Inspired by this thread, which describes several dreams I’ve never had, and others I’ve only had divergent variations on, I thought I’d ask which of my recurrent dreams are akin to those that other folks have had, and also encourage others to post their own recurrent dreams for the rest of us to [del]giggle about[/del] compare and contrast.
• Not Quite Flying dream #1 — I never dream that I can fly, but I often dream that I can rather slowly and awkwardly swim in the air, more or less like treading water (vertical posture, making swirly motions with hands and feet). It wouldn’t get me to Cincinnati or even across town as efficiently as public transportation would, but it’s nevertheless quite fun & exhilirating in its own right and I’m always annoyed & feel quite cheated to wake up and rediscover that no, I can’t actually DO that.
• Not Quite Flying dream #2 — Similarly, I dream of being an agile jumper, going down flights of steps by leaping over 7 or 8, hopping from landing to landing and skipping stairs in between and landing lightly when I do, then it becomes 12 or 16, making these long graceful arcs OVER surfaces instead of alighting on them & yet somehow not picking up ridiculous speed & momentum, until as long as I’m not trying to actually gain altitude I scarcely have to touch down at all. This, also, is a lot of fun.
• Naked in Public — Similar but not identical to the typical “naked in public” type dreams… I’m one of those people who is not disturbed by being the focus of a lot of not-all-favorable attention, which is something that gets integrated into this dream; I leave the apartment or dorm room & have a moment’s anger at myself (“Oh yeesh I forgot to put clothes on, I can’t go out like this”) then decide to just go with it and to hell with what other people think. And so I treat it as much the same as daring to show up in jeans where people typically wear suit & tie, or having hair dyed bright green, something like that, and go about my business in banks and on subways and in grocery stores & whatnot; gradually in the dream I become increasingly aware of how ANGRY people are, and how DISTURBED and that the prevailing sentiment is that this cannot be allowed to occur, and although I keep brazening it out I become increasingly convinced that this is not going to end well and that some kind of coercive intervention is probably waiting for me around the next corner, all because I was too lazy to go back in and put some freaking clothes on.
Most of my dreams are not very coherent, and these are unusual not just in being recurrent but in making enough sense that I can fasten on to what they were about and not have them blow away like smoke when I wake up.
My often create a sort of fanfiction in my dreams. A few nights ago I dreamed that the Starship Enterprise (ST:TNG) ended up stranded on the LOST island.
Trains, planes and, er, more trains. Do people dream about trains? They’re a common feature of my dreams and it’s always a positive one - they turn up in good, interesting dreams that seem to reflect mental well being.
My stress dream is running around a vast airport trying to catch my flight but never being able to. Suspect that’s a common variation on a theme.
I’m always very, very happy. Sometimes a little scared, but thrilled.
There are a lot of variations- like in one, I was big and pregnant and had not told anyone about it because throughout the pregnancy, there was always one person or another I felt deserved the attention more. And in the most recent, I was in labor and a friend of mine had just been having an ultrasound or something down the hall with like her entire family and mine there for her.
In these dreams, I always feel a little overwhelmed, like I’m just realizing I’m pregnant myself and haven’t prepared yet. Like I’ll realize I haven’t been to the doctor yet, haven’t had an ultrasound, haven’t picked out a name, don’t know the sex, don’t know exactly how far along I am, etc… The issue of who the father is never comes up and nobody ever makes an appearance to fill that role.
And then at some point, I always realize I’m not really pregnant. Not that it’s a dream, just that I was mistaken or something happened to the baby or something and I couldn’t possibly be pregnant. And I’m devastated, but for whatever reason, I can’t turn to anyone for sympathy- either because I haven’t told anyone I was pregnant in the first place, because they’re all too busy with someone else, or because I’m too ashamed of myself for being happy and thinking I was pregnant when it was just all a mistake.
In reality, I’ve never been pregnant and do not want to be at least for a few more years.
Last night’s dream was about me having to move. In this dream we realized I still had a bunch of stuff to move that I had somehow missed - mostly in shopping bags/garbage bags.
Along with that - there were 2 sets of cats. One was a pair of slightly older cats, the other were very young little kittens. I ended up bringing the very little kittens with me because they wouldn’t make it. But the older ones I tried to bring to a cattery but when I got there, it was out of business and there were just a bunch of feral and straggly cats roaming around. I panicked and just let the 2 older cats out with all the feral cats - a few that hissed at them and scared the cats. But I just couldn’t care for 2 sets of cats. So I went off and left them.
I felt guilty about it - and told some friends - and thought about going back - but realized that they had probably fled and I would never be able to find them. But I thought I should go back anyway. But I really wasn’t supposed to have cats in the first place - and now I had 2 kittens to take care of.
I did just move - and I went from living with a woman who had 3 cats (one died while I lived there - so she has 2 now) to living by myself without any cats. I’m glad I don’t have to care for cats anymore. But I would never willingly let any cats suffer - so I can’t believe that I would really just dump 2 cats out to fend for themselves.
Guess I’m feeling guilty about focusing on the new things in my life, and abandoning some of the things in my life that have been there a while?
I dream a lot about trains, but it’s easily explained by me being a railfan and model railroader. Watching and operating trains, big and small, is something that gives me pleasure.
I also dream a lot about tornadoes, always in the context that I’m a storm chaser or observer. I dream a lot about stuff I like.
I’ve also had the dreams where I find the solution to a real-life problem, and it works.
I used to have a weird and terrifying dream…thank God I don’t have it any more.
I was in a deserted city, walking down the street. All of a sudden, I walked past abuilding with big plate glass windows…inside, I saw masked and gowned figures that appeared to be doctors in an operating room…when I looked closer, I saw that they were not doctors-they were morticians, working on corpses.
I didn’t want to see this, so I turned a corner and walked away-only to run into another such building!
I turned around, 180 degrees, and as I walked forward, I saw the same horrible tableau in fron t of me!
I couldn’t get away from these horrible scenes!:eek:
I remember vividly having a dream where the way I could fly was by leaning on my pillow. It had a string on it - kind of like the string on a bow and arrow - and I had to pull the string every so often to keep myself afloat. When I didn’t pull often enough, I would end up having to run along the ground while pulling the string to get myself up in the air again. The problem was that when I wasn’t pulling the string, it got looser and so it was harder to pull - but the more I pulled it the tauter it got.
Usually in my dreams, I was flying over the street where I lived - just kind of arcing along.
I used to live in Austin, TX, from 1966-1979. Starting around the mid-80s or so, I began having a recurring dream, about once a month, in which I am riding a bicycle to Austin. I’m usually in a different place, but I’ve got a bike and my destination is Austin.
My oddball recurrent dream from the last few years is about doorways. In various dreams these have been doorways in houses, in caves, on trails, pretty much anywhere that a normal path leads to a dorrway that is very difficult to get through. Usually involves climbing up on boxes or rocks and needing to squeeze through, often with a big drop on the other side. Self-analyzing it’s probably because I have taken a non-traditional route to the executive career I have now, and every time I need to make a job change it’s horrendously difficult to get people to give me an interview, regardless of my experience and refences. Just don’t have the right degree.
When I was young, my recurrent dream was my older brother dying or being killed by something while I tried to get indifferent adults to do something. Probably because my older brother had severe asthma as a child and “Dan can’t breathe, must go to hospital” was a monthly occurrence for a while.
My recurring flying dream is similar, although I don’t have to wave my arms; I can just think about it and float around.
The frustrating thing is that this dream takes place in a world where such a thing would be just as astounding as in the real world, but no one is ever impressed.
I used to have these really lucid dreams where I could jump really high or hover above the ground indefinitely. And by really high, I mean like 20 feet, not miles up or anything. They used to be so real I’d get mad when I woke up. Man I was flying! Well, sorta. Stupid dreams.
I had horses as a teenager and in my twenties I would often dream that I had forgotten that I had a horse, and I’d go up to the paddock and the horse would be in a terrible state. Thankfully I don’t get those dreams any more, although I do often have ‘I can’t believe I had forgotten about X’ type dreams.