To find my dreams exhausting?

Agreed. Mine worsened after I quit drinking. I went through a rough patch and was drinking 5-6 bottles of red wine a week. Stopped abruptly and from the first night my dreams were so intense and haven’t stopped. I’ve also found myself having really awful romantic dreams about much older (and definitely unattractive) colleagues, it makes work super awkward the next day!

I feel for you OP. I used to have extremely vivid dreams that would affect my mood and hang over me like a cloud. I would dread sleeping and it led to insomnia which obviously didn't help.
Not even scary just very vivid, but always uncomfortable. I can't explain it.
Anyway since I had kids 5 years ago they've stopped. I guess I'm just too fucking tired. I hope they don't come back as start getting more sleep again.
As a child I saw some kind of therapist for a kind of dream therapy? They helped me to 'take control' in my dreams when they were scary as a child.

Ugh I get it. I have recurring dreams about a previous relationship, so could be rape, being beated/thrown down the stairs, locked in the flat for weeks at a time etc. I wake up in such a panic. I have a wonderful partner now who recognises when I'm having/just woken up from those dreams and ensures me I'm safe.

I’ve spoken to so many people who get that one in one way or another. It’s the most frustrating one I think!

I am a very vivid dreamer too. My regular is the malfunctioning phone/being unable to dial 999 in an emergency.

I get the malfunctioning phone, as well!

I could have written this! It’s bloody exhausting. Three or four themes over and over again. The car is not where I parked it or has gone missing from a supermarket car park. Or I’m trying to phone someone and none of the functions do what they should and I can never make the call. The packing one happens a lot as well and it’s always frantic - so many things to get into a too small case in a big hurry.
it’s so weird that other people have these themes too. I do wonder what the fuck it all means. 🤪🤪

So many of mine seem to involve living in an unfamiliar house, often with my parents, or finding myself in a job I left 25 years ago and struggling to explain that I don't work there any more and I'm expected elsewhere. The worst ones involve my ex being an obstructive bugger.

My dreams got really vivid when I first started taking amitryptyline bit that settled down after a few weeks. These days, post menopause, the worst precede a day of bothersome guts or correspond with bad joint pain episodes.

I used to have those. Everything going wrong but I just kept on going. Really stressful. I get them still if I have too much on.

YANBU I get dreams like this sometimes and it’s awful waking up feeling like you’ve not rested at all.

A common one for me is I’m driving and the brakes or steering wheel stop working and I’m driving along trying not to crash. Or I’m a passenger in the back seat of a moving car and suddenly realise there’s no one driving and I’m trying to climb into the front seat to take control but for some reason I can’t.

Im sure I’ve had ones like pp have mentioned where I’m trying to pack a suitcase but inexplicably failing at it. And getting lost in familiar places where for some reason I cannot find my way out. Also dreams where everyone around me suddenly hates me but I don’t know what I’ve done to upset them and no one will explain. It must be rooted in some sort of anxiety.

The dreams aren’t logical and make no sense but feels so vivid and real. I wake up feeling very stressed for a while afterwards. Why do our brains put us through this??

Mine are a bit manic and exhausting, I never seem to wake up feeling refreshed these days. I am often lost on a journey catching wrong trains and my phone doesn't work. I also am perpetually house hunting through a series of increasingly grotty houses.

I did once dream that I was married to Henry Cavill, but my Dh woke me up with a coffee. 😂

I’m always having dreams about needing to contact someone (often an emergency) but I can’t find my phone / can’t put the right number in/ remember the number. Or I’m trying to get somewhere urgently but obstacles keep getting in the way! So frustrating 🙁

I frequently dream I have to go back to university because it turns out I didn’t finish my degree. But I haven’t written the essays or read the books and can’t even remember HOW to write an essay.

For me its hormonal. My dreams when pregnant and when nursing were insane! Then got intense again when peri hit. So tiring. Once I started on higher progesterone doses that sorted it out. Also magnesium tabs (only started recently) seem to make me pretty dreamless too.

They just don't remember them! Everyone dreams every night. It's more common not to remember. I always remember mine and am frequently surprised at how many people don't and claim they 'don't dream.' Uh, yes, you do.

Mine are usually about travelling. Catching a bus or driving looking for a parking spot. Sometimes I’m at the airport. I looked it up once and think it meant I was at a life crossroads, unsure which route to go, which does kind of fit.

Oh I have intense dreams like that all the time.
Sometimes I will wake up and be thinking how exhausting and horrible the dream was but then go back to sleep and the same blimming dream will carry on.
Honestly.... stupid brain. Gimme a break 😂
I have recurring dreams. I have had them since I was a child. Sometimes in my dreams I am even telling myself "oh not this boring dream again...when will it finish" so I am dreaming about a dream while it's happening.
So weird.

Try doing relaxation exercises/audio stuff as you fall asleep. It may convince your brain you aren’t in fight or flight after all!

I get this too, but not that much at the moment. I remember it being really bad when I was pregnant.

Mine tend to be either wildly exciting (but scary) adventures, or deeply emotional situations - blazing rows with my mother, mainly.

Absolutely exhausting, and with the after effects of nagging uncertainty about what has and hasn’t happened the next day.

I have these sorts of dreams all the time. Often I’m back teaching and I realise I haven’t taught a particular class for weeks, or marked books for a year, or I’m wandering round the school unable to find my class and no one has given me a timetable. Or I’m going on stage and haven’t learnt my lines. Or trying to catch a flight and get lost trying to find the departure lounge. Totally exhausting.

I love dreams like that!! I had a raunchy one I really wanted to revisit recently 😵🤣🤣🤣
my DH often dreams about training with his sport when he feels he’s already trained when he wakes after
dreaming about training g 🤪🤣🤣

Are you trying to fight something in real life?

Mine are about getting lost inside buildings. Sometimes it is places that I have lived in the past but there are extra rooms. Sometimes it is hotels, shopping centres or office buildings that just don’t seem to have an exit. I just go around and around all night.