To find my dreams exhausting?

Just revisiting this thread as I've remembered something. Had a common dream theme for years where I had to go over difficult obstacles through small gaps and I was always feeling stressed by this in the dream. About six months ago my mum randomly said 'do you remember when I put you in that teapot on Blackpool pleasure beach and you couldn't get out?'. I don't remember that. Apparently she had to recruit a slightly older child to guide me out as she was too big to get in herself. Ever since she told me about it that dream theme has stopped 🤷🏻‍♀️. So weird what our subconscious mind does! Why would my brain still be processing something that happened probably 45 years ago and that was all fine?

My dreams are in full technicolour and often with a cast of thousands. I tend to remember them if I'm stressed and not sleeping so well.

Chemo resulted in me having horrific sleep paralysis nightmares that took years to go away. The thing is, it’s not exactly the dreams themselves that are the problem, it’s why you’re having them. Yes, they’re your subconscious dealing with things while you sleep, but it can actually the sleep itself that’s the issue, you’re having too much light REM sleep where your mind is active, and that’s what’s making the dreams so vivid and memorable, as well as resulting in you not feeling rested. They're a symptom rather than a cause.
Look into why you’re not getting enough deep sleep and are spending too much time in REM sleep.

Yes - the house one is definitely in there. It's always a detached house and I always seem particularly drawn to the sides of it rather than the front or back. Why? I've had detached houses. The sides are never interesting
There are always undiscovered rooms in strange places. They're always fully made up but clearly haven't been used since Victorian times. It's so bloody odd.

These are all the same as mine! The phone that doesn’t work!
I used to have horrific dreams about mass shootings/terrorist attacks, sometimes really graphic, but thankfully these have lessened in recent years.
does anyone have the one with a house where you find new rooms you have never seen before?

Oh my goodness you are me.

With the vanished car one, I’m now aware in the dream that this might be a dream, so I do stupid things in the dream to wake myself up or change the dream. Who knows what would happen if someone stole my car in real life.

I’ve had the phone one since way before even Blackberry was a thing, and the phones always had many, many buttons that I couldn’t feel properly and kept moving around. I have it less frequently since I’ve owned a smartphone, and the dreams are more about actual smartphone issues, not some weird scifi that my brain made up!

Mine is also hormonal as a PP said - both pregnancies have triggered it and my dreams are always more vivid and bloody exhausting before a period. I’m either getting ready for a holiday that I haven’t prepared anything for, late for my GCSEs but the bus is cancelled / forget my pencil case / can’t remember the subject, or trying to get out of the house I grew up in. Sometimes there are scary/sad elements too like my family won’t believe something I’m telling them and I’m crying lots and they laugh. Bizarre

I've had these my whole life. I call them the frustration dreams - the phone one where I absolutely have to make the call as it's a terrible emergency and various things keep going wrong, down to me pressing the numbers but different numbers get pressed - the getting ready to leave the house but I'm not in my house, I can't find the clothes, where is the shower, there's a very complicated building and I can't find the other bathrooms, I'm late now and only half dressed - the realizing I'm starting a new course in college but I don't know how to get there, what room I'm in, what books I need, where I'm going - the I've moved to another country for college but don't know where I live, then don't have furniture for my flat, it's a dangerous place so I can't leave, I don't know to get around - the looking for a toilet but this cubicle has no door, this cubicle has a door but is open on the other side, this one is far away and I can't find it, this one is full of people, this one has all broken toilets.
It's bloody exhausting and it's all the time.
Then that's not to count the emotional dreams where I feel the very real emotions of terror or sadness or horror - the one where I can see the intruder coming up the stairs in my house, the one where my sister has just slipped under the water and I can't reach her, the one where I'm being chased through long and complicated buildings.
I describe it like Netflix in my head all night. I would love to know how to stop it and just wake up not having been through the mill every night.

My main version of this dream always involves:

packing for a holiday but I only have a few minutes and can't find anything

Getting delayed on route to the airport and I only have a few minutes left but I keep going as every car, train etc breaks down or gets lost

Packing up a holiday cottage. This is the one I find most exhausting as I have to clean and pack everyone's stuff, and I only have a few minutes

I see it as to do with feelings of overwhelm. I am always incredibly calm and just keep going, which is how I operate in real life too. I know I am getting too stressed when I start having the dreams again.

No they don't pay me. I have just finished the deptq books. I did think that i was still processing the books in my dreams.

Yes I suffer from nightmares. Mostly they involve a telephone. I can never find a working one and if I do I can’t get the number right. I also always have too much stuff to fit into any bag I have.

The dreams make me wake up with a pounding head. I wish someone could interpret them.

Read this thread. Went to sleep, dreamt I was back at the job I left 20 years ago. I had an exam, no designated seat and the buttons on the phone didn't work. I also couldn't work the computer system. Bingo!

I get this one. Had it last night in fact!
I still remeber vivid dreams and nightmares from when I was a child.
I think it’s peri/menopause and poss ADHD (not diagnosed but jumpy/hyper brain)

I dream vividly but they don’t stress me. Sometimes they’re just interesting, other times themed (packing, late, driving and find myself driving down flights of steps) but somehow there’s a sense of it not mattering in the dream. I don’t journal my daytime life, but I do keep a dream diary of the more interesting ones! Only very occasionally is there any sense of danger or menace.

Have you been watching Race Around the World? I can’t watch that programme as it feels like one of my stress dreams!

I have so many of these. The malfunctioning phone (haven’t had that for a while). And a lot of ‘can’t get home’ dreams, either on bus or train because they aren’t going the right way or don’t arrive, or I go back to my car but it isn't where I parked it. And dreams about walking around house/hotel/location that is familiar yet strangely different. Another favourite is guests arriving but I have not made the meal or even got dressed yet.

Also (this might be a bit niche because I’m a swimmer) trying to swim in a pool but the water is being drained out and I end up in a foot of water.

I feel better knowing that a lot of these are really common. I’m post menopausal and I think they have got worse as I got older, but I’ve been having a selection of those since my 30s.

Same. It's been all my life. It's nice to meet others with the same affliction.

Wow guys this sounds really hard! My DH has lots of vivid dreams and is a very light sleeper, I barely have any and sleep deeply. I remember dreams very occasionally, and it’s usually on a weekend when I’m lying in and I’ve rolled over and gone back to sleep, so not that deep into the cycle. I’d tend to think the Gp is right with sleep hygiene advice being important, and also prioritising going to sleep with a calm mind. Have any of you ever tracked your sleep to see if you are sleeping deeply enough? Like pp says, apnoea could be a consideration.

WOW I genuinely thought it was just me. I usually tell people I work with my dreams as sometimes they can involve world events/natural disasters (quite frighting really). And I have just woken up after a dream about being on holiday and having my camera stolen by a pair of twins ?!. I could actually draw a picture of the hotel and swimming pool it was so vivid.

definitely hormonal though and they’ve got worse since menopause.

op this can be a sign of sleep apnea, I used to have horrific dreams and sure enough, I have sleep apnea. Some starting my cpap they have reduced massively though so that’s a bonus.

I had a brain injury a few years ago and since then all my dreams are in a version of this world, it's got the same places and people but they're different. So I'm basically going to bloody work and doing the school run in my sleep. It's infuriating.

Last night I had forgotten to make 100 school packed lunches (I'm a school cook) in the dream version of my work kitchen but all the lettuce was rotten and the bread kept falling into pieces.
I would like a break from it.

Less often, I'm about to go into my exams at uni but I haven't done any revision or coursework. Except it's maths I'm doing, when in real life I did Ancient History.