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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:
Kismetjayn · 13/12/2018 20:20

I had a big interview recently and had been dreaming about it since I was getting ready to apply, almost 3 months D:

We had; arriving late, should I phone them pretending to be ill and reschedule, would cancelling be better than being late? Except my phone listed my location when I called so they knew I was out and thought I was skiving!

Arrive obscenely early but given tour of lovely stately home interview is in. Tour keeps going as I am more and more anxious about missing my slot. They reassure blandly but I do miss my slot.

Arrive obscenely early but a carnival/festival is being set up in the grounds. Because I am so early, I help setting up. I am then late.

Arrive obscenely early, get lost, miss slot.

Interview is on terrace of fancy restaurant, everyone is in black tie, I am in my regular interview outfit. They visibly turn their noses up at me. I make lots of noise entering (loud shoes, bumping tables, crash some wine glasses over with my bag). The interview is perfunctory as I'm obvs an idiot and now humiliated.

I turn up dressed as a Victorian parlour maid ???

Sensing stress, and feelings of inadequacy...

Ereshkigal · 13/12/2018 20:22

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

Yes, I have this one recurringly.

And another where they won't let me graduate if I can't pay my library fines and I can't afford it.

And other random ones.

PivotPivotPIVOTTT · 13/12/2018 20:23

Echobelly just glad I have clothes on in them now. When I was a teenager it was always being naked Blush

causeimunderyourspell · 13/12/2018 20:24

That I've got a huge wad of bubblegum stuck in my mouth that I can't get out

That I'm trying to phone the police but can't hit the numbers or can't unlock my phone

Trying to hit someone who has a weapon, but not being able to hit them hard

Running in slow mo!

FantasticBadger · 13/12/2018 20:24

I get really weird dreams when I have a temperature... seaweed growing in opposing lumps, or two horses looking at each other over a hedge and getting faster and faster.
Also had the one about teeth falling out ... my friend who had done a dream analysis course said I was probably worried about my teeth falling out

Titsywoo · 13/12/2018 20:29

I wonder why we all have the same/similar dreams. Do people in different cultures have same stress dreams do you think? So someone in a remote tribe with very little contact with the outside world - do they also have teeth falling out dreams? Brains are so wonderfully weird!

yawning801 · 13/12/2018 20:32

Choking, and more frequently and recently, that I am pregnant. I am not pregnant, nor could I be pregnant. Hmm

I also get sleep paralysis, in that I'm half naked and I've got a bunch of my old school friends or acquaintances with me. I'm boiling hot but I can't take my duvet off because I'm half naked, and even if I wanted to I couldn't anyway because I can't move. It's terrifying!

tryinganewname · 13/12/2018 20:34

Brakes on the car won't work so I can't stop.

But I know when I'm really stressed because I wake up with my jaw and fists clenched and my body curled up as if I'm about to strike! At one point it was every night for months and my whole body ached from it.. I don't actually know what I was so stressed about but my brain thought otherwise.

Kismetjayn · 13/12/2018 20:35

There was a study on teeth dreams this year that linked it with real life dental irritation & tooth grinding- a lot of people grind their teeth at night and the research suggests it's incorporated into the dream, but also that people with 'teeth dreams' have more sensorimotor dreams generally such as flying, falling and chasing, and they're not sure why.

Vaguely interesting!

tryinganewname · 13/12/2018 20:35

Also, I dream I'm late for something and no amount of trying to catch up helps, I just get later and later. Another one is that I'm running away from someone or something but I can't open my eyes properly.

Wordthe · 13/12/2018 21:18

Mine are can't find toilet or finding myself sat on a toilet at a crossing on a very busy junction

Wordthe · 13/12/2018 21:21

I tend not to get too falling out desert dreams but I do have hair falling out dreams I once dreamed that I sliced my ear off

The whole naked in public thing seems to be fairly clearly a metaphor for feeling embarrassed /humiliated
I don't know about the root of the tooth falling out dream though, perhaps it is a manifestation of general anxiety about bodily integrity?

DarkDarkNight · 13/12/2018 21:26

I have the not being prepared for Finals dream too.

It’s been 14 years since I graduated and it feels so real. I did English Literature so my dream involves a huge pile of novels I haven’t read and no time to study them. Every time I wake up from it it takes me a while to remember I’m not at Uni anymore and don’t need to start panic reading Grin

Lazybonita · 13/12/2018 21:27

I spend ages writing a very important to do list. I then have a really stressful drive to a meeting (I’m a nervous driver at the best of times). When I get to the meeting a lemur is there, he takes my very important list and sticks it in his ear.

goforkyourself · 13/12/2018 21:31

A lot of these dreams are about feelings of helplessness aren't they, and lack of control?

The plane crash one still bothers me, in the last one I was the only survivor but no one bothered to come to the hospital to see me. I guess that's feelings of inadequacy isn't it? Confused

BikeRunSki · 13/12/2018 21:32

I just dream that my teeth all fall out when I am stressed.

NorthEndGal · 13/12/2018 21:39

A lot of very common themes here!

I have had sleep issues all my life (still have night terrors and sleep walk) . I also have stress dreams almost every night.

For me :

  1. teeth breaking and/or falling out. So often I stopped eating or sleeping properly. Caused serious issues in real life, ended up on meds and in therapy . Much better now, and al.ost never have that one any more

  2. being chased (never know why, or who) and I'm always on foot.
    I have to duck and dive through crowds and around the area.
    The area changes based on where I live in real life. Growing up I lived deep in the forest , and in my dreams I was always running through dense forests.
    Now I live in a port city, my dreams are running along the waterfront, down jetties and wharves, or on ferries.

  3. uni /not been to class/cant find exam/not done the work/ cant remember my thesis

  4. people trying to get my seaglass before I can, cant remember the tide times, too many orders, sold someone the wrong thing, etc
    Only had these dreams since I started glassing 2 years ago

TowerRingInferno · 13/12/2018 21:45

I have 2 that I have, always the same, when stressed

  1. Geography A level stress dream: I totally forget to revise half the course (the notes for which are in one lever arch file that I’ve forgotten to look at). I tell my teacher that it’s all hopeless and I’ll come back the following year to try again.
  1. Seeing someone I love (but I never see who it is) falling off a cliff. Have had this one since being a child and I’m now terrified of cliffs!
CurlsandCurves · 13/12/2018 21:52

Mine are always about tidying and organising. I’m usually in a house desperately trying to get rid of rubbish, move things, tidy things.

And family members are getting in my way and stopping me, and I get so stressed in my sleep!

FlashByReputation · 13/12/2018 22:10

Biting into an apple and looking at it to see half my teeth imbedded in it, then running my tongue over the rest to feel them disinteregrate like wet chalk. If I have my crumbly tooth dreams I know I'm ridiculously stressed.

FlashByReputation · 13/12/2018 22:15

And during the most stressful time of my life my dentist said I was grinding in my sleep. Asked if I needed a gum sheild type thing and he said no, a face and neck massage will set you right, and it did! Massage therapist said my face and jaw were a jumble of knots.

Fluffyears · 13/12/2018 22:28

I get the exam, not been to class one. Also I am naked in the town I grew up in and am trying to get home without anyone seeing me.

Whilst was learning to drive I was in a car and the steering was loose or it was too sluggish in responding when I used the brake or accelerator. That disappeared when I passed my test.

Lately the dream of not being able to use my mobile to make an important call has been happening.

MrsBellamy · 13/12/2018 22:32

My car gets stolen in my dreams when I'm stressed. I'm a driving instructor so need my car to earn a living and anytime I'm stressed it's usually about money.

weebarra · 13/12/2018 22:38

Northendgal - fellow glasser so recognised that one.
Teeth
Exams - usually sitting an exam having not been to the classes
Being chased - but fighting back and quite often winning.
I remember having very vivid post natal dreams, I was once found by DH rifling through the laundry basket looking for the baby.

Nacreous · 13/12/2018 22:49

@yawning801 if you regularly have dreams of choking consider whether you could have acid indigestion/excess acid, as this can rise up your throat at night meaning you actually do feel like you're choking, hence causing the dreams.

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