Most people have had the school anxiety dream - realizing that you have a class that you’ve never gone to and the final is today, or some flavor thereof.
And the being in public naked dream.
And the flying/floating dream.
I’ve not had the school anxiety dream - instead I have a work anxiety dream. Either I wake up really late, or I’m in the middle of doing something and realize that I was supposed to go into work and never called in that I wasn’t going to be there.
My other dream that I have regularly I call a wandering dream. Just like it says, the majority of the dream is simply me going from one place to another. Sometimes there is an anxiety element - I am going home, I’m walking, and it’s too far for me to get home before dark.
Usually in wandering dreams I’m walking, but if I’m traveling by car, there is almost invariable a part of my journey that can only be done by walking. Usually when I get to the end of that section, I wake up because I can’t reconcile having left the car where I started walking and how I’m going to go any farther without walking.
Zyada, I’ve had that work dream. I thinks it’s quite common to tell ya’ the truth.
I’ve had the wondering around looking for my car dream.
I’ve had the wondering around in a strange house filled with strangers. I’m trying desperately to find the exit to get the hell outta there, but I can’t. (The Joe Walsh dream. heh)
I’ve had the “Hey look at that! My dear friend I haven’t seen in 20 years! How the hell are ya?” except they can’t seem to be bothered with me, IF they even acknowledge my existence in the first place.
I have a recurring dream about standing in line at a store or government agency. It feels like the dream goes on for hours and the line never moves or barely moves. It almost never occurs to me that I can just leave.
I have recurring back-in-school dreams but not the usual sort. In these dreams I am my actual age (currently mid-40s) but get a notification that I didn’t complete all the requirements for my high school diploma decades earlier. So I am forced to go back to high school to complete one more class or semester or exam, often but not always physical education. It never occurs to me that I can tell them to fuck off.
I like to fix old electronics. One of my recurring dreams is that I’m some place where there’s an antique radio, usually for sale, but I’m somehow unable to get my hands on it, find out more, buy it, etc.
I used to own a Beetle years ago. So dreams about owning/driving/working on a classic Beetle.
(I had to sell it when my family started growing, interpret that as you wish.)
Mine is that my family and I have just moved back to a house we once lived in, many years ago. But in the dream, the house is larger and vastly more luxuriant that any I’ve ever lived in. I keep wandering through the house, exploring new rooms, finding exciting secret passageways, marveling at the view out of the spacious windows - and just feeling deliriously happy that I’m back, and we corrected any mistakes we made in the past.
I used to have a recurring dream that I had to go back to the army despite having served my 8 months already. Had that dream quite a few times over the years … until I started having a recurring dream about having to go back to the army the third time despite having been there twice already. Sort of mix between a nightmare and a resigned “oh well, let’s get it over with once again” dream. It’s not the only type of dream I get that builds on earlier dreams but it certainly is the most boring.
I am trying to get somewhere, and everything possible comes up to keep my from reaching my destination. The destination varies, as does the reason for going there, and the sources of the interruptions. It’s always critically urgent that I reach my destination. It’s extremely realistic, and I often wake up worried about not getting to where I was going.
I have a weird thing in dreams where I’m driving. For my first 30-odd years I lived in the US and I’ve been in the UK for over 20 now. I’ve been driving right hand drive cars here for most of that time. But anytime I’m driving in a dream it’s in a left hand drive car.
I have had the school anxiety dreams. I also have had two other anxiety dreams: 1. I am walking by an apartment building where I used to live, sometimes I go in, and I suddenly realize that hey, maybe I am still supposed to be living here… have I been paying rent? Do I owe back rent?? :eek: 2. I have for some reason re-enlisted in the army, it is my first day, and it suddenly hits me: what have I done??? :eek:
I also dream a lot about parking lots… shopping center parking lots, school parking lots, etc.
I also dream a lot about auto repair shops… and sometimes it is an anxiety dream… did I bring my car to this shop? Another? Do I owe them money? :eek:
Sometimes I dream that I am on a bicycle ride way across town, and I suddenly realize I have two flat tires, and I am not sure if they just went flat, or if they have been flat for miles. And, air pumps at service stations don’t work, or the stations are closed.
My recurring dream theme is that I’m moving but don’t know where to. I’m packing and keep finding more stuff that needs to be packed and nobody is helping me. I’m yelling at whoever is there (either my parents or an old boyfriend) to go get boxes or find us a new place to live or otherwise help me get this move done. It usually occurs in the apartment where I grew up and I’m packing my old bedroom and keep finding stuff.
My recurring dream is that I am at the house I lived in when I was married. I moved out, my ex and his wife moved in, and they simultaneously trashed and remodeled it. I take the house back and my ex is in the kitchen. Then I wake up.
I sometimes dream that I’m trying to get back to someplace I’ve been before. It’s often a neighborhood with great shops or restaurants. I wander around looking for it and never find it.
I’m forever dreaming about being lost in a shopping mall. I think it’s supposed to be the one from my hometown though it doesn’t look a thing like it. The point is in the dream it’s not at all unfamiliar to me, yet I cannot find the proper exit. Not that I can’t find *an *exit, just not the one I want. I retrace my steps and try to reason through it. Sometimes I ask for help, sometimes I figure it out, most of the time I wake up before the dream’s resolution.
Another frequent one is me walking, trying to find my way home. It also takes place in what is supposed to be my hometown. I always start off in what I think is the right direction and as I approach the top of a hill or a certain landmark, I know I’m about to find myself going in the wrong direction, either meaning I’ll have to walk much farther or it will involve a treacherous climb over rocks or something.
These are easy to interpret; frustration and feeling lost. Pretty common but damn are they distressing.
I’ve got a common theme that recurs but I’m not sure how well I can describe it in print. They are “places” that I’ll encounter along the various journeys (similar to Zyada’s wandering, I suppose) within my dream. One of them is always reached by a flight of glass-enclosed stairs that begins/terminates at ground level in an outdoor shopping center. The center is only 1 story, but the stairs wind their way up 3-4 levels. When you get up there, it’s a highway with walls on both sides of the road. Sometimes the road goes through mountains or forest and the walls disappear, but as soon as it opens up, the walls come back. The road is almost always a grade above everything else. The weird thing (yea, it hasn’t gotten weird yet) is that where the road terminates is at a control room and a large, metal airlock door that leads to unspeakable places. At least that’s how it “feels”. Below this terminus is something like Deception Pass in the Puget sound, but that’s really not here nor there. The take-away is this massive feeling of dread and evil.
Recently, within the last year or so, I was able to enter the airlock and discuss with the (unseen) demons that I’m just passing through. And they’ve since always let me pass. But not without a trial, tribulation, or some other stall tactic. This usually interrupts the flow of my dream enough to either cause me to back-track to the shopping center stairs and lose valuable time, or the “task” that the demons arrange for me takes my attention away from the reason I came through there in the first place.
Now that I’ve *conquered *this place, there’s another one that shows up frequently. It’s more difficult to describe. Maybe because I haven’t been there as many times.
Having traveled a lot to distant corners of the world, my favorite recurring dreams (not often enough) are the ones in which I am bound for some exotic place beyond anywhere that people routinely go. I always know what continent I’m on, and what direction I’m going, but the destination is always a place created in my own imagination that is accessible and populated, but nobody ever goes there. I never reach it, but I dream that I am traveling through the intervening geography, by conventional means of public transport…
I have had a recurring dream off and on for the past 30 or so years. I work in a stable/ blacksmith shop in what seems like a basement below a castle. The story changes a lot but the setting is always the same. Mostly pleaseant.