Since childhood, I’ve had the same reoccuring nightmare about Snufalufagus (yes, from Sesame Street) pulling me under the bed and (presumably) eating me. I used to have it once or twice a month, it’s less frequent now.
Similar to missbunny and sandra_nz, the other one I have alot is the one where I suddenly remember that I have a gerbil or other small, cage-bound pet that I haven’t fed in weeks. I rush to the cage to find it filthy. Sometimes the animal is still alive, sometimes it’s dead, sometimes the cage is empty. Weird.
These days, “haven’t been to classes” is my most common nightmare. It’s close to 20 years since I graduated from college, but I still have that dream once in a while.
The most awful dreams I’ve had, though, were the ones I had as a pre-teen. These dreams didn’t involve violence, sex, nudity, or anything overtly disturbing. Instead, I would dream that someone was repeating something over and over. They’d be saying something inane (“Every fifth dime is a red dime” or “Swans sing before they die” or something equally nonsensical) in a monotonous, serious voice, as though it was extremely important. I’d have no idea why they were saying it, and I’d be unable to get them to shut up.
Haven’t had a dream like that in nearly 30 years, and it still gives me the creeps.
Details always go fuzzy after I wake up, but I remember getting chased around a lot in my nightmares–sometimes by angry howling mobs, sometimes robbers with guns, sometimes werewolves or zombies.
It’s really odd that always–and only–in my nightmares do I get the ‘falling’ sensation before waking up.
Mine don’t involve not being able to find a clean toilet, but I occasionally dream that I’m in a co-ed bathroom where the stalls are all facing each other and don’t have doors.
A frequent one that I have is getting in a major verbal fight with a family member and being bitterly angry at them. Sometimes it’s with one of my brothers, but more often it’s with one of my parents. It disturbs me.
I’ve had another odd one lately. It’s just popped up over the past several months. In this dream, I’m infected by some discusting parasite. The type of parasite varies, but it’s never a real parasite that people get. Rather, it’s some odd thing made up by my brain. They always completely gross me out and absolutely terrify me. These nasty things are growing on me! I try desparately to find a doctor or get to the ER, but I’m always thwarted: the doctor won’t see me, the ERs are all shut down, I can’t find the hospital, etc.
It’s odd because (as gross as it is), it’s far more fearful in the dream than it would be in real life. I’m completely and utterly terrified, and I usually wake up in a cold sweat. The other odd thing is, I’m far from a germophobe. I don’t worry about parasites or germs in my waking life. I have no idea where this dream could have come from. Luckily, I only have it once a month or so.
As I said above, one of the things I discovered in analysing my own dreams over an extended period of time was that the people in my dreams seldom represented the actual people. Most often they represented various parts of myself.
For a few examples:
My older sister is strong and sharp tongued. Too sharp. In my dreams, I believe that she represents those aspects of myself.
My younger sister is very successful. Her and her husband are very well off and she has three children. She represents that Wealth & Family Dreams desire in me (personally having neither).
A former friend named Randy used to appear in my dreams. Hasn’t in several years now because I’d dealt with those aspects of myself. But Randy was a lazy unreliable moocher. And that’s what he represented in me, those aspects, however true or untrue.
So take a look at the people who appear in your dreams and consider what they mean to you, how you see them in real life, how you are interacting with them in your dreams. It may well be that this bitter anger in your dreams is because there is something negative about yourself that you strongly dislike and it is being represented in your dreams by those individuals.
There -is- something growing inside you. A pattern of behavior, a belief, a way of being, that on some level absolutely disgusts you. But no one in your life sees anything wrong with that pattern, or maybe they just don’t see it at all.
But deep down, you know it’s there, and it’s bothering you. Because you don’t want to be that way. It’s a foreign body, feeding on you.
I also have one where my husband has done something terrible that I’m extremely angry about. We have a huge fight that ends with me saying that I’m leaving him. He laughs and says he doesn’t care, and no matter how upset I get or how loud I yell, he just brushes me off and won’t pay attention to me. It makes me feel so insignificant.
I’m male and not American and I get that dream from time to time. It’s often some vast Victorian or Edwardian complex with scores of toilets. They’re not necessarily too dirty to use, there’s just something slightly wrong with each one. It’s strange, it’s not like I’m all that fussy or uptight in real life.
With all due respect to Chimera, this isn’t the first time that I’ve found out that lots of people have this dream, or the one about teeth falling out. So if you believe in dreams having universal meanings there must be something quite fundemental about these ones. The interpretation of the toilet one that I’ve seen in books is something to do with having irrational reasons for not expressing your creativity.
Ooh, I DO have irrational reasons for not expressing my creativity! Hell, my neuroses in that area practically define me. Like they say about acting – but I’m sure it’s true of any art – it’s all about being private in public. I never would have made that connection though, because I’m pretty fussy about germs and I figured my subconscious mind was just as OCD!
I have teeth dreams too. It’s kind of like I have tetanus, and can’t open my jaw. I have to pry my mouth open with my hands, but then it just snaps back shut. Sometimes it snaps shut misaligned with my lower teeth in front of my upper teeth, and my teeth splinter and crack.
I just hope it isn’t causing me to grind my teeth in my sleep.
I thought I didn’t have that one because I don’t worry about catching diseases from toilet seats- the Perfect Master said you can’t, and I’m not at all a germophobe. But this would mean I don’t have it because I have no creativity- I certainly don’t express creativity in anything. Oh, poo
You may well be right about that particular dream and the larger theory.
It would serve us right if a dream about not being able to take a shit for hygiene reasons was really about thwarted creativity. There’s just something so completely right in that idea.
For my own part: I’m not making any claims of mastery or expertise here, let me make that clear. I’ve already shown that I don’t have all the answers and that I’m not afraid to admit when I have no fucking clue or when I’m just guessing. There are dreams in this thread that I’ve ignored because I got nothing.
All I really have is several years of analysing my own dreams combined with my general talent as a (computer) analyst* and problem solver.
I could be wrong, your milage may vary, offer not valid in outer Nutjobland, some assembly required.
Not currently employed in that field, but looking to return. If you’re impressed, live in the Minneapolis area and work in IT management…Give me a job!!!
I have the teeth one more than anything. Sometimes they dissolve like buttermints (the worst), other times they break off into bloody nubs, sometimes they just fall out. I probably need to go to the dentist *and *the head doctor.
Then I have a weird one where walking is actually jumping. I take a step and I rise high into the air, above the clouds. Going up is fun, but coming down is really scary, even though I know that the next step will just bounce me back up. It’s a recurring “fun but scary” dream.
I used to have a recurring dream about my ex-boyfriend stabbing me in the lower back with a screwdriver while I sleep. When I wake up I try to scream and can’t. Those went away a few years ago, thankfully.
I haven’t had nightmares in a long time. I do remember having the dreams where I was being chased by a monster as a kid. Usually my dreams leave my memory so quickly, crumble like sand as soon as I wake. I did have a dream of a wedding probably a year ago that I remembered every detail of when I woke, and still remember a lot of it even now. I was going to a very fancy wedding dinner. I was dressed as beautifully as a bride myself. Everyone arriving for the dinner was just so beautifully dressed. We arrived in cars to a location where there was a “reversed” building. I don’t know what else to call it. It was about a five story building, but it was dug into the ground. There were no roof, no stairs or elevators or any way to get down. I noticed that people were just jumping in in their fancy clothes! They would fall at the speed you would expect them to fall for the first half or so of the distance down, and then they would slowly, gradually decelerrate to a gentle landing at the bottom. The room was huge and beautiful and very old and stately looking. I’m not sure how it was lit, as there were no ceilings to hang lights from, but it was just a beautiful room. I watched this for a long time before I decided to jump too. I was concerned that somehow these other people were doing something I couldn’t see, but I had no one I could ask, so I just jumped. I remember the sensation of falling, almost freefall for the first while. Then the air got thicker, more substantial, and it slowed me down. I landed on my feet, ever so gently on the floor. I loved arriving so much that I never did go to dinner. I spent my time going up and then back down again. To go up, you just had to think “up,” and you would rise to the surface. Anyway, it was an extremly pleasant dream. I wonder sometimes why I remember it so clearly.
I was just posting about this in the ‘were you afraid of nuclear war’ thread. I have had recurring nightmares about the end of the world since I was a sci-fi reading preteen. I had them at least once a month - usually nukes, sometimes plague - once a flood. They were scary but even worse was the feeling of depair. Just awful. After 9/11, they stopped cold - until a month ago. It was another apocalyptic something or other, the only difference - and I am not making this up - is that I, as a female survivor, was morally compelled to repopulate the earth with Clive Owen! Needless to say, best dream ever.
