Does anyone else have weird recurring dreams?!

[Sandpiperwavedance]

Last night I had one of my two regular recurring dreams, about realising I have an upcoming exam for a module I’d totally forgotten about, which I haven’t revised for at all 😱 (I left uni nearly 20 years ago!)

The other one I have is about getting home and finding the front door ajar, being terrified there’s an intruder in my house or all my stuff has been taken! (Not sure where this comes from, as it’s never happened in real life - touch wood!)

These dreams don’t happen very often, but they’ve been cropping up every now and then for as long as I can remember, and they still really unsettle me!

It’s got me wondering, do other people experience a similar thing? What are the weird recurring dreams you can’t escape from?!

Oh your run down house sounds like mine!

I have the exam one or having to perform in some way unprepared.
I have the find an extra room in the house one
I also dream I'm trying to get somewhere but am lost and coming across lots of obstacles and unable to use the numbers on my phone.
I used to have one about trying to scale a huge structure

I regularly have the exam one even though I left uni 30 years ago and haven't studied since. Weirdly though I'm thinking about applying for a course soon and becoming anxious about applying myself 😁

Arriving at the airport without my passport, I had this one last night.

Being on a plane and it's about to crash land on a residential area. Often, I'm the only survivor but no one is bothered.

Being back with my ex husband, this is the worst one 😭 The relief on waking up is indescribable 🥺🤣

I have/had 3 recurring dreams, but I haven't had nos 2 and 3 for a good while now.

1. I'm in my house, not alone but DH is elsewhere and sleeping. It's dusk. Suddenly 4 or 5 pickup trucks arrive outside, screeching to a stop, and loads of people stream out of each one. They don't try to get into the house itself, but they jump the gate and go into the garden, shouting all the time. It feels really threatening.

2. I'm somewhere that I do know but haven't been for a while (the location varies). I'm in a strange house, looking for DH. There are loads of people around, it's like a squat, but they ignore me. I'm climbing over rubble, or trying to prop up a door that's off its hinges, climbing some messy cluttered stairs etc, trying to find him. I'm anxious in the dream but safe enough, I just want to find him so we can go home together.

3. this is the most upsetting one and I'm glad I've not had it for ages. I'm in my house and then I suddenly realise that I've forgotten to feed some little animals for ages (sometimes it's rabbits, other times it's guinea pigs). I pull their cages out from under the bed and I'm dreading looking at them in case they're dead, but they're all alive. There's loads more of them than I thought though and they're all crammed in. As a massive animal lover, that one upsets me the most and it takes me ages to shake off the horrible feeling when I waken up.

Wow, some of these are very intriguing! I’ve always been quite fascinated by dreams. We have two dogs and they often have really animated dreams too, I’d love to know what they’re about!

For years Ive had a recurring dream of seeing a plane crash. I’ve not had one for a while but I’m always fairly close, witnessing a commercial plane literally fall out of the sky and I always wake up when it hits the ground. So weird. It’s not always in the same place or the same plane but the other features are identical.

I have recurring dreams but they're like concurrent, like I go back to a place. I'll be walking through a place and realise I remember it and I'll walk further into the place I know and find the people I met before. There's a theme park that has become derelict now and besides that there is a university. There's a man that works there that's a good friend, and a man I was absolutely in love with who was an artist there. I was devastated for weeks after waking up from the dream when we fell in love, I'd been in the dream for months it felt like. I've seen him since, the spark is still there but I'd moved on.

God I sound crazy.

I've taught myself how to run in dreams and how to fly. I'm very lucid in dreams, I used to have alot of nightmares as a kid and learned how to take control of them

Ooh that is a horrible one. Nastier even than witnessing plane crashes that I share with quite a few others in this thread. I always assumed my plane crash dreams were informed by Lockerbie - but perhaps not everyone here is really old enough for that to have made an impression?

My dh has this dream!

@CarrieMoonbeams ive had the neglected animals one, too. Sometimes rabbits, or fish in an aquarium. The most awful version was when I had a newborn in real life, and I used to dream I’d had twins and would realise I’d put one in a cupboard or in the garage and forgotten them. 😲

Sounds similar to mine.

Hahaa that’s so interesting!! My DP can never remember his dreams!

How odd! Can I ask if your dream occurred during a particularly stressful time? Mine was during lockdown when my mum was ill (dementia) and I felt so overwhelmed. I couldn't get her the help she needed and she became more and more demanding alongside that. I felt I wasn't doing anything properly because I was being pulled in all directions.

Kind of makes sense when you think of it like that.

I occasionally have a similar dream about my horse (had her as a teenager 30 years ago). I've found her in a field with massive overgrown hooves as I forgot to look after her 😰

Very similar to yours I am in school and I know I’m due in a lesson but I don’t know where I’m supposed to be going and I’m aware I’ve missed all the other lessons and will be hopelessly lost / behind

It would take pages to list all my weird recurring dreams!

I have certainly had the exam one and occasionally a variation that I had to go on stage and perform in a ballet.

Another favourite is discovering extra rooms in my house, and another stress dream is having to key in a very long and complicated code number into something using an absolutely tiny keyboard

I actually can’t remember the life circumstances of my animals dreams, but yes, it was my first baby and the early months were quite an adjustment. I was quite sleep deprived. Yes, I think it’s to do with feeling under pressure. I’m sorry to hear about your lockdown experience.

I have recurring themed dreams. I can’t seem to put them to bed, so to speak. Most common are:

The loo. So awkward you can’t get into it - like having to slide into a tiny gap or clamber down a stairwell hanging between floors in a tower block. And if you get there you’re on public view.

The finals. Imminent exams and 4 years of lectures never attended, often don’t even know the subject.

The trip. Packing, time is short, panicking can’t find what I need amongst piles of crap, like wading through glue.

Reversing my car, break won’t work, slo mo collision into parked car or person but dream stops just before I hit.

I can hazard a decent guess as to the cause of them (anxiety, work deadlines etc) but would really like to put an end to the buggers. It’s like my brain is on a short circuit. Some I’ve been having since uni - over 30 years!!

Spider in the bed is mine. Not had it for ages, well over a year, and suddenly last night and I'm waking up as I'm trying to whack a spider out of the bed 😭

It’s a bit ‘woo’ but we had a lot of some unexplainable stuff go on in the house I lived in as a young teen and at 42 I still regularly dream about one particular room in that house, that I’m trying to get in or out and something unseen is pushing the door from the other side.

I also have the packing / leaving for a trip one mentioned above, but that leaves me less wired on waking!

Yes I get uni ones and also secondary school ones - which are varied and can be enjoyable.

I went back to my old secondary school to work as a TA after uni so the memories were fresher and rather mashed together 😆

OMG I have the toilet dream too. It’s in a nightclub with a big semi-circular line of cubicles and they’re all disgusting or don’t have a door. Can you tell I’m reading this thread from the bottom up?

I have one, where in the dream I suddenly remember other rooms I have forgotten about then I have all these plans for what I'm going to do with them. Always disappointed when I wake up and realise it's a dream.

Im in my previous abode the door is locked and so are the windows but people can still get in.
I haven't lived there for 25 years.