I have that dream a lot too, except that it’s not a nightmare. I’m being chased by people who want to do terrible things to me, but they can’t catch me. I can run like an Olympian, and jump like a superhero. I love those dreams. They’re like staring in an action movie.
I used to have the dream where you come into class and there’s a big test you totally forgot about and didn’t study for. After it happened to me in real life - twice - I stopped having them altogether.
I’ve never had a dream where I could fly, but I frequently have a dream where I suddenly remember that I can levitate. All I have to do is jump in the air and flex the muscles in my legs just so, and I can stay in mid-air indefinetly, so long as I keep my legs flexed. I can also scoot around about a foot in the air at a god rate. This dream is often conflated with the “being chased” dream.
Oh, and I also frequently dream that my teeth are loose and/or falling out. I hate that one.
I have had that dream! Not in the last year or so, thank Og. Mine didn’t crumble, they just fell out painlessly. I would wake up clutching frantically at my mouth.
I also have this drem, but at some point I realize that I am dreaming, and everything is happening in my mind, therefor, I have complete control. I usually end up stepping right into the path of the pursuers. They usually shoot me or maul me, or whatever it is they do, but the bullets bounce off me, or the claws paanss through me, etc. Then I pull an axe out of thin air and cut them to pieces, or command them to burn (a commd which they obey), or fly high into the sky and come sreaming down to crush them, or something.
I also have dream where something that’s realy, realy good (but ridiculusly inprobable) happens to me. For example, once I had to rush through a burning building, and kill a few elephants (I don’t know why but I did have to) to find a buitiful princess who fell in love with me. Then I married her, and became a King. I always get disappointed when I wake up, and it hasn’t happened. Especially with that example.
I still don’t know why I dream these dreams. But I usually have at least one per week. I’m considering keeping a ‘toilet dream diary’ since they are so fantastical.
anyway, i’m glad we share the dreams. I don’t feel so crazy.
“And you may tell yourself/
“This is not my beautiful house!”/
And you may tell yourself/
This is not my beautiful wife!”/
And you may ask yourself/
“My God, what have I done?”
David Byrne
Methinks, Mr. Byrne had that dream too!
Seriously though, I often have the dream about “being back in school, end of semester and haven’t been to a single class” AND the dream about “my old house, all the forgotten rooms” - or in my case rooms I didn’t know existed at all. I also frequently dream about bodies of water, but in my dreams it is frequently a very large indoor swimming pool.
One thing I’ve noticed about my dreams is that they invariably involve wandering around in labyrinthine, underground spaces. Rooms and corridors open into still more hallways and chambers, and on and on.
Recently, I’ve been having a recurring dream in which I am on a camping trip with a bunch of my old junior high school friends (whom I actually did go camping with frequently in the boy scouts). I absent-mindedly wander away from the campsite for a short time, only to return and find out that my “friends” are gone! While I was out of sight, they’d packed up & abandoned me. I always inherently know that their departure was a deliberate move – they didn’t just forget me, they purposefully ditched me. I spend the rest of my dream feeling sorry for myself and lamenting how betrayed I feel.
My “nightmare” creature is snakes. Usually a pair of them, or hordes of them filling up every corner of the room I’m in. They hiss and slither and wag their tongues in my faces, and I can’t get away from them.
bouv and Snakescatlady – an old acquaintance who was good at interpreting dreams told me about the dream about losing your teeth. She said it was a common dream, one that typically suggested that the dreamer deeply regrets something he or she said. Essentially, it’s your subconscious shaming you and saying “you should have kept your mouth shut.”
All of the dreams I remember are nightmares. I scream and moan and cry in my sleep. Bizarre. Anyway, there do seem to be some recurring themes…
*My teeth fall out. At first, I notice one is loose, and then I push it with my tongue and it falls out. And then another one. And another. And they crumble into pieces.
*I am forced to return to high school and redo every year. They can find no proof that I graduated or attended in the past. It is just as hellish as it was the first time around.
*Long before I was pregnant or even considered such a thing, I would dream that I suddenly had a baby. Then I would misplace it. Sometimes I would find I had put it under the kitchen sink with the household chemicals. Sometimes, I would put the carseat on the roof of the the car and forget about it. Sometimes I would forget I have a baby altogether until others would freak out and ask me what I did with it.
I used to have a very weird dream…and i still puzzle about it. basically, i would fall asleep, then dream that i was falling doen a big staircase-eI’d be rolling doen, hitting my head on every step. When i hit the bottom, I’d wake up!
I wonder what that was all abouit?
And how was i (in the dream) semi-conscious enough to know that upon hitting the floor, i would wake up?
I’ve read that the teeth falling out dream has something to do with concern about your appearance, which fits me (at least, it fits me better than being ashamed about something I said. That happens extremely rarely.)
I often dream about my childhood home, except that it’s never quite right. It always ends up with rooms and elements from other places I’ve lived, and people are all the wrong ages.
I also have many dreams where I’m looking for something or someone. It’s never exactly the same but it’s always a very frustrating feeling. Sometimes it’s opening drawers and looking under things to find the remote, and sometimes I’m asking everyone on the street if they’ve seen a friend of mine but nobody speaks my language.
All this week, I’ve dreamt about kissing. At least I wake up with a smile!
I just remembered another one I used to have frequently but not any more.
I’m skiing really fast in a race and I crest a jump and because I’m going faster than I should I fly higher than expected. I begin coming down from being hundreds of feet in the air at a tremendous rate of speed. Just before I hit the ground with a fatal impact, I wake up with my heart pounding 100 miles an hour. Eventually I could kind of control how high I would rise. I was never able to keep from falling.
I have one really odd dream that has reoccured at least fives times.
In my dream, i go to a small ocean city near some small mountains that in real life i have never seen. there, in my first dream, i visited this town for a vacation. Then i had another dream that i moved there and bought a condo. another time i was at work there and i have had two other dreams where i just camping out. in all of the dreams, i am doing normal everyday activities. The weird thing is that the dreams are extraordinarily vivid and realistic and the town is always the same. Right now, I can still tell you how to get to the convenience store, where the ice cream store is, where the condo I bought is (southern side of the main street park about a block from the ice cream store) and how to get to the beach.
I have never been there. The town is like no place I have ever been.
When much younger, I used to have a recurrent dream of being faced with an impossible task to accomplish (the tasks would vary). Fear of failure was the common theme. Have not had any of those dreams in a long long time. I also remember when I realized that I can control what I can do in my dreams – sort of a dream awareness that allowed to do fantastic things while in dreamland. Flying was my favorite. If I had a nightmare, I was able to wake up right before something bad happened to me. These days my dreams reflect stuff that’s been on my mind during the day, and it’s rare that I can recall much details once awake.
In real life I was married to a girl that pretty much broke my heart and dumped me. For 15+ years after, I would have the same dream about once or twice a month. I would be attending a party or wedding reception alone with plans to meet my spouse there. When she arrived she would be with another guy and all the other guests would be acting like this was the most normal thing in the world. I was shocked and hurt and angry but for some reason, in the dream I had to act like I was totally cool with it too. I would wake up shaking with anger and exhaustion from holding in my real feelings.
So back in reality (about a year ago) I run into her after not seeing her all those years and I haven’t had the dream since.
I have this exact dream too! Mine has the variation of discovering that the hidden rooms are usually covered in dust because they’ve been neglected so long and my dreams usually end with me cleaning out them out. Quite sure that means something…
The other dream I have a lot is the teeth falling out one. Truly one of the more disturbing nightmares I’ve ever had.
I have the falling dream a lot, particularly if I’m staying at my parents.
If I put away my laundry right before bed, then I’ll more likely than not have a nightmare about laundry in some way, shape or form that night. My roommates find this very amusing. I must admit I do, too, once I wake up.
I also have rare but vivid nightmares about being raped. I stay freaked out about them for days. Very irksome. Makes me wish for nightmares about laundry.
On a similar note, I sometimes dream that I wake up at the sound of my alarm clock and go about my usual routine of showering, brushing teeth, getting ready for work, and sometimes even actually getting to work and starting my day, then I wake up and realize that it was all a dream. I am then filled with the thought that I don’t feel like taking another shower because I seemingly just took one.
An amazingly high percentage of my dreams take place in amusement parks, I know not why. The plots and characters change but they setting is frequently an amusement park. I had one several years ago that I remember to this day because it was so vivid. I was riding a ferris wheel, and when I got to the top I saw a trio of men in gray trenchcoats and fedoras on the ground. They weren’t doing anything but standing there, but I just knew they were up to something terrible, like sabotaging one of the rides or something. I didn’t feel like I was in danger myself or that the ferris wheel was their target, but they were planning some sort of mayhem and I had an overwhelming sense of urgency and frustration because I had to warn the people on the ground and I knew the ride wouldn’t be over in time for me to get off and do anything about it.
Department stores are a close second in frequency in my dreams, and snakes often make an appearance. I don’t have any fear of snakes, they’re just sort of there.
I have the extra rooms dreams too. The rooms are either bare or full of neat stuff, but never dusty or neglected looking.
I don’t have the typical “Final exam day and I never attended class” dream, but I will often dream that I’m back in high school for some reason. I try to explain that I graduated and am now in college, or graduated from college and working in the real world (depending on when I had the dream) but for some reason I had to go back. Like a missed a credit or something.
I had a lot of weird/bad/disturbing wedding dreams. Most recent one was I was a young bride, maybe in the 12-15 year old range. I think I was from a culture that marries their girls off young, maybe Hispanic. (Not a comment on the culture of Hispanics, I’m not sure if they do that in real life or not. But in my dream world that’s how it went.) I didn’t want to get married but my mom would not let me back out. I remember being in my dress and veil on the day of the wedding and wandering off into the basement to kill myself. They always end badly. Oddly enough, since I met Bird Man they stopped.
Sometimes I am being chased and I try to run but it’s like I’m moving in molasses. Then I try to yell but I can’t go above a whisper. Those dreams aren’t scary so much as frustrating!
I dream about flying, and I always thing “Gee, I remember doing this before. I wonder why I forgot how?” Then I wake up and realize “Ah, because it’s not real. Ok.”
I dream that I have done something that would upset or anger my mom if she found out, and now I have to cover it up to avoid punishment. Usually it involves my owning more pets than she deems reasonable. This is true in real life, she and Dad never had more than one pet at a time whereas I have had in the house 4 rats, 3 cats and a dog all at once. (Now it’s 3 cats, a dog and a tank of fish) In the dream it’s taken to the extreme—they have all bred or I rescued too many from the pound, and now I have rats pouring out of my chest of drawers or cats and dogs crammed neck high. I have to hide them all before mom comes to visit! Aaaahg, put this rat into this shoebox, this one goes in the medicine cabinet, hide this one in my shirt! I always wake up before she finds me, and always very relieved, after a few moments of panic. Dad is never a key player in those dreams, it’s always my mom.
