I rarely have dreams that I remember, and the ones described here, many of which are considered common experiences for most dreamers, are even rarer. I’ve been naked among clothed people once, I’ve never had the “unprepared” ones, and I’m very rarely chased by things and can’t get away (although it has happened on occasion). I guess my most commonly occurring bad dream is when I have to fight someone and I throw punches and they’re just blocked, somehow, not by the other guy or by his limbs coming in the way by accident or anything, but just blocked in some ethereal manner, and I realize that I’ve pissed off the guy even more and I still can’t manage to hit him. Anyone recognise this?
Much worse than bad dreams are really good dreams, the ones you wish were reality. A few nights ago I had this dream about a girl that I really wanted to ask out in reality but didn’t (for a good reason actually, for once), and in the dream she called me and asked me out and we went out and had a blast and got into a relationship with each other and were really happy.
Then I woke up, really really happy. For a short while. Until I realised it was a dream and I was still in my usual life. Pissed me right off, it did. Those are the dreams I really hate.
I have the car heading towards other traffic too - not fast, but not dead slow either. The feeling is of increasing powerlessness, frustration and fear as I move from the normal nonchalance of touching the brake to stamping on it with all my weight…
I’ve also had the “haven’t gone to a college course for the entire semester” thing, but they stopped about 5 years ago (when I had been out of college for >5 years!)
I’ve also had the multitiered dream, too, and it is annoying when you think you’ve awoken several times, only to find you’re in another layer of a dream. Then you spend your whole day wondering if you’re still in a dream (like the previous poster in the thread mentioned.)
My public bathroom dreams are neither preludes to a full bladder nor bad dreams, oddly enough. But they are memorable since I dream in black and white usually and black and white is a very good medium for grungy, severe, echoey, drippy, noir-ish public bathrooms.
I also regularly have dreams about elevators–ones where you have to lie back and they whip around in a circle to get you to your floor, ones that go really fast, ones that never stop on the right floor or let you out somewhere strange.
My most common one: I’m driving in a car or a van, try to brake and I can’t press on the brake pedal hard enough to get the car to stop. (Not that I’m weak, but that the brake pedal is really hard to press.) And then (and this is the part that is common to all of these), I wrap my arms under the steering wheel and pull up on it so that I can get more leverage on the brake pedal. Sometimes I’m pulling up so hard that the steering wheel starts to bend. I can never stop the car, but I also never seem to crash into anything.
I have one a little like that, too! I’m on a beach, and there are huge waves in the water. I run to the back of the beach to get away from them (there’s a street or boardwalk or something behind the beach), but they still come in and swamp the place where I am.
I decided to do an informal tally of the dreams mentioned so far. My groupings are somewhat arbitrary, and may not reflect whether a dream is a once-off or a recurring nightmare. If a dream had elements of more than one major category, I tallied it in both.
It looks like “Unprepared for exam” is the leader, by a fair margin. That doesn’t seem unexpected, especially on this board. I am a bit surprised at the flood [sorry] of unusable toilet dreams…
30–Unprepared for exam
23–Teeth loose/falling out
20–Naked/inappropriately dressed
12–Trying to run and can’t move fast enough
10–Unprepared for performance (play/recital/speech/court)
10–Running/hiding from killers/monsters
9–Unusable toilets
8–Can’t dial phone
7–Back to school
7–Late/can’t get somewhere
6–Runaway vehicle
6–Job gone awry (overwhelmed, screwed up, boss yelling)
5–Fighting, but can’t affect enemy (weak/blocked)
5–Elevators
5–Can’t see (blind/can’t open eyes/can’t see to fight or read)
4–Can’t find/open locker/class/dorm
4–Trying to scream/yell and can’t
4–Multiple awakenings
4–Living in a strange/bizarrely changed place
4–Weird stuff in the sky (swirls, extra moons, etc)
4–Choking/mouthful of gum
4–Disfigured or self-mutilated (Balloon hands?)
3–Misjudged/missing/abandoned and ignored/no one cares
3–Inappropriate sex partner
3–Trying to find/rescue someone
3–Falling
3–Zombies
2–People replaced by monsters
2–Sleep paralysis dream (can’t move, something in the room)
2–Pregnant/unwanted baby
2–Crossing an unsafe/collapsing bridge
2–Noise won’t stop
2–Big wave
1–Tornadoes
1–Giant spiders
1–SO cheating on you
1–Ghosts
1–Claustrophobic (roof lowering)
1–Problems snowballing/comedy of errors
1–Bears
1–Lost skill (can’t throw a frisbee properly)
1–Scary aircraft
1–Plane falling on you
1–Can’t perform crucial task (Possibly similar to the phone dream)
1–Oblivion/loss of self
1–Contact lens problems (can’t put in or remove)
1–Ethilrist’s wife jumping out of the closet and yelling, “Gotcha ya!”
Of those, the teeth dream & the gotta-yell-but-no-sound dream are probably the most common for me. I think I’ve had just about every dream people mentioned, here.
another one I have that wasn’t in the first page of results: swallowing strange/large objects. You feel the thing slide down your throat.
Balance, seeing them listed out is really interesting!
I’m amazed that Can’t Dial Phone is so common, this is probably my most frequent nightmare. Usually (but not always), it’s a rotary dial phone and it’s the last number that messes up. Other times I’m having trouble dialing because my vision is fading in and out. Dreaming about dialing a phone always struck me as so mundane that I never considered that other people might do it.
Unprepared for Performance is another one fairly high on my list. In my case, it’s a play that I was actually in, like in 8th freakin’ grade, and apparently everyone else in the cast got the memo that we would be expected to perform it 25 years later. Now, I am sure there are some dopers reading this thread who are thinking "I do remember my lines from our 8th grade production of “Our Town” but I am not one of them. In the dream, I sometimes figure that it must be one of those things where if I start acting, the lines will come back to me, and then I get stranded on stage not knowing any lines.
I’ve had the OP’s #1 bad dream a lot. My other frequent bad dream is a variation of one mentioned by Sampiro, where I’m in a house that should be familiar but I keep finding new rooms, usually bedrooms.
In the worst variation of the house dream, the only way out of the house is through steep, narrow tunnels. I’m claustrophobic, so those dreams really suck.
In another variation, I’m back in Seattle, wandering around downtown at night, and the only way home is through those same steep, narrow tunnels.
I’ve had the trying to run dream, and another where I’m flying, being chased, and I keep sinking to where something almost catches me.
While your #1 is the one I’ve had most frequently, I did have the above once, a fellow student when I spent a year at seminary. Andy wasn’t bad looking, but I disliked his attitude and opinions on so many levels. To find myself making out with him, even though it was a dream, was gross.
I believe I classed it under “Job Gone Awry–Overwhelmed”. It sounds similar to the “turn around and see a mob of angry customers” scenario that I put in there. Like I said, my categories were a bit vague and arbitrary. I tried to base them on whatever element seemed most upsetting about the dream. Some of the job-related dreams seem to revolve around feeling powerless at work, while others revolve around being late. Given all the other things people dream about being late for, “Being Late” seems to be a different category of anxiety.
Some of the smaller categories could probably be merged with each other or with larger categories. Still, if someone specifically says they have recurring dreams about being menaced by bears, it seems distinct from dreams about, say, zombies.
Dreamt a big guy dressed in a black cape came into the room while girlfriend, baby and I were asleep. I woke up to see him looking for something on the shelves at the bottom of the bed. He turned and asked me something but I was completely deaf and unable to move, he then left.
I can’t remember if girlfriend came to bed late or if I woke her, but I asked her if anyone had been in the room and then nodded off again. I do remember thinking that the man wasn’t up to anything bad, he was just looking for something on the top of the shelves which is where I would leave something before hopping into bed.
In the morning, girlfriend asked me if I remembered asking her this and if I hadn’t perhaps thought that I should wake her and warn her of a stranger coming into the room where our baby sleeps
**1. Final exam day and I haven’t studied. **
Only a couple times. For my real exams I hadn’t studied much, so this is one of those nightmares I’ve faced down.
**2. Naked in a public place **
This one I’ve had quite often, especially when I was younger. Only, in the dream I don’t feel ashamed of being naked.
**3. I’m about to go onstage, and don’t remember the lines: **
Nope.
**4. Dream in a dream: **
No.
**5. Everyone around me turns into zombies: **
I have not had this dream where my family becomes “evil”. But the Stephen King variety, where I find myself surrounded with zombies? Yes, I had that one quite often when I was young. The dream ended with me having to choose to either let myself be killed and join the zombies/vampires, or try to hold out a bit longer and hope to meet other still normal folks.
6, Teeth fall out.
Not the one with teeth, but I have had very gripping nightmares where I dream I am locked up somewhere where the days pas and pass, unnoticed, untill I suddenly realise I have grown old and my life is over and my good looks have gone.
**7. Sex with inappropriate persons; **
Glad to see I’m not the only one. Those are really embarrassing!
I seldom have bad dreams, but I would have to say my two most common types are I have to drive a car and suddenly realise I have no idea how to (but those dreams start scary and usually end up fun) or ones where I have to perform some sort of surgery on myself.
Last night I had a very spooky nitemare (in black and white) about all these homeless children living in the city and a magician who performed a spell which allowed the children to kill anyone who abused them and get away with it. The magician perfomed the spell by crying milk from his eyes and vomiting up money.
Very German expressionist.
I haven’t read the entire thread; but looking at Balance’s summary a few posts above, I have had
Teeth loose/falling out
Running/hiding from killers/monsters
Job gone awry —not so much awry, as caught in an endless, mundane loop
Multiple awakenings
Choking/mouthful of gum
Falling
I didn’t see on the list:
Missing the bus (usually school bus)
This thread seems so relevant to me because just last night I had a whopper of a bad dream. I suffer from insomnia, but last night I dreamed I was awake suffering from insomnia —first time dreaming that.
