What recurring dreams do you have (that you haven't heard about from other people)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Once in a while, I find myself walking in a boring area of mostly very plain 3-story apartment buildings. I’m not lost at all, but tired of the long walk home. There’s never any real plot or conclusion.

More often, I offer to show some anonymous person a ‘shortcut’ to the far corner of the quad at Simon Fraser University (images here and here). We go down ordinary stairs at the corner, and proceed via hallways that are soon walled in brick, then cut stone. After a while we’re walking through natural caves. Sometimes I hesitate at a branch, but always know the right way. After a while we work our way back up through those tunnels and hallways and, if the dream lasts long enough, come out at the opposite corner.

22

I’ve had two. The first is, I am wandering through the house, I think it’s my house. Mundane, nothing special. But I always am surprised to open a door and find there are MORE ROOMS. Like, ‘I forgot about the extra rooms in this house!’ But they’re nothing special. A bedroom with a few clothes lying around, a bathroom with wet towels on the floor. Ho-hum.

The second is more exciting. I am driving driving driving on a pretty empty road in fairly familiar areas, and then I am alone on a road and sort of lost, but not lost, in that I am entering unfamiliar territory. Still empty. And I invariably arrive at some body or some kind of BIG BIG WATER. A huge dark lake. A noisy, swirling maelstrom. A big big waterfall, or blue water with big waves.

What does that mean? Damned if I know. I don’t like driving outside of my own town, and I am a little afraid of deep water and big waves. So it’s kind of exciting, to me, anyway.

23

I’ve had a recurring dream where I’m going to travel solo to England but don’t really want to go and have no idea what I’ll be doing.

And of course, my travel plans are all screwed up, the plane leaves in 15 minutes and I’m nowhere near the airport.* :smack:

The most common recurring dreams are more ordinary, revolving around classes I’m going to flunk because I never bothered attending, and less frequently foulups at work.

*In reality, I’ve visited the U.K. twice, everything went fine and I had a good time.

24

This is really similar to mine except I find it dismaying rather than exciting. Maybe it’s your adventurous side coming out. I also don’t like driving in unfamiliar places that much and that fear comes out in my dreams but maybe some inner part of you want to face new challenges. Sound pretty positive to me :slight_smile:

25

I live with a LOT of fear, with a very poor support system. Maybe being ‘overwhelmed’ by things? I don’t fall in or get wet, but the water is always loud and big.

26

I used to dream that it was closing time at work and I couldn’t leave. When I got a new job, they stopped recurring.

27

I do. Err, but it’s not your ex-girlfriend, rather, mine :slight_smile:

I dream about buying or renting a new house and when I get there it’s the same as a house or place I’ve lived in previously. Or it’s oddly familiar. But the place is different, usually much bigger with extra rooms and secret passages. Sometimes the rooms are furnished very grandly or lead into other occupied places, such as a corridor through the house opening above a huge dining hall full of other people, strangers. Sometimes the house needs loads of work and is damp or bug infested. I quite like these dreams it’s neat seeing what has changed around the place.

I also get the dream a lot where you have to leave a place, eg. checking out of a hotel or gym or whatever and you have to gather up and pack all your belongings. But you can’t find everything or pack it all in time. Gets a bit frustrating.

28

Being killed by a bear (or bears)

Probably a dozen times in my life I’ve had a dream where I’m mauled and killed by bears.

Never the same bears, and I’ve never died in any other kind of dream.

Since my hobbies include hunting and long-distance backpacking in remote, bear-filled, areas, this is somewhat disturbing to me.

Also, that scene in The Revenant wasn’t much fun to watch!

29

I dream about tornadoes a lot–I’m sure living almost my entire life in Oklahoma has something to do with that. (Although at the rate we’re going maybe they’ll turn into earthquake dreams at some point.)

I also have a lot of dreams about fighting with my family…especially my Mom. Different topics, but always following the same pattern of me trying to get them to see things from my point of view, and them dismissing me as silly or irrational. I get frustrated and upset to the point that I often wake up in tears. In real life I actually have a close, loving relationship with them all, but I’m sure there’s some deep psychological reason for it.

30

I go to a grave yard, walk up to a tombstone, and knock on it. The ground opens up and I walk down some stairs to sit and have tea with a bunch of dead people. Sometimes they are people I know who have died, sometimes they are people I know who are still alive but dead in the dream, and sometimes I have no idea who they are.
Doesn’t matter, we always have a nice visit and then I leave.

Other dreams it’s a tree. I’ll find a door in the base of the tree and knock and go in. Sometimes I go downstairs and find all kinds of tunnels and rooms down in the roots. I don’t like those so much as it gets darker and more cramped the further I go and I’m afraid of getting lost. Other times I go upstairs through the tree and meet all kinds of creatures who live there. They usually invite me in to show me their space.

31

Dream #1: I get a very different version of that back-in-school dream. In mine it’s not anxiety. I’m going back to college and I’m really excited about it. Then I remember I have a job and a family and it can’t be real and I’m not going back to college. I’m guessing it means I want to go back to college, or that’s standing in for some other desire.

The other one is about being on a jet airliner in some kind of distress. Either I’m on the ground watching in shock as it crashes, or I’m a pilot unable to control it, or I’m a passenger and the pilot is doing crazy aerobatics and taking terrifying risks. I’m pretty sure this is a career/work dream. I’m not a pilot, but there are various times when things are worrying and I have different degrees of control over it.

32

I’ve had a couple of jobs that had me commuting around DFW airport. I had the “watching a plane crash” dream many a time while doing that commute. Don’t have it if I’m not driving that way every day.

33

I have quite a few of your generic recurring stress dreams, but I was literally telling a friend about this particular one 2 days ago.

In the dream I am generally youngish, teens to early twenties (IRL I am past middle aged). I am given a choice between -

A) Going to a shanty town where my family and other people I know and care about have somehow ended up living, during a violent monsoon type rainstorm, while the shanty town is being attacked by sort of a Godzilla/T-Rex.

It’s horrific, all of the structures are flimsy and the monster is just ripping them apart. I can’t help or rescue anyone. There is no place to hide because everything is made out of cardboard and tarps. I have to see all the people I care about torn apart, running in blind terror from something they cannot escape.

OR

B) Going a pool party, on top of a high rise in the city, with a bunch of attractive women.
I always choose the shanty town and die screaming in fear. Always.

This last time, I had just watched my dad die and I was trying to hide in something the size and structural integrity of a portable toilet and the monster just tore the side of it off and ate me.

And while I die/right after, this omnipotent presence sort of shows me what I missed. For just a brief moment I get to see and feel what it would be like to be at the party. I am just a little drunk or high, relaxing, everyone is having a good time, laughing etc. That feeling of those summer time parties when you were a kid.

Also its sort of implied that if I had chosen the pool party, the other event doesn’t happen and no one dies.

34

I have recurring dream themes.

One is seeing a plane flying - sometimes doing some stunts, sometimes a larger airliner type - and it crashes nearby.

The other is being in a plane, sometimes I’m flying, sometimes a passenger, and it doesn’t ever get any altitude. Either clipping high lines or barely missing them, flying barely over or under bridges, but never a fatal result.

I also have dreams where I’m not in the dream - it’s like a movie or TV show with a whole cast that doesn’t include me. I don’t know how common that is for others, seems strange to not be in my own dreams.

And I’ve had the school/work/naked anxiety dreams. Strange for those to be such a common theme.

35

Deleted - too common.

36

I have a weird one that I’ve had since I was young and there was nothing wrong with my back. I dream that I can’t straighten my back out. It isn’t painful, I just can’t stand up straight. I have to walk some place, and I’m walking bent over. I keep trying to straighten up, and sometimes I straighten up very slowly, other times I can’t at all. I’m very embarrassed for some reason. When I wake up, the first thing I always think is “Why was I so embarrassed?” I mean, I don’t dream that people are looking at me, or that anyone makes any comments, I just feel mortified.

Another is one where I live in a house that is a giant turret or silo of some kind. It’s tall and cylindrical with no rooms, just platforms accessed by ladders that have a bed, a kitchen area, an area with a couch and a TV, all different levels. I have sort of dumbwaiters for moving things to the different areas, and it’s not inconvenient at all, and I like it, but in the dream I have guests, and I keep apologizing for the strange set-up and telling them that I like it. I get the sense they don’t believe me. The dinner table and a 1/2 bath are on the lowest level just so guests won’t have to climb any ladders if they don’t want to. There’s a firepole in the middle, so I can get from the top to the bottom really fast.

I have another one where my son is just a head. His body has fallen off for some reason, but his head is still alive and fully conscious. The doctors tell me there is a slim chance his body may grow back, but even if it doesn’t, he can live a relatively normal life. I used to work with people with disabilities, and sometimes I had to tell parents the odds that certain types of rehabilitation would do this or that, and what kind of life their child could have irrespective of the rehab, and this is just a caricature of that situation.

I have had the one where I discover my house has rooms I didn’t realize it had. We actually had a house that was too small for our needs for a while, and we had a shed in the back, as well as a rented storage space, and the place was still crowded. I thought that was why I had the dream. I didn’t know other people had it as well.

I used to have one a lot where I had a baby, and forgot to feed it, and it died. I have not had that dream since I actually had a baby, though. I never actually dreamed I was pregnant, but my husband says he has dreamed he was. I think men dream about being pregnant more than women do.

37

I used to have recurring dreams about being someplace really high up. In the most common one the dream would start with me realizing I was on a rock spire miles high and I would immediately lay down. The space would be just big enough for me to do that and I would be freaking out that I was going to fall. In others, I would be on the roof of a very tall building with no railing and I would retreat to the middle of the roof and sit down because there was no way to get off. There was never a resolution, the dream would just end.

I also had elevator dreams. Again, these took place in a very tall building. The elevator walls would disappear or the elevator would start slanting and I was going to fall out of it. And again, the dream would end at this point. Then in one of these dreams I got off the elevator and I never had them again.

These days, I dream about being in a car driving slowly. Suddenly my feet won’t reach the pedals and I’m going to hit another car or a building. But they end before that happens. In others, I’m driving next to a deep ditch or hole in the middle of nowhere and the car actually does go in it and I can’t figure out how I’m going to get it out. I actually had this dream a couple nights ago and I managed to get my feet on the pedals and fight my way out of falling into the hole. Maybe I won’t have them anymore.

I have several houses/apartments that I revisit in dreams that don’t exist in the real world.

38

I wonder if your car dream is related to the fairly common one of trying to drive a car from the back seat?

39

Seems like it to me. I have the back seat one sometimes, but I also have one where I can steer, but I realize I’m sitting on my feet and can’t get them out from under me to the pedals. I do sit on my feet a lot IRL.

40

Oh I get that one now and then. I interpret it as control anxiety. Wouldn’t be far off the mark.