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Original poster

Classic anxiety dreams… what are yours?

155 replies

SingToTheSky · 01/03/2022 21:56

I’ve had a few common ones - trying to find a toilet etc.

But a recurring one for me over the last couple of years is this:

I’m somewhere other than home, with my family. We’ve been staying, or even temporarily living, in an apartment. And now it’s time to pack and go home. I’m worrying about managing to pack everything before the deadline.

In the dream it seems to be more a worry about people thinking badly of us for leaving our stuff, rather than worry about losing particular things, but the overwhelming feeling is “How the hell can we possibly pack all this and get home with it all?”

There’s often other stuff going on in the dreams too, but all the while I’m thinking “but I need to pack!”

Anyone want to share their usual anxiety dreams? Or analyse mine? :o

OP posts:
BurgerKingAddict · 01/03/2022 22:38

It’s interesting a lot of us have the same dreams over and over.

ThoseFestiveLights · 01/03/2022 22:38

Oh yes all of these! Epescially the Filthy toilets.

And why the packing? I’ve never found packing stressful. I wonder if it’s a sort of generational memory of having to flee from home?

morninginging · 01/03/2022 22:40

Find rooms in my house. Often via a secret door. Loads of bathrooms mostly. Sometimes the rooms are full of other people things. Lifelong that one.

Also that I go up to a massive attic I didn't know I had and there's loads of leaks, and bits Of the roof falling off.

The teeth one obvs. But not as much as when I was a child.

That I've forgotton about (and therefore to feed) my pets and am not sure if they're going to be dead or not.

OutrageousFlavourLikeFreesias · 01/03/2022 22:40

OMGyes to the packing dream (quite reassuring to know I'm not alone with that one!).

This one isn't exactly an anxiety dream, but I have it a lot and it's always unsettling: I am somewhere that exists in real life that has a body of water (like a pond, or a lake, or a fountain). The area of water is much bigger than in real life and is absolutely full of fish - really fancy ones, like koi carp and coral reef ones. I'm wading around among them and trying to look after them. There are more fish than the water can really accommodate and sometimes they get our and I have to try and shepherd them back.

Not sure what it means, pretty sure I don't enjoy it though.

Featuredcreature · 01/03/2022 22:40

It's odd that I have never had the traditional turning up to an exam unprepepared dream, it's always that I already have the qualification and it's pointless doing the exam Hmm

toomuchlaundry · 01/03/2022 22:40

I have the packing dream (I hate packing in real life too!), having an unexpected exam or having an exam which when I turn the paper over is in a foreign language, trying to hide in a house but being chased by someone, needing the loo and the only ones available are open with no door. As others have said it is interesting that many of our stress dreams are similar

morninginging · 01/03/2022 22:42

Fascinating how common the themes are. Incredible. The teeth one is had Worldwide apparently, throughout history. Our unconscious is brilliant.

TheUnquestionedAnswer · 01/03/2022 22:42

Forgetting to feed my dogs (sadly no longer with us). Not putting water out, and desperately realising they haven't been fed for months.

I have to phone one too, where I can't dial 999.

I also used to have the secret room one, which was part of my old house.

SpiderinaWingMirror · 01/03/2022 22:42

Endless journey eg can't get through gates at station, get on wrong train, take a cab that goes the wrong way, get a tube that stops, get off and get on a bus but don't know if I'm going the right way.
Tbf it was a typical day in one job I had.
Also dream about previous houses having hidden rooms.

Featuredcreature · 01/03/2022 22:43

Have had the pets that I have forgotten about and have to check if they are alive dream. Yick why do our own brains torture us in our sleep Confused

Chamomile · 01/03/2022 22:43

2 recurrent ones: it’s Christmas eve and I’ve forgotten to buy my kids any presents, or I have their presents, but didn’t have any stocking fillers. I can still feel that horrible sinking, sick feeling that I’d let my kids down and disappointed them. The second one is the typical exam panic : resitting Chemistry A-level without any warning. In the most recent dream i was visiting my old primary school and ended up been dragged into an exam room and sitting Higher /A level Chemistry

throughtheair · 01/03/2022 22:44

I have the public toilet one a lot. Each toilet I try is unsuitable, like the cubicle doesn't have a door, or the toilet is filled to the brim, or the toilet is really high up and impossible to sit on.

candycane222 · 01/03/2022 22:45

Amazing - I have no original dreams at all!! Late for flights, can't find the train platform, bit of not-even-started-packing-and-should-have-left-an-hour-ago thrown in; loos with no doors, amalgamated former houses that I thought we'd sold with extra rooms (usually creepy and windowless , with nasty concreted over gardens),. back at uni halls and confused, uni exams having forgotten to go to any lectures, all the classics! I used to get the teeth one but not had it since my 30s or 40s.

I did also get a version of the pet one when my kids were younger: I was out a long way from home and had forgotten to pick the children up from school and it was now about 6pm OMG!. Also trying to drive from the backseat without being able to see...

I find it oddly comforting that these aren't just the creation of my sick decaying mind , but are universal and in that sense, entirely unremarkable. Very grateful to you all GrinGrin

Bloodybridget · 01/03/2022 22:45

Crumbling teeth - irl my teeth are very strong.
No door on a public toilet.
Needing to run from something, and it's like wading through treacle (this was a common dream when I was younger, I don't have it now).
I think I've had an anxious dream every night for a week or more. Last night, my choir concert was imminent, and there were suddenly four new pieces in the programme that I didn't know, or have scores for.

morninginging · 01/03/2022 22:45

@Featuredcreature

Have had the pets that I have forgotten about and have to check if they are alive dream. Yick why do our own brains torture us in our sleep Confused
I've had this recently after a lull. Awful isn't it.

Are all of these anxiety dreams? That seems a broad conclusion. Each one will be more subtle than that. So why the pet one for me now after a few years. Not saying I'm not anxious, but no more than usual so the theme must be important.

jellybe · 01/03/2022 22:47

Mine is I'm driving and my breaks don't work. Never mind how hard I'm pressing down on the pedal nothing is happening and I can't do anything about it and I'm just full of dread. It's horrible. I have it about once a month .

Lleeaahh1992 · 01/03/2022 22:48

That im about to leave to go on holiday with the kids which i knew nothing about prior and i dont have anything sorted or packed for the holiday. Also that i get to somewhere that isnt my home (e.g. , hotel, holiday, someone elses house in a different city) and that i dont have any of my things with me at all.
Strange one that i dont understand is that i have sex with my partner and then realise at the end that we have done it in front of people without realising and i am so ashamed and mortified and upset.
Worst one of all that im back living in my childhood home with my abusive dad but that my children also live there with me too and we are trapped there and cant leave and they have to endure his abuse.

MerryPoppings · 01/03/2022 22:49

I have so many recurring dreams.

Climbing up a ladder and then when I get to the top it slowly starts falling backwards...

Being in a public toilet with no cubicles or partitions. Having to go to the toilet in front of loads of people.

Being chased and having to get through a really tiny space to escape and not being able to get through.

Going to a really important event but I've overslept or not got enough time for some reason so I have to go to it looking absolutely awful with greasy hair, spotty skin and no make up.

DamnShesaSexyChick · 01/03/2022 22:50

Not being able to reach the brake pedal when I’m driving, having a holiday booked and not packed anything, needing to call 999 but constantly misdialling the number.

Maverickess · 01/03/2022 22:50

I have one where I'm being pursued by a 'something' like an almost figure but more like a black shadow/cloud and it's getting closer and closer - I have worked out that it represents depression, in recent years I manage to escape by millimetres and then wake up - I take note when I have that dream now.

Another is needing to phone for help in an emergency situation where I fear for my life or someone else's, like an ambulance or the police and my phone freezing or my hands being too numb to dial.

Another is that I'm about to die, there's no way I can avoid it, this is it, I will close my eyes and that will be the end of me. And then at the last minute I don't, there's always a feeling of having cheated death somehow, been incredibly lucky, survived when survival was impossible.

I used to dream about my grandad, that he didn't know he was dead and I had to tell him. I hated that one so much.

atiredtoddlermama · 01/03/2022 22:51

I had a reoccurring dream as a child that my dad had left my sister and I in the car and it started rolling down a hill and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I still remember it very vividly it's almost like a real life event.

These days if I'm really anxious I'll dream that all of my teeth have fell out or someone's breaking into the house.

candycane222 · 01/03/2022 22:51

One theme of mine I do have that hasn't been mentioned much is water -swimming pools,lakes or the sea, but often there isn't enough water or the water body is small and landlocked when it ought to be an open ocean. Had that one most of my life.

I do love water, always have! Don't like to see it short-changed!

RoastedFerret · 01/03/2022 22:51

Mine is trying to a hide a body for someone that I love Blush. So one of my children or friends or family will have killed someone and I am helping them to cover it up. I am always being chased by the police and no matter how many times I try and hide bodies I am always shit at it.

Another reoccurring thing when I am anxious is something bad has happened and I am trying to use my phone to get help but I just can't figure out how to work it. I keep jabbing at it but never manage to hit the right buttons.

choosername1234 · 01/03/2022 22:51

@Happyhulahooping

Legs won’t work so I can’t walk, teeth falling out, being naked in public and not realising straight away. I HATE DREAMING Grin
Me too
WhiteJellycat · 01/03/2022 22:52

I also dream a lot about going underground and get on the wrong direction tube, then get off but still get on the wrong tube. Then walk the lines to get back. That's not really a nightmare. Extra loos in my childhood home all over the place. Fast flowing rivers mainly the Thames that I am crossing. I have extremely vivid dreams every night that can be very film like. I quite enjoy most of them. I always wake up from a dream. I dream constantly or it feels like it.

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