Share your (totally mundane?) recurring nightmares

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I guess most people probably have recurring dreams or nightmares. You always hear the cliche about dreaming you’re naked in public, or late for school.
I often dream I’m in public wearing only a bath towel, or just underwear, but nobody seems to care. I’m always confused about how I managed to leave the house without getting dressed, but it never feels like a big deal, just a slightly embarrassing fashion faux pas.

For years after I graduated high school, even after I graduated college, I had dreams that I had to go back for some reason. Lame! Ever since I graduated college, I’ve had dreams that I discover I have a final tomorrow, but I haven’t been to class all semester and was unaware that I was enrolled. I graduated on time and with honors in 1998, but this one still turns up every few months.

The past year or so has brought me a new one: frequent dreams in which I am unable to find an acceptably clean public restroom. I hate these; at least the dreams about school weren’t gross.

Last night I had a recurring dream combo in which my mom was chasing me with an injection that would take away my superpowers, and I couldn’t find a clean bathroom while I was trying to hide. I woke up with a headache and a sore neck from the stress. Thanks, subconscious mind!

My mom sometimes dreams that it’s December 24th, and she suddenly realizes she forgot to buy presents or decorate for Christmas, which is both her favorite holiday and my parents’ wedding anniversary. Not likely to happen, but it gets her every time.

So, what are your recurring dreams?

2

The only recurring dreams I seem to have these days are instances where I’m losing handfuls of teeth or hair. It’s like I’m a survivor of a nuclear attack or something. Fucking freaky.

3

I have that final exam one a lot, although less now that I am further and further from my college or grad school days.

I will sometimes have dreams that I leave my kids at home, thinking that I’ll just be gone for a few minutes. And of course, I can’t drive back or I get on the wrong bus or something happens which prevents me from returning.
I also sometimes have a dream that I have to make an important telephone call and I just can’t get the numbers to dial correctly. Usually it’s not just the phone number I have to call, but a calling card sequence of numbers, too, and I keep messing up.

I haven’t had the teeth or hair falling out in a long time. Used to have those a lot. Don’t miss them.

4

Major periods of my life have each had their own recurring nightmare/stress dream:

In elementary school, I was usually chasing after my mother, who was on the verge of leaving me behind. I’d have to jump onto a drawbridge that was in the process of rising, and would usually dangle from it or fall. I also recall having several dreams about insects living and laying eggs in the folds of my ears.

In middle school, I would be trapped in the passenger seat of a car that was driving itself or careening out of control, and there was no way for me to stop it.

In high school, I would dream that I was very young, and trying to hide in my grandmother’s house while it was storming and something in the house was coming to get me.

In college, I had elaborate dreams about menacing, futuristic co-ed bathrooms. I’d have no idea how they worked, and there was generally uncomfortable nudity involved.

Post-college, those continued, with some variety in the form of “my teeth are crumbling apart” dreams.

Currently the dreams generally involve my being naked in unexpected social situations.

My brain is a happy place!

5

Oh God. This seems to be every other dream I have now. Sometimes it’s school, sometimes it’s university.

For the latter, I went to one of those colleges with several courts, each of which is a grassy space with ancient and imposing buildings around it. I find myself in one of those, and I’m trying to get to the front court, and thence exit the college. But here’s the problem. In reality there are only three courts in an L-shape. In my dream, there are more.

Infinitely more.

In the earlier dreams, I’d manage to get to the front after half an hour or so. More recently, I have apparently been starting from the other end of infinity. The non-end end.

:frowning:

6

I’ve had the ones about losing teeth too. I never dream that I’m losing my hair, but sometimes I dream I’m suddenly growing fur like a werewolf. Creepy!

I forgot one, but lorene’s post reminded me: ever since I started driving, I have dreams that I’ve walked really far away from where I parked my car, but if I go back to get it I’ll lose all the progress towards my destination.

Does anyone have GOOD recurring dreams?

7

I had to jump in on this thread, because the other day I had a recurring nightmare with a ridiculous twist.

Since as long as I can remember I have had persistent nightmares about tornados and escaping tornados. No matter where I went to find shelter I inevitably got caught up in the winds and died–everything went black and deadly silent. I actually would believe I was dead for a precious few seconds until I woke up, and realized it was just a dream.

While I still have recurring tornado dreams from time to time, I find that I now elude the tornados more often than not. I´ll get through 10 or 15 different tornados and then my dream will turn over to something more mundane.

Well the other day I started up with the typical tornado crap. I was running all over the whole city eluding different tornados. I finally found a place that was deemed to be relatively safe, I looked up in the sky, and this humongous, looming column dropped down from the sky.

“Oh, no,” I thought, “Another tornado.”

But–it was a tree. A giant, tornado-sized tree, with an ancient animated face twisted into a horrible snarl. And as we all stood there staring up at it, it boomed in a stereotypical Voice O´ Doom,
“GREETINGS EARTHLINGS! HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR RIDE! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

I woke up with a sense of profound relief-- then I started laughing so hard I couldn´t fall back asleep. :smiley:

ETA: I have the ¨going back to school¨ dream a lot, too. Usually I have to attend both high school and college at the same time, and my exam´s in a horrible subject like calculus and I haven´t attended any classes so I have no idea what I´m doing. And inevitably, my underwear are stashed in a locker somewhere and I have to run around pantsless trying to find them.

Sometimes I wonder if recurring dreams are nature´s way of reminding us that it could always be worse…

8

Back to school with a musical twist – I’m supposed to play guitar in my former band teacher’s stage band. But I’ve forgotten something – guitar, or picks, or amp, or whatever. When I go home to get what I’ve forgotten, I leave something else behind. I just can’t seem to get it together.

I have dreams about heights. I somehow find myself on top of a scaffold in a field. I’m terrified to stay up there, but if I try to climb down, my body weight will topple it.

ETA: A recurring good dream is where I discover a whole new room in my apartment.

9

My reoccurring nightmare is that I’m with the wrong spouse. I’m married to my ex again, or to any number of ex-boyfriends. I run around the dream in a panic because I know that I’m with the wrong man, but I’m befuddled and can’t actually remember who I should be with. I always end up waking up and being VERY happy that the guy next to me in bed is the right Mr. Athena, and he’s always bemused because I usually end up showing my gratitude by getting all cuddly. “Oh, I’m SO happy you’re not Joe-who-I-dated-when-I-was-18.”

10

I giggled at your giant tornado-tree dream (sorry). Welcome back, by the way.

You missed the Dopefest. I think we’re due for another soon. Really, I can stop Doping any time…really…I can!

11

I dream about losing teeth as well. I grind my teeth a lot when I sleep, and it manifests itself in-dream as clenching my jaw to keep loose teeth from falling out. (I also have dreams wherein my jaw is stuck in a way that my upper teeth are trapped behind my lower teeth, and they’re being pushed out.)

I have a lot of dreams about jobs-- both current and past. I still dream about the fast food restaurant where I worked 15 years ago. I have really boring “nightmares” similar to the one portrayed in a Calvin & Hobbes Sunday strip-- I dream a complete 8 hour day of work… every last, boring detail. Then I wake up and do it for real.

A couple of really dull things that nonetheless cause me to wake with a racing heart and cold sweat: dreams that I’m smoking a cigarette (I quit 9 years ago; in my dream I’ll be smoking and cursing myself for having no will power), or dreams that I’m somewhere in public and realize I have a mullet, so I try to cut it off without using a mirror. I guess that one’s pretty similar to dreams of being nude in public, but… y’know… the mullet’s more embarrassing.

12

I have the ‘oh no I havent studied for the final’ dreams every now and then. I hate those.

When I was a kid I saw ‘Time Bandits’ and the huge glowing face gave me ridiculous nightmares for years. Just like in the movie, everything would go all dark and windy, and then this huge face would pop up and advance on me threateningly while yelling things in a echoy booming voice. For a long time they just outright terrified me, but after a while I realized the face was talking nonsense. That took the edge off the dreams and they went away after a while.

13

I get these, but not with high school. No, I get to dream about being back in the army!! Looking exactly like I do now. :smack: The dream comes complete with my platoon leader and first sergeant in my face screaming about how I’m going to fail the PT test, and wondering how I could even keep up in the battalion run. I’m just standing there amazed that I can still fit into my uniform.

When I was in college, I had a particularly troubled long-term relationship, and every once in awhile, I dream that I’m about to meet her again for a sitdown date after 16-plus years. Or that I’m walking along a crowded street, and she suddenly appears out of the crowd. In these dreams, my feelings are pretty much a mixture of one part “Gosh, I wonder what she’s like” to four parts “Oh Christ, not this shit again!”

On edit: Oh, I also get the tornado one very occasionally. I forgot to put in in, because not only is this dream rare, but compared to the above two, it’s downright pleasant.

14

There was this girl in my group of friends in high school who I never really got along with. We never fought, we just weren’t friends. I haven’t seen her in at least a year. But for the last few months I’ve been having dreams that she’s chasing me around trying to kill me. I never have any idea why, i just keep trying to run away and hide. I’m afraid the next time I see her I will freak out.

15

I have this one a lot. I had it last night, in fact.

My version of the “naked dream” is usually that I’m not wearing shoes, and I have to find some shoes to wear, and for some reason I can’t let anyone know I’m not wearing shoes- they wouldn’t help me find shoes. One variant was in high school- I was on the bus, realized I wasn’t wearing shoes, and had to get to my gym locker where I had sneakers. I had to get past a really bitchy, stickler-for-the-rules type art teacher I had had classes with to get to my gym locker. If she had known I wasn’t wearing shoes, she would have sent me home instead of letting me get my sneakers from my locker. Another variant was just before my wedding- I was about to go down the aisle, and realized I didn’t have my shoes. They were in my car in the temple parking lot, so I went out to get them. The parking lot was suddenly about the size of the Disney World parking lot. I could see my car from a distance, but no matter where I went, I couldn’t get any closer to it. Finally the rabbi came out, found me still walking around the parking lot, and told me it was 6 o’clock, and everybody was all mad at me and everybody was going home.

Mr. Neville has teased me about my variant on the “naked dream”, and the fact that I almost never have explicitly sexual dreams- he says my dreams follow the Production Code. And for the most part, they do. I don’t know what this says about me.

I often have dreams where I’m trying to get somewhere, can often see the place I’m trying to get to, but can’t get there. There’s something I have to be there in time for, and it’s getting later and later and I’m just circling around looking for the place. This probably has something to do with the fact that I have almost no sense of direction in real life.

I have the “sitting in an out-of-control car” dream sometimes, and have for a very long time.

I have the “finding an extra room” dream, too. Once, it was under the dishwasher, and was all filled with dishwasher scunge, and I had to hose it out.

16

These are my top two! Variations on returning to school/tests/thesis due in a week/can’t find my dorm room. In fact I had that dream twice just this morning.

And the No Clean Toilets has been a standard for years now. Sometimes more often when I have to pee in real life. I guess it’s good I never find a clean toilet and pee or I might go in bed!!

17

I have two recurring nightmares that I’ve had since childhood.

Dream One: I’m running a long a path toward (but sometimes away from) this huge old house. There is a tree by the path, with branches hanging over the path. As I get under the branches a snake falls out of the tree onto me. That’s when I wake up. No idea where this came from. I actually like snakes.

Dream Two: I’m a child, and I’m playing at the seaside with my little sister. Suddenly all these seagulls fly overhead. One swoops down and pecks at my hair. It flies a way taking a huge chunk of scalp and hair with it. Then I wake up. I’m quite certain this came from watching the movie The Birds with my mom when I was little. I don’t know why she would let me do that.

18

Being in a maze of a building searching for a bathroom. All are closed or somehow out in the middle of the room, so I keep searching until I wake up and go for real.

19

Ok, this is getting scary because now we’re the same person. I dream that I can’t find my car and can’t remember whether I even drove it to work that day. Or I park it somewhere in The City and can’t remember where and I have no way to get there and check.

Yeah, why aren’t any of these pleasant? I only had that dream where Hugh Laurie told me he loved me once. :frowning:

20

Well, most of my recurring dreams have been covered by other posters. I’ve had -

  1. The dream of being back in high school / college, it being the end of the term and realizing I haven’t been to class all semester long and the exam is tomorrow, etc. In recent years, that motif has come with a twist that I KNOW that college ended 15 years ago, and I’m hanging out in a dorm room. Or I’ve gone back to college and am in my new dorm room, but my school looks completely different and I have the sense of not belonging there.

  2. Being in the back seat of a moving car with no driver, struggling to grab ahold of the steering wheel while stuck in the backseat by an unweildly seatbelt.

  3. Having all my teeth fall out.

  4. Dreaming that my work day has not ended and I’m still toiling away, waiting for when I can go home. (I had that dream a lot about 10 years ago, when I worked nights and often went straight to bed after coming home from work, with no downtime between work & bed.)

A dream I had a lot when I was an adolescent / teenager - I would be in some fairly normal situation, possibly with a few friends around. Then whoever was around would move out of the general vicinity (either walk into another room, or be far away from me & not looking in my direction). All of a sudden, a strong wind would bear down on me, knocking me to the ground and causing me to suffocate. I’d become aware of an evil mysterious presence behind me or above me or just outside my immediate field of view. That presence wants to kill me. I’d try to shout to my friends for help, but I had no voice and could barely croak out ‘help!’ My friends would be oblivious to my plight and go about their normal activities while a dire menace was bearing down on me.