also, there’s “Dreamworld” geography that feels like it’s relatively consistent from dream to dream when it shows up, but not related to the Real World geography of those places I’ve lived. Plus also Dreamworld timelines, where I have several threads of dreams that follow an alternate life storyline (one being going back to grad school for a master’s degree, which I never had any desire to do.)
It doesn’t seem to be related to any unhappiness or wish fulfillment. At least, it doesn’t seem to be related to points in my life where I’m feeling regretful or in a “what if I had done this” sort of mood. I could have these dreams at my happiest and most successful times.
That reminds me of one I have (thankfully) not had in awhile.
I am driving, but somehow the car gets away from me and goes zooming down the street. I stand watching it vanish in the distance, awaiting the inevitable horrific crash and casualties for which I’ll be blamed. :eek::smack: