Really vivid dreams that still affect you when you wake up

[Frequency]

Does anyone else have these frequently?

Last night's was particularly disturbing. I had murdered someone when I was 13. I didn't dream about the murder. In my dream, I was the same age I am now and for reasons not dreamt about was panicking about the body potentially being found and finally being caught. I was upset about having to explain what I had done to my children.

I woke up feeling really sick and shaky and had to sit for 15 minutes to convince myself that no, I did not kill anyone when I was 13, and forget about it. And if I had, in fact, murdered anyone and buried their body in the dunes, it wouldn't have taken 27 years for the body to surface because the dunes change all the time due to the weather and tide (I did have to Google this to help convince myself I have not murdered anyone).

I promise I have no murderous tendencies during daylight hours. I do watch a lot of true crime before bed.

They are not usually this disturbing, normally I am just irrationally angry with people who upset me in my dreams.

Am I a closeted psychopath or do other people have dreams like this?

I have dreams like this. Interestingly they are more frequent when my migrains are not under control.
They are horrible, I totally understand that shakey, sick feeling. I had one that my nephew had died when I was about 13 , I was so distraught that my no nonsense mum kept me off school.

I had some really vivid dreams when I was in hospital with encephalopathy following my first (and last) cycle of chemotherapy. One of them was so disturbing and disgusting it makes me sick just to think about it.
Another was a really vivid idea for a television series, based on the lives of the family of a footballer newly signed to a top club. I really think that idea has legs... So anyone that writes for television or who commissions series - I would be happy to let you have the idea if you want to message me! 😁

I have had this dream. Usually, there’s some evidence that I should have destroyed but for unclear reasons I didn’t. I did read somewhere that it is quite a common one.

Yes, frequently. It often takes hours and hours, days even to process and get past. Exhausting to wake up and have so much to think about.

Yes! I dream about my dead parents or about SA. It’s horrid. I’m on venlaflaxine after coming off citalapram for..,lucid dreams

I fairly regularly have the one where I've murdered someone and I need to go back to try to hide the body or get rid of evidence and I can't. Sort of I Know What You Did Last Summer type feeling to it. Very disturbing.

I also quite regularly have dreams where I need to phone the emergency services and my phone doesn't work, or I press the buttons and instead of 999 it dialls 384 or gibberish. Stressful!

I dreamt I was on an escalator once and my shoe flew off my foot and hit the lady in front of me on the head and killed her 😳. Goodness knows what that means 🤷‍♀️ 😂

I frequently have vivid dreams but they’re usually not scary or traumatic.

That said the only bit I can remember about one of my dreams last night was being on holiday in Cornwall with Frank Butcher which is quite concerning.

Yep. Horrible, stressful dreams.

usually that I need to be somewhere and I’ve forgotten, I’m trying to get somewhere and can’t, or I’m having a nice holiday and have forgotten it’s time to go home and there is a panic to pack and it won’t all fit in my bags. Dreams about forgetting are common and really freak me out about memory loss for days. There is a theme of chaos and things going wrong. I’m not like that in real life.

then even worse - dreams about accidents and stuff happening to my loved ones. Dreams about water or war or horrible accidents. I can’t even type the specifics as thinking about them makes me feel sick.

now I’m perimenopausal and sleep is more disturbed the dreams are even worse. I think night sweats and flushes create even weirder dreams and the frequent waking breaks the sleep cycles and I seem to recall more dreams.

would be nice to have some vivid but enjoyable ones - but that never seems to happen!!

Found my people

Regularly have dreams of -

Knowing I've murdered someone and I'm about to get rumbled,

I'm 5 years old and my family drive me to a deserted multi storey car park, say they don't love me and never have and smile while leaving me and taking another little girl home,

Realise on holiday I'm supposed to be leaving for the airport in 10 minutes to fly home and none of the packing is done

Just all horrible, upsetting (some more than others obv) and I feel stressed all day after

I'm so glad the murder ones are common. I was genuinely concerned that I was a serial killer and had just forgotten

I also quite regularly have dreams where I need to phone the emergency services and my phone doesn't work, or I press the buttons and instead of 999 it dialls 384 or gibberish. Stressful!

I've never had this one but I do have them often where I am trying to go on holiday but don't have the directions and cannot get maps to work. They are very stressful and I usually end up just going home and then waking up sad that I missed my holiday. I've even resorted to chalking the place name onto the pavement and taking a pic of it on my phone to see if maps could somehow scan the picture for the words but even that ended up scanning as gibberish.

We usually get lost after driving through a lovely village. I remember the village clearly. It's a lovely old-fashioned market town with a big village green in the center and a quiet cobblestone beach. I don't know why I don't just take my holiday there instead but for some reason, I always need to get to Scotland but maps tries to direct me to Norway or Sweden

I have very realistic dreams and the not being able to connect a 999 call is a reoccurring one that and not being able to lock front door even though I have the key. I put it down to the 60mg of fluoxetine.

Oh my word. My people. I have dreamed my dad had murdered someone and that I helped hide the body as a young child

Dialling or not being able to dial 999
Not being able to walk and dragging myself along
Cycling on a too small bike without handle bars or brakes
Being naked
Not being able to find a clean loo/ doors being opened on me
So many
My fave is going to another room in my house o didn't know was there and a huge extra piece of garden !

Gosh naked/toilet ones ... yes! On my dream in naked but manage to find a tea towel or something to give a smudge of modesty while having to sit opposite my dad or FIL

Or I'm again butt naked and desperately trying to find a clean toilet cubicle but they all look like the one in Trainspotting.

Generally wake from that one realising I'm desperate to pee!

@tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz it's so awful isn't it but feels so real

Vivid and scary dreams are often closely connected to hormones( in women and girls) its worthwhile keeping a short dream diary alongside your cycle tracker to see if they match highpoints in your cycle, eg ovulation or just before period is due. In the same way, hormonal bc can have a big effect on dreams too( as can pregnancy)

Yes, since lockdowns. I worry sometimes, some of them are so horrible and I’m shocked such stuff is in my head.

I went through a phase of these and reckon they were peri-menopause related

I get these when my hormones are fluctuating.
One particularly bad spell, I dreamt in very graphic detail one of my brothers being murdered for 3 nights straight. One night he was stabbed to death, other ran over with a car and the other beaten by a gang.
I remember being utterly petrified when waking and being on the verge of tears for days. Of course every day I'd call and check in on him, making sure they were dreams and not premonitions ☹️
They're awful aren't they.

I started mapping them, and then saw the correlation of them being a PMS symptom for me. They don't stress me so much now I know the causes.

One particularly bad spell, I dreamt in very graphic detail one of my brothers being murdered for 3 nights straight. One night he was stabbed to death, other ran over with a car and the other beaten by a gang.
I remember being utterly petrified when waking and being on the verge of tears for days. Of course every day I'd call and check in on him, making sure they were dreams and not premonitions ☹️

This reminds me of one time I dreamt of my brother. I was dreaming that I was trying to get to the airport to collect him but for various reasons I couldn't get there. My brother worked abroad and I had seen him or spoken to him in about a year at this point.

I rang my parents that morning to say I'd dreamt of my brother and to ask how he was doing, and he answered the phone! I got the shock of my life 😂 he had made a surprise trip home and turned up at my parents house in the middle of the night. Very weird.

Now and then I have a vivid dream of suddenly and genuinely connecting with someone, knowing they feel the same way as I do and I'm wanted and loved and will be safe with this person. There is a warm hug, a beautiful kiss and I feel so very happy. It's often someone I had a relationship with in the past and everything is put right, they aren't sexual dreams, just pure love .....it's sometimes meeting my beloved Grandmother again, she's alive, she's happy she's fine and I am over the moon to see her and talk to her again.

So I am lucky I think in that I wake feeling so peaceful and happy it carries me through the day and I revisit the dream as often as I can before it fades in a day or two. But it lifts me up as I sometimes struggle and have lost a lot of people I have deeply loved.

I have had a few bad ones in the past. They usually referred back to incidents/a person in my past. But not for ages now. I can however remember how disturbing they can be and how they can affect the coming days with the memory of the awfulness of the dream so I can relate.

Oh my gosh, SAME!

I feel a bit better knowing it's not just me.