What are your regular or frequent dream themes ?

[TheTecknician]

I don't mean the same actual dream recurring but subjects. Mine are:

Lifts. Inside, going very fast, up or down and often sideways!
On a ship in rough seas.
Aeroplane crashes.
Snakes.
Fish in clear water.
Parents, both now long gone.
Friends from years or decades ago.
Our old family dentists. The detail is different every time but essentially the same theme.

Quite a mix!

I have two:

• Sex.

• Or trying to find a toilet and unable to locate one, if I find one and it’s totally unsuitable (usually has a very low door so everyone can see you!). Apparently it relates to not getting your needs met - see first dream theme above 😂😂

Fighting, or standing up for something, I'm usually a soldier in a war (I'm a woman).

Creepy weird stuff mostly though the nightmares are so bad I can't go to bed unless dog tired.

Someone trying to kill me. There was a period of several months when I would dream that someone was trying to kill me every single night! Always a different person, and not anyone in particular, just a vague someone. After that intense period I don't get the dream every night but often enough to count it as regular.

Also the toilet dream one - trying to find a toilet and not finding a suitable one. Seems that's a very common dream theme!

I'm required to leave where I am in a very short timeframe, and realise that the stuff I want to take with me far exceeds what I physically and logistically CAN take and I have no way to store anything so just have to grab what I can as fast as possible and get out, leaving everything else behind forever.

OR

I work in an insanely opulent place - a galaxy-class starship, a 14th century Venetian palazzo, a secret gold-encrusted room in the centre of the Kremlin - and can't stop thinking about how if I could somehow steal one mundane but priceless object - a paperweight or a letter opener or something - it could sustain my family/community for months.

OR

It's just been discovered that I didn't actually complete all of the requirements for my undergraduate degree so I have to go back to where I went to school (in another country, now) and put my life on hold for x months to take one last class. The class is almost always something pertinent to the state of the world today - most recently, how to investigate and record war crimes in Ukraine - and nothing at all to do with my actual undergrad degree.

Oh another one is when I have to walk home through woods or fields but it’s almost getting dark and I’m nervous and try to find another way.

It’s so fascinating how similar some of these themes are!

Exams - it’s always German lit and not only have I not read any of the books, I don’t even know what they are. I don’t know why it’s only ever German - I got quite a respectable A level grade.

Then it’s the Christmas one - it’s nearly 4 pm on Christmas Eve, and I’ve bought no presents, no tree, nothing. I do know what that dates back to though - a last minute trip from the M East back to the UK - I had just the 24th to buy everything.

A common theme I experience, regardless of the subject of the dream itself, is semi-darkness. Very often I'm somewhere that isn't pitch dark but definitely isn't that light. I have to find my way around cautiously.

I have that toilet one regularly! I often wonder if I found a usable one if I’d wet the bed!

I also regularly dream I’m somehow on holiday with my ex-husband and desperately trying to text my current husband but can’t make my phone work.

Also that I find a door in my house that leads to more rooms, although the further in I go, the more dangerous and dilapidated they get so I end up with a massive unusable house.

sometimes that I can fly and I’m always surprised that other people around me can’t.

And the classic not being ready for an exam or an essay that’s due in.

I also regularly realise I’m naked in a dream which doesn’t bother me too much but I feel I should cover up so other people aren’t embarrassed so I end up grabbing rugs or curtains to hide behind.

Teeth falling out. Enough that I have a specific dentist, who only exists in my dreams, that I try to call whenever I have teeth issues in my dreams. Can never find his number, or my phone doesn't work.

Toilets. Fucked up toilets - filthy, or they have the short doors that infant schools have.

Stairs. Something is wrong with the stairs. I have to climb, or jump, and this is totally normal.

Plane crashes. Most recently, watching a jumbo jet with no wings plough into the ground.

Do I have anxiety? What are you talking about?

I get the exam one too - didn't realise it was so common!

Being on a plane that's about to crash but I'm the only survivor.

Being back with my ex husband, that's the worst one, such a relief to wake up.

Being at the airport but I don't have my passport.

Occasionally sex dreams with a colleague (quite enjoy them though).

I am 5+ years sober and get drinking dreams..in my dream I know I am in recovery , I drink, then feel heartbroken that I ruined my recovery. It is such a relief to wake up

I only have sex dreams once in a blue moon, which is unfortunate as it's the closest I ever get to the real thing.

I had a phase where I would dream I was scrolling on my phone. Then blink and wake up, boom, phone vanishes.

It was very trippy.

Or I still sometimes dream that I'd woken up, eaten breakfast, fed the cat, got in the car, turn the key...now I'm back in bed.

That one is frustrating.

Buying a house without a full structural survey. Used to have this one a lot and, surprise surprise, the house would be falling down.

Also being observed teaching a lesson that I hadn't prepared for and everything going tits up.

I've had the same type of recurring dream for years. Quite often I half wake up and shout and panic about it and it terrifies DH, especially when I get out of bed.

In the dream I have been reponsible for the care/welfare of someone or something (eg animal or pet) that was reliant on me. But I have forgotten all about them, and it has awful consequences. eg if it's an animal, it's a domesticated one that is either caged or in a hutch or a stable or something so is reliant on a human to bring them food and drink. And I've somehow forgotten to go and look after them and they have been left to die a slow and miserable death. Sometimes they are far away and although I try to get to them I know it's going to be too late. I often wake up screaming about this in terror as the realisation their death is imminent and it's all my fault feels so real.

If it's a human it's usually a child or a group of children, and again, I've been responsible for them eg on a school trip abroad, and I've forgotten to get to the airport in time with all their passports. I often wake up in real life convinced that I am supposed to be at the airport with them all and everyone is going to be so disappointed and upset because of my neglect. Or it could be that I've left my teenage niece abroad because I've forgotten about her and got all the way back to the UK before I realised she was supposed to be coming home with me.

Being late for things - it used to be being late for school, now it's being late to take the DC to school! They mostly involve us trying to get there but having to go back for forgotten items, or things getting in the way, etc. I wake up stressed and anxious and call them 'anxiety dreams'.

School in general still features a lot (I'm 36...). A lot of my dreams seem to be 'set' in a school but not necessarily about going to school.

Crashing or losing control of the car is a big one, I have a LOT of dreams about that.

I used to dream about DD all the time, pretty much from the day she was born. When DS came along it took a couple of years for him to make an appearance and I felt quite guilty about it! Now I'd say they feature in about half of my dreams, good and bad.