# Weird Dreams, Anyone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 20, 2016, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413 "2016-09-20T04:43:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/1 "2016-09-20T04:43:31Z")
Last night I had an odd one. Apparently, Hannibal Lecter has an identical twin brother, the same in every respect, who’s even being kept in the same kind of prison cell Hannibal was being held in through most of _The Silence of the Lambs_. The difference is that Hannibal’s brother (my dream never supplied a name) was wired with something which delivered a painful electric shock every time he failed to do his masters’ dark bidding. So, what was the evil plan which required someone of that level of evil intellect to pull off? He had to get some schlub, some unqualified moron, through a PhD program in the philosophy of mathematics so they’d later feel underappreciated and go on a rampage through some poor college’s philosophy department. My dream showed me Hannibal’s brother and the idiot discussing a thesis topic for a while before I woke up. And, of course, when I woke up, I had “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” by The Hollies going through my head. A rescue scene, probably; I can’t imagine Hannibal could tolerate the indignity of his brother being used in such a fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/2 "2016-09-20T10:41:12Z")
Are you taking Dexamethasone? 1 in 2000 people get weird or bad dreams from it. The most commonly affected are men in their 50s. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/3 "2016-09-20T11:03:27Z")
Last night, I dreamed I was planting flowers in planters on my unused front steps, only it was like a Tetris game trying to get each plant to fit in the available space. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/4 "2016-09-20T15:44:03Z")
Frequently. Only one I remember right now had me driving a neat street legal ATV. That somehow changed to a radio controlled ATV by the time I woke up. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/5 "2016-09-20T16:28:41Z")
I had a dream the other night that there was a slow moving paper airplane in the show “Stranger hings” that looked much like [this weird whale looking thing.](http://gizmodo.com/a-newly-explored-undersea-volcano-is-teeming-with-alien-1786712235) ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/6 "2016-09-20T17:06:01Z")
All dreams are weird, aren’t they? I always have vivid dreams, even if I’m just having a short nap. Some of them are pretty fun, even if they’re creepy. Lately I’ve had a spate of dreams about house-hunting (since we are, kind of) and some of the dwellings I’m visiting are recurring from night to night. Lots of secret passages, houses that look like a bungalow from the outside but have five levels on the inside, houses where none of the appliances work but there’s a functional minecart in the basement. 😃 The other night I had a really vivid dream that seemed like a bad sci-fi movie. I was stuck in a Orwellian dystopia town where I didn’t really belong, and had to pass from between different areas, children in tow, with barely-plausible false papers. If I could move from point-to-point fast enough, I could escape notice of the government bots and get where I needed to go (whatever that was). Unfortunately, I wasn’t that good at it, so ended up in a burned out house with dead people inside. As I was telling my kids not to worry, that they were only dead, one of them sat up and started questioning me and it turned out to be another bot. I’ve heard it’s very common to have the dream, especially right before you wake up, where you need to use the toilet in a public place but all of them are broken or disgusting. Then you wake up and realize you really need to pee. Well, I always have those dreams, but last week I had a new variant where I was super-thirsty but every sink was broken or sprayed out disgusting stuff, and then I bought a soda but it tasted like cleaning fluid. You guessed it, I woke up really dehydrated. Since I was a kid, I’ve regularly had dreams where a mall becomes a school becomes a hospital becomes an airport that becomes a hotel. A few years ago, I went to Vegas for the first time for a convention, and realized that those kind of places really exist. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/7 "2016-09-20T17:21:26Z")
> [@Elemenopy](#): > > All dreams are weird, aren’t they? Not mine. More often they’re like little snippets of movies or lost episodes of TV shows. 'Course, sometimes it’s as if somebody got their delivery system messed up and sent me the inspiration for a Tim Burton flick. If only I weren’t on the wrong coast, I could easily be making money by selling these story ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/8 "2016-09-20T18:17:27Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Are you taking Dexamethasone? 1 in 2000 people get weird or bad dreams from it. The most commonly affected are men in their 50s. No, I get weird dreams without any drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/9 "2016-09-20T18:42:32Z")
Last night I dreamed that I was awake and trying to get to sleep. Now, it’s not the first time I’ve ever had this dream, but it does seem to be exhausting. It’s rather frustrating waking up and realizing you’ve been dreaming about trying to get to sleep. ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/10 "2016-09-20T18:46:23Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Last night I dreamed that I was awake and trying to get to sleep. Now, it’s not the first time I’ve ever had this dream, but it does seem to be exhausting. It’s rather frustrating waking up and realizing you’ve been dreaming about trying to get to sleep. Ha ha! I’m the other way around…I often dream I’m already awake and beginning to do whatever I need to do…only I’m not actually awake and doing this…and this becomes a recursion 3 or 4 times deep. :o ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/11 "2016-09-20T18:51:03Z")
I always have weird and vivid dreams, and if I try, I can usually trace them back to something in life. Last night before bed, we watched the show “Shark Tank” and a woman was trying to sell the sharks some powdered salad dressing mix. One of the sharks replied, “Why wouldn’t one of the big food companies just crush you like a cockroach?” and I thought, “What a needlessly disgusting way to say that.” Woke up in the night crying and trying to scream, from a dream about cockroaches. The bastards got me! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/12 "2016-09-20T21:34:15Z")
I have vivid dreams, but they almost always follow the same few basic scripts. Mostly entertaining scripts too, apart from the very rare vertigo one. And the alien invasion one can go either way, but eh… A couple of nights ago I had an extremely vivid one - seemingly out of nowhere - where I was trying to explain to John Cusack the order I keep my record collection in. It’s obviously a _High Fidelity_ thing, but wtf, where did that come from? I’ve not watched the film or read the book for years, and I’m not at all precious about my music. Who knows, perhaps I’m subconsciously ordering my life in some way. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/13 "2016-09-20T23:52:15Z")
I once dreamed that I was a muffler on a '57 Chevy. The noise, heat, fumes, and vibration made it a nightmare. I woke up exhausted. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/14 "2016-09-21T00:59:53Z")
I dreamed I was in Auschwitz and I convinced Mengele to operate on my foot. He was fascinated with my foot and operated so he could get into medical journals. When the time came for him to take me to the gas chambers, on my healed foot I outran him. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/15 "2016-09-21T20:58:06Z")
> [@JerrySTL](#): > > I once dreamed that I was a muffler on a '57 Chevy. The noise, heat, fumes, and vibration made it a nightmare. I woke up exhausted. Huh, I dreamed I was a little black dress. I woke up worn out. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-dreams-anyone/766413/16 "2016-09-23T00:32:14Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Huh, I dreamed I was a little black dress. I woke up worn out. I dreamed I was eating a HUGE marshmallow and when I woke up, half my pillow was gone. For Real: Two nights ago, I dreamed I was stuck on a concrete loading dock, surrounded by alligator-infested, deep water, which, of course, was rising so’s the gators could get me. Luckily, I had my cell phone, called 911 to ask if they would send a cherry picker to save me, and was told **NO, our cherry pickers are for important uses only. Goodbye!** Then I noticed the window behind me that wasn’t there two minutes before, elbowed the glass and escaped, so I could go rat out the 911 operator to the fire department. Da End