In real life, I live in a small town but regularly commute to a medium sized city which involves a trip up a highway, across a large estuary type river into the city. Just before the bridge crossing is a junction where if you turn right at it, instead of crossing the bridge, the road will take you through a small town and then through the countryside and looking to the left towards the river once in the countryside gives you some amazing views of the city across the water.
In certain dreams I’ve been having over the past two years however, I either get as far the junction before the bridge crossing, then before I know it, we are going back the opposite way down the highway and I’m left viewing the bridge and the city in the rear view mirror disappearing into the distance again, or we stop at a gas station at this junction and the driver refuses to take me any further or we take the right turn into the town and through the countryside and I’m left looking wistfully out of the car window at the rolling hills and the river beyond with the city on the other side I’ll never make it to in the dream.
Alternatively, I might have a type of dream that is nothing to do with this seemingly unreachable city but instead involves me joining something like the army or a sports team but waking up before my first mission or match.
For example, I might have enlisted in the army, then travel to my first mission, but never actually make it to my mission, as I end up waking up or I might have joined say a rugby team, but whilst we are in the changing room getting ready to go onto the pitch, I wake up.
I know all of these scenarios symbolize falling short of my goals when I’m very close to achieving them, but I’m wondering if any fellow dopers here have any interesting opinions to share on this subject?
As someone who regularly records / analyzes her own dreams frequently, that is how I interpret it. Or perhaps disappointment. My question for you is how does that relate to your conscious feelings, either in general or in relation to a specific situation?
I’m not really sure as to that, the only thing that I can think of in real life that even vaguely relates to these dreams of the unreachable city is one of my neighbors and several people in my family saying I should spend less time in this city I travel to everyday and more time in my home town. This is despite my home town having very little to offer in comparison and I’m even putting a plan of action into place to permanently relocate to this city.
The ‘can’t quite reach the goal’ dream is pretty universal. I often have dreams that I’m starting a new job but I’m running very late and can’t get myself out the door, or I’m lost in some dangerous area and can’t find my way out; or the old classic-- back in school, have an important exam, but forgot to study / can’t find the classroom / can’t move my feet to walk down the hall.
That XKCD cartoon is remarkable. I can’t count how often I’ve had similar dreams, usually related to final exams that I’m either not ready for, or don’t know when they are or where they are, or burst into the room an hour late and try to catch up. And yet, I don’t recall ever having scary dreams about my typical work life. I conclude that school at all levels must be a traumatizing experience!
I do! And that’s in addition to my scary school dreams. Not too long ago I had a dream that I was still working at my old job (which in reality I had left for a better job) in addition to working at my new job-- I was trying to juggle both jobs in the dream and suddenly realized I had spent too much time at my old job, and was probably fired from my new job.
Then there’s a hotel I worked at while putting myself through college. It was a giant, multi-story structure, with shops and offices in addition to the central hotel part. There were miles of winding corridors and freight elevators for hotel staff to get around out of site of the guests. It must have made an impression on my subconscious, because for years afterward I’d endlessly wander those hotel back corridors in my dreams.
My “school” dream is usually something along the lines of, it’s the first day of classes, I can’t find my class schedule, don’t know where I’m supposed to be, and can’t find the office where they could print me a new copy of my schedule.
Yep, this is almost exactly my school dream as well, except it’s not the first day of classes-- I’ve already missed a lot of classes and need to play catch up, but I don’t know where classes are and can’t get a new copy of my schedule.
I often do not.
I also have weird bathroom dreams-- Such as, I have to go pretty bad, but the public bathroom is very public-- it consists of a toilet out in the open in a public place where everybody can see. Or once, I was relieving myself into a urinal, but suddenly the setting transformed and I was in the middle of a public library, urinating onto a chair (all part of the dream, let’s make clear; I wasn’t sleepwalking and woke up to find myself actually in a library urinating on a chair )
I wasn’t suggesting it did have any deeper meaning. I kind of assume that weird bathroom dreams are probably as normal and universal a part of the human condition as recurring 'late for class / exam / work" type dreams are.
But maybe I’ll hear different in this thread, and find out that weird bathroom dreams are not normal, and maybe I am deranged
This is my school dream exactly but there’s another fhread for the school dream.
My most common dream is like the OP’s. Details are different every time but I have a goal that I very much want to achieve but things keep coming up and frustrating me.
For example, I want to go to a theatre and watch a movie. This entails sub-goals like: get dressed, go out the door, get in the car, drive to the theatre…
But something always interferes. When I try to go out the door, it’s stuck and needs to be disassembled to work. So I go to the kitchen to get a screwdriver but, on my way, my daughter comes crying to me that all her teeth have fallen out and she can’t find them for the tooth fairy. So I have to help her find her teeth but before I can start… All along, when I have a chance to think, I think I really want to go see that movie.
And then I remember that I didn’t get dressed.
I assume this is my most common dream because I’m an anxious sort.
My advice to the OP is that the particular city is not the issue. The issue is, for some reason, you feel frustrated.
Wow, I have those too. Not always out in the open, but often the bathroom is disgustingly dirty for some reason, and has really bizarre urinal/stall configurations. But when I have those dreams, it’s nearly always a signal that I really need to wake up and go pee.
If you’re familiar with Sandman, Dream of the Endless has templates for all categories of dreams. I like to think he enlisted Daedalus, the creator of the labyrinth that imprisoned the Minotaur. Daedalus is responsible for all the dreams where you find yourself lost, despite being in familiar surroundings.
For example, I still have dreams where I’m lost on campus, looking for my classes, and enclosed by walls and buildings that have hidden rooms, maybe work panels that open up to new but constricted worlds. Maybe I’m driving in a town or city I where I used to live, and finding new traffic patterns and routes in the turnoffs I used to pass by.
This.
I think the implicit assumption of many here is that there is a specific meaning / cause to different types of dream.
As far as we know, dreams are caused by the fairly random activation of memories, plus activation of flight or fight responses which also add a layer of emotion / salience to everything.
I love dreams; I’ve recorded all of mine for the last ~20 years, but I wouldn’t assume that they are symbolic.
It may be a sign that the OP is worried or frustrated about something, but it’s clear that these types of dreams are pretty universal, and may not be a sign of any particular waking concern, but just the subconscious doing its mysterious thing,
Yep, same here. All the toilets overflowing filth onto the floor, stuff like that. Glad I’m not the only weirdo that has that type of dream
My recurring school dream is either in HS or college. I’m near graduation - or the end of a semester - and I suddenly realize there is something I neglected to do that will cause me to fail/not graduate. But then I can’t even find the office I need to go to to correct it.
Kinda mirrors my actual situation in undergrad. I entered college w/ a bunch of credits but subsequently changed majors a couple of times. Spring break my senior year I was informed that, even tho I had >30 more hrs of credit than needed to graduate, I needed 3 more in my major. Oops! I arranged an independent study, but didn’t complete it until the final year, maing me a 5 yr student despite entering w/ approx a year’s credit. What a maroon!
I perceive dreams similarly to Mijin, and seek no meaning in them.
There is an interesting idea called threat simulation theory. It explains the prevalence of unpleasant dreams as an adaptation that allows us to simulate anticipated threats and thus cope with them more effectively in real life. It’s really little more than an idea, there are empirical data that are consistent with the hypothesis, but that could be consistent with other explanations too. But it makes a little more intuitive sense that Freud’s wish-fulfillment nonsense that he pulled out of his rear end.
I think it’s always going to be hard to rule out the null hypothesis that dreams have no deeper meaning. The only thing we can really show is that we tend to become dysfunctional if we cannot dream.
Thanks for reminding me of the dream I had a few months ago of catching a flight, but whilst at the airport, finding the boarding gate for my flight was nigh on impossible no matter what I tried to do.