Classic anxiety dreams… what are yours?

[SingToTheSky]

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

Interesting to see so many common themes. (I have the trying to dial/write down a number in a crisis one, and the never getting to my destination as more and more problems crop up along the way one too). The more people describe them the more I recognise!

I often have the toilet one. I think I read somewhere that it happens if you need the loo and it's your brain's way of trying to wake you up before you wet the bed. Not sure how true it is but I always wake up from these sorts of dreams busting for the loo!

The other one I often have is being late for something important like getting to the airport on time or an interview.

Crashing my car with the children in and none of us are wearing seatbelts, shakes me out of bed and leaves me feeling very unsettled. Increased in frequency after I crashed my car (luckily my children were at school and nursery)
I also dream that my lesson is being observed and I'm unprepared!

I can’t believe so many people have the packing dream! I thought maybe a few people would say it, it’s really amazed me how many have already!

@Neves7

I have a few…

I have to take an international flight but either I forgot something or I thing there is something wrong with my visa/passport/etc and then I have to take all these weird trains to get to the gate and I think I’m going to miss the flight. If I get on the plane it’s weird inside and not like a normal plane and I’m worried they won’t let me in the country when we get there.

Or I am at work forgot to wear my top and at first it’s ok and normal, then I start to feel slightly under dressed and gradually get more and more embarrassed/uncomfortable.

Or the ones where I am back at school and realize that I haven’t been to a class all term and have to take an exam.

Or where I suddenly realize I have a pet that I have forgotten to take care of and I am running around trying to find it.

Lol really I am not a particularly anxious person when I am awake!

I sometimes have one where I suddenly remember that I have a pet and realise that I haven’t been feeding or taking care of it. Also waking up really late for work and panicking but I still don’t get ready for work. I just faff around and get in a state and get more and more late.

I get the teeth falling out one, they crumble and break into pieces in my mouth and im spitting out gravel like chunks of teeth.

Also get airport related ones, either rushing through an unfamiliar airport with no idea where im going and late for my flight. Or know im late for my flight but can't remeber which flight I need to be on. Or left documents at check in, so need to rush back from the gate, and then get lost. Or on the plane but it doesnt really look like a plane and ive lost my traveling companions and on my own.

The less 'common' anxiety dream that i get every so often is me trying to put in my contact lenses but they are the size of dinner plates. I get more and more frustrated because i know that theres no way its going to fit, but I carry on trying because the must fit, because i wear them every day and they usually fit fine. So i know something is wrong but i dont know exactly what it is.

I get the toilet one too but also when dc were younger I used to dream I'd gone to work and forget to take one of them to the childminder. I'd be halfway through my working day when I realised I'd left them at home in the cot. I'd then be panicking about trying to get home to them and how distressed they would be and if social services would find out and I'd get in trouble.

My other recurrent one is I'm trying to ring the police in an emergency, the phone doesn't work or line is engaged or keeps getting cut off or I'm running around trying to find a working phone from somewhere.

@CatFacePoodle

Turning up to my final exam of my degree course and realising I haven't read a single book on the syllabus or attended any of the lectures. I have this dream a lot.

Decades after I took any such exam (A level) I still have the German Lit one now and then - the exam is imminent, and not only have I not read any of the books, I don’t even know what they are.

It’s not as if I did badly in that exam either. Why it’s always German I don’t know - I did two other languages at A level.

Ever since our honeymoon it's being late for a flight. Particularly not having passports

For real on our honeymoon I got as far as the taxi to airport before remembering I hadn't picked up my new passport. Luckily easily sorted. However we got to airport to find DH had forgotten his crucial meds. He had to spend a fortune on taxi from rank to go home and get it, just getting back in time before check in closed.

Mine are;
Running from a tidal wave

Not being able to find the right room in a house that feels familiar

Leaving a baby on the bus

I have a few.

Out of control driving. I am driving a car but I just can't get it under control. I can never seem to move my foot, so I cannot brake. I will hit you all's, crash into cars etc. I always wake up worried I will have it happen in really life.

The volcano one. We are in a flat a few stories up, and from the balcony I can see a volcano erupting and lava flowing towards us. I am telling everyone to get out but no one is listening to me or paying any attention. I am watching the lava edge closer and closer, but everyone else is too absorbed in what they are doing to notice or care.

The jumping one. Again in the flat, with the exact same balcony as the lava one. I am with a group of people and we are taking turned to jump from the balcony to the garden below (a few stories high). We then run around and do it again, and again. Each attempt I am more scared and I can feel I am getting closer and closer to breaking both legs, but I keep jumping.

The can’t pack in time or trip / get to the airport and have forgotten my passport is the most common one for me.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned the neglected pet dream. You discover that you have a pet (in my case a horse) that has been forgotten and neglected and is now shut in a dark, dirty stable or foul cage. I’m a real animal lover so it’s very upsetting.

My car being stolen, leaving me stranded. Or, I've parked somewhere and can't remember where

I had one last night bit not packing which is unusual.

I was going to a conference in a town I had never been to. I only knew what time it started but not where it was. As the start got closer i couldn't find where it was, Google Maps on my phone wouldn't function, nor my laptop. I never got to the conference, but the anxiety over missing it was so vivid.

University exams; neglecting/ forgetting I have a pet ; living in a house that's suddenly revealed as leaky and riddled with dry rot.

I've only had the pet one since becoming a mother so I suppose it's related!

Neglected pets ( It was a brood of ducklings once) is the worst for me.

CATFACE
I have a similar dream it is always the Sociology exam paper I never get to finish it and fail my degree.

I’m not a particularly anxious person so I know things are bad when I have dreams of crashing my car or having to get to the top of a very tall flight of stairs with treads missing. Lots of these atm!

I mentioned my packing anxiety dream earlier in the thread, but I also have the pet one - I realise I've forgotten some pets (usually rabbits) and the fear they've died is terrible

I also get the phone one - usually involving my pets - I'm trying to ring the vet in an emergency but I keep pressing the wrong buttons.

It's amazing that so many of us have the same dreams!

The toilet one - I need to go, but they are in public with people just walking past, the doors don't shut properly.
I've had this one loads of times, with small changes, and it's not always when I actually need to pee.

I have the packing dream too! I think it stemmed from my last day at uni when I had to get up and pack everything up having had about 3 hours sleep and with a stinking hangover. Why I hadn’t packed before going out for evening I just don’t know. At one time I managed to train myself to realise that it was dream.

That I've forgotten how to speak english and nobody can understand me.

Teeth falling out

Falling off the side of a building

My recurring dream is that I'm back in sixth form about to sit my A Levels - but I realise shit, I haven't attended any classes for the subjects I'm studying, and exams are really close.

I wake up bloody terrified, then remember my A Levels were 15 years ago!!

Teeth falling out and being chased by dinosaurs.