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Original poster

Your stress dreams

98 replies

IWouldPreferNotTo · 12/12/2018 15:44

I can always tell when I'm stressed as I get recurring stress dreams. Recently I added a new one, being at a boarding pass kiosk and having to enter a very long confirmation code on a keyboard where the letters were arranged randomly after queue jumping a long queue.

Does anyone else get stress dreams

OP posts:
Jasonmendoza · 12/12/2018 20:20

Yes. Christmas Eve and I've bought no presents and no food and the shops are about to shut. Had this dream for decades.

Jamhandprints · 12/12/2018 20:23

Driving without a licence is my recurring stress dream. Always nearly getting caught but not. Or having a party but forgot to make any food so have to use what's in the cupboard.

Vanillaradio · 12/12/2018 20:28

Mine are being chased or either being in or watching a car crash. Loads of variations but those are always the main themes.

BigStripeyBastard · 12/12/2018 20:29

Oh yes. I dream I am trying to close the department store I work in and customers keep coming in and forcing the doors open as I am trying to lock them. We have four doors and as soon as I get one closed, they force another one open and keep streaming in.

In my previous career, I was a theatre nurse and my stress dream then was I was set up and ready to do surgery but people who had no business being in my theatre would come in and touch my sterile trolley of instruments.

EatSleepRantRepeat · 12/12/2018 20:47

Yep! I dream I have to get somewhere quickly a long way away, and all I have is a teeny tiny toddler's bicycle. For some reason in my dream it doesn't occur to me that walking would be faster, so I keep going trying to cycle with my thighs around my ears. I always wake up before i get there..

Suzysuz · 12/12/2018 20:50

Mine are that I have a finals uni exam the next day but I’ve done absolutely no studying and am completely unprepared...

Or that I’m due to start my final year at uni, but as I am now somehow, and haven’t found anywhere to live yet and it’s all a bit last dash panic searching.

Or that I’m somehow back at school and have no shoes on...

Not sure why they’re all school/uni related Hmm

whyameyehere · 12/12/2018 20:54

Being chased but in a situation where there is no way out, speeding train, closed in multistorey car park etc

BedraggledBlitz · 12/12/2018 21:08

I used to get loads. I don't think I sleep enough now to dream.

Old recurring ones were:

In final year at uni and realising missed entire class throughout course. I went to uni over 20 years ago.

Got an hour to move out of uni house and no transport to take my things. See above re 20 years.

Both of the above have a basis in reality due to my naive complacency at course and living arrangements! I think the dreams were my brain shuddering at a narrow escape!

BedraggledBlitz · 12/12/2018 21:09

Oh Suzy you're my dream twin!

HashTagLil · 12/12/2018 21:26

but people who had no business being in my theatre would come in and touch my sterile trolley of instruments.

Fellow scrub nurse here Shock Shock

Suzysuz · 13/12/2018 12:12

BedraggledBlitz ha! Grin

ComtesseDeSpair · 13/12/2018 12:19

I have two, which are actually quite amusing when I’m not stressed and remember about them.

  1. I’m back at secondary school and it’s exam day. I need to find my teacher to hand in something first, except I have no idea what exam I’m supposed to be taking or even who my teacher is, because I haven’t been going to classes all year.
  1. I’m on a crowded bus with lots of bags of shopping and, inexplicably, my parents’ miserable bad-tempered cat, who I’m holding in my lap. Suddenly the cat begins to struggle to get away. At the same moment, I realise that the bus had just turned off down a street I don’t recognise and that I’ve got on the wrong bus by mistake. I hurriedly try to vacate my seat, trying to gather together all my shopping bags whilst trying to hold onto the by now increasingly agitated cat. I get off the bus and as it drives away, I realise I’ve left my handbag on it. 🙂
ComtesseDeSpair · 13/12/2018 12:21

Interesting that the exams / not having been to classes one is a shared dream!

happychange · 13/12/2018 12:44

Mine are exams related too!!

I almost failed a maths test at uni so now when I'm stressed, I dream about that bloody maths test!!

FancyForgetting · 13/12/2018 12:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BedraggledBlitz · 13/12/2018 19:10

I've remembered another recurring one.

I would go into garden and realise I had a big cage full of small animals that I'd forgotten about. They are all starved and dead or dying.

Absolutely awful.

Maybe linked to feeling guilty about childhood rabbit and budgies. They weren't neglected but as an adult I don't like the thought of caged lonely pets. Maybe whenever I'm feeling guilty about something my brain plays this one.

TheKnackeredChef · 13/12/2018 19:18

My 'A' level geography exam is my default anxiety dream. I think it traumatised me for life!

Puffinhead · 13/12/2018 19:24

I also have the exam stress dream. The relief when I wake up! Also, one where I’m trying to get ready for the most amazing party - I am going to be the belle of the ball - yet I can’t quite get myself ready in time.. I can’t get dressed, do my make-up etc. It’s very frustrating. Not sure if this one s stress related but I have another one where I need a wee but can’t find a clean toilet. And when I do I can’t pull my trousers up! They won’t go over my thighs a bit like Ross in Friends (with the talc). Very odd.

goforkyourself · 13/12/2018 19:27

Dream triplet! I still dream about being in an exam room without having revised. I haven't studied for 25 years but still have this nightmare.

Big recurring one is being on a plane about to crash; the plane ends up in a residential area but I'm always the only survivor.

The WORST one is I end up back with my ex, I literally wake up crying and shaking Angry

Nacreous · 13/12/2018 19:29

People always try to kill me in my stress dreams. The scenario varies; sometimes I'm on the run from the government, sometimes I'm a spy, sometimes just plain old murderers, sometimes someone I know, but always death for me and my family. Very stressful :p

JellyBabiesSaveLives · 13/12/2018 19:33

Packing. I’m about to move house or go on a trip and I haven’t packed anything. I’m rushing madly around trying to pack everything

Not exams, but I’m wandering around a lecture centre trying to find the room my class is in, and I have no idea because I haven’t been coming to lectures (May have some basis in fact, that one)

Sparklingbrook · 13/12/2018 19:35

Packing. Always packing.

The coach to the airport is outside the hotel. We have not packed yet. The more I pack the more packing appears. Only one suitcase.

Also Self Catering property, next family arrive for their week and we are still in bed. In one they started helping us to pack, Shock

Had a few exam ones, not studied the subject etc. But mainly packing.

pasbeaucoupdegendarme · 13/12/2018 19:37

I used to have one where a wardrobe was falling on me. It never hit me but I always woke up on my front with my nails dug into my palms enough to leave gouges.

Current one is that I’m shouting at my children, totally losing the plot and whacking them. I had one where I couldn’t hit my ds hard enough so I kept doing it. It makes me so so sad when I wake up 😢

workshyfop · 13/12/2018 19:39
  1. I’m in a public building and need to use the toilet but they’re always dirty or without doors on the cubicles or both.
  2. Im back at school and the bell goes between classes. Im running through corridors trying to find my next classroom but don’t know where I’m meant to be.
  3. I’m out somewhere miles from home and realise I’ve left the baby at home all alone. I try to get home but have to get several different buses and can never get there.
  4. And the classic morning of an exam and I’ve not been to the classes/done any revision.
squeakywheelie · 13/12/2018 19:39

Being chased by someone trying to kill me/my dcs.
That I'm paralysed some how, or my fingers are too big for the keyboard on my phone or someone (usually one of my abusive parents,) stopping me from getting to my dh.
If I'm overwhelmed by my stress, I dream of a tsunami. I usually have to rescue someone else from the tsunami.
I only have bad dreams. But I am under a constant high level of stress caring for my ds1 with asc.