For a while, but not any longer, I would have a recurring dream where even though I was 40, I was going back to high school. It was some requirement of my high school that even though we had already gone, we had to go back.
I often have dreams where I’m sitting in the back seat of a car, but I’m supposed to be driving. When it dawns on me that I need the brake, I just keep hoping that I’ll keep going along as I have been without incident. Or I will try to get into the driver’s seat, unsuccessfully for some reason. (I think this means my life is out of control and I need to take the wheel, literally.)
I used to have dreams that I had to go to the bathroom, and I wanted to try it standing up (I’m female), but I never could because someone would always inevitably walk in, or see me through a window, and no matter how hard I tried to lock the door to the bathroom in my childhood home, it would not lock and someone would walk in or be very nearby.
In a similar thread a while back, I made a list, in order of the number of Dopers who reported each type of bad dream. Your dreams seem to come in at number 7 (unusable toilets…more or less), 9 (back to school), and 11 (runaway vehicle). They’re pretty common dream types, though not as common as “unprepared for exam” and “naked at work” anxiety dreams.
Me, I have recurring dreams of being a suit of armor.
That’s kinda weird - have you watched too much Full Metal Alchemist by any chance? Being a mere blood stain bonded to a suit of plate mail does sound like nightmare material.
When I was a teenager I used to have a recurring dream that for whatever reason always frightened me. I would literally not sleep a wink after having the dream. In hindsight it’s not very scary and I remember the first time I had it was after watching an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” with the original host.
Basically I would find myself in a huge airplane hanger. While I could make out details of various planes that filled the hanger there was a mist or fog or something that obscured my vision so that I couldn’t actually see the true depths of the hanger. I couldn’t see the entrance nor the walls, although I knew they were close to me.
I would wander around this hanger, all the while with a deepening sense of dread. I didn’t consciously know where I was going, but each time I had the dream I would move with a sense of purpose. I would eventually come to a plane that ‘felt right’ and I would stand there for a while. I wouldn’t know what I was waiting around for, but each time I would be on a constant look out for something. Eventually as I was looking around a man in a trench coat and Indiana Jones style hat would walk up to me. As I said, I had been previously looking around, yet this man (I think it was a man) would suddenly appear in my field of vision. I would be facing one direction, look briefly in another direction, and all of a sudden he was about ten paces away from me.
I wouldn’t be able to make out much about this man. He was about my height and no matter how close he got I couldn’t make out his face. I feel as though that one of the times I had the dream I did see his face - or rather, his utter lack of a face. Where his nose and eyes should have been there was nothing. Just a blank canvas.
He would come up to me, not saying a word. I wouldn’t look directly at him, yet each time he would start to raise his hand. At first it looked like a normal hand. It was only through careful scrutiny that I saw that his flesh was sliced up - not like it was cut with a knife. It was as though the missing pieces had never been there to begin with. As though his hand and arm were simply missing geometrical chunks. This would terrify me to the point of waking up.
I had this dream at least a dozen times and it would never progress further than the mysterious man raising his arm.
I used to have “unusable toilet” pretty regularly, but I rarely do now except when I have to pee in real life. I still have a variety of student nightmares (most common these days is not being able to find the office to sign up at, or the building/classroom) but also ones about people I used to be close to but now don’t talk to anymore.
want2befree, I have a similar recurring dream to your high school dream, but it involves me going back to university. It always happens that I’ll be enrolled in a course, but then I’ll miss a lot of the classes, and the final exam is coming up, and I’m desperately trying to cram as hard as possible for the final exam. Even though I graduated from university in 2007 and therefore I’ve finished all my courses, I still have this dream every once in a while. I used to think I was the only one who hhad this kind of dream, but I’ve since learned that others have had similar dreams.
My other recurring dream is one that I haven’t had recently, but that still crops up every once in a while. It’s a dream that I’m at a campfire and I’ve forgotten to bring the marshmallows. This one stems from when I used to be in a youth orchestra, and we’d go to a music camp once a year, and I’d bring marshmallows for the campfire.
On the subject of toilet dreams, I do somewhat often have dreams that I really have to go to the bathroom and the only place to do it is a toilet out in the open somewhere where people can see me. I think this comes from my real-life uncomfortableness about public bathrooms.
The only recurring dream I recall happened when I was still a kid living at home. It involved, among other things, Indians (like from John Wayne movies) stalking around my neighborhood - altho I never saw them, I saw their footprints in the pavement in front of the house. And later in the dream, my little Polish grandmother would be rasslin’ a bear.
I’m sure there’s a deeply rooted psychosis revealed in there…
Nah, the dream has its own whole mythology. It has similarities to Al’s situation, in that I’m reborn as various sorts of armor, but it’s a role I took on willingly, to protect others who were dragged unprepared into a war. It’s not really a nightmare, just…weird.
I had those same kind of dreams when I was graduating college, and felt homesick for the campus. Were you going through some kind of career or relationship transition at the time?
I dreamed about a mysterious house where something bad had happened; generally the location of the house was Hatch NM. This stopped after I visited Hatch and saw that the only alarming thing about it was the giant fiberglass sculptures.
I also dreamed about a gang of terrorists coming to visit me and wanting to be my friends. I’d have to hide them in the closet when my parents were around. This one stopped after I saw a movie about the terrorists.
A variation on the missed class dream (which I’ve also had): I had a career in the military, so I often dream that I suddenly realize that we have to catch a troop plane somewhere and I haven’t even begun to pack my shit up. I also have a LOT of dreams where I’m driving, usually in snowy weather.
I haven’t had recurring dreams in a long time but I had some real cool ones right after my divorce when I was about 40. I had a job something like a blacksmith or toolmaker in the castle. I took care of horses and made tools and weapons for some of the nights. The princess who was a teenager would often come and visit with me and one of my jobs was to escort her on horseback rides. I was always covered in soot and sweat and the princess was fresh and clean. In the dream I would avoid looking at her but she constantly flirted with me and wanted to hang out. Thier was a definite attraction on my part but it never seemed to ever approach a sexual level.
