Stress dreams

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I had a stress dream last night that I had gone on holiday from work and just forgotten to go back again for weeks. I told my DH and he was telling me to phone my boss and not just turn up that day as they might not be expecting me back after so long. After I woke up it took me a few seconds to remember that I stopped working 16 years ago when we moved to a different country. I don't know what that stress dream was about at all.

I also had a really stressful dream before my trip away on a quilting retreat a few weeks ago. I dreamed that I got there and had only packed my sewing machine and nothing else, no fabric, clothes, toiletries, medicines etc. I was stress about whether I should get back in the car and go home to collect everything or try and cope by buying basics from local shops. I know what caused that dream though as the previous time I went on that trip I discovered that my car wouldn't fast charge so I was very stressed by the time I got there, and the fault still hasn't been fixed. The trip wasn't actually all that stressful when I did it (at least compared to the dream) because, knowing about the issue, I could find slow chargers on the route. It was just a must longer journey than it needed to be because fast charging is about nine times faster than slow charging.

When you have stress dreams can you usually relate them to something going on in your real life, or are they just completely out of the blue, weird dreams?

DH has just told me that he still has university exam stress dreams, even though he left university nearly 40 years ago.

I think they definitely relate to stuff going on in everyday life as it's your brain trying to untangle issues that you are going through, even though you might not work and it was a work dream, there will be a link of some kind.

I've been unwell this past week and it's led to full-on horror film-style dreams, waking up sweating and genuine feelings of fear. So much so I had to turn the light on to get back to sleep - and I'm 47, it's been a very long time since I have had to go to bed with the light on! I think it's because I've had a high temperature.

I'm sorry you had upsetting dreams. It really throws you when you wake up for a while doesn't it? Have you tried putting them through AI to see if you can work out what it means? I accidently did that the other day, lol. I was actually inquiring about something else but the conversation got onto a dream and it went from there.
I've always suffered with nightmares but do get a lot of stress dreams too, realising I'm naked in public, missing an exam, teeth falling out or holes in them, etc.

Oh I felt really awful for at least an hour afterwards and if I don't then go back to sleep it will stay with me during the day. No I haven't but that is an idea! I dream most nights and when I am not ill I can usually work out where they come from - both from what it is on my mind or stuff I have seen/heard during the day. I think in this case my body just turned up the thermostat to get rid of the last of this illness and my brain went: "Well in that case - you're having an 18-rated horror story... let the madness commence!"

One thing I have learned to do with nightmares over time - although because I was unwell I couldn't this time - is to have a bit of lucid thought in a dream, because at a few points your awake brain does signal that it's a dream and not real. So when this signal happens that you think "Hang on this is a dream..." is to imagine a big book, like a story book, in front of you, and jut close it shut. Then you wake up - because it's like fast forwarding to the end of the story/dream. I first did it when I was in my tweens and I can do it quite successfully now to bring dreams to end if they are uncomfortable. Fully aware that makes me sound like a bit of a loon! But it works for me! Most of the time at least, not when I have a temperature it seems.

I used to have stress dreams when I was younger about being out in public and suddenly realising that I was naked from the waist down. I would be trying to pull my t-shirt down to stretch it long enough, but it didn't work. Then one day when I was having IVF, I hopped off the examination chair mid-conversation with the dr and a few minutes into the conversation realised that I was just standing there naked from the waist down, just like the dream. I was discombobulated for a few seconds and then just got dressed while still discussing the future of my treatment. I NEVER had the dream again.

I have these type of dreams and night terrors most nights, I’m always exhausted. Sometimes it’s related to real life and others related to nothing

I had a common dream theme for years where I had to get over loads of almost impossible obstacles to get out of somewhere and I never did get out and the obstacles were so stressful. Until; a conversation with my mum where she randomly asked whether I remembered her putting me into a teapot on Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Guessing I was 5 or 6 (50 now). Couldn't find the way out, mum was too big to get in and she found another child who went in and guided me out.
Have not had that sort of dream since that conversation.

The packing to leave a holiday when you find that you've brought everything you've ever owned in your life with you is another bad one!

I have weird dreams all the time. I keep dreaming that i have moved to denmark. I either end up working for the danish police or i get kidnapped.

Apart from tedious work based stress dreams I quite regularly stress dream about houses. The dreams always have the same theme - there is a hidden room or even wing that I discover but will then vary. Sometimes the new wing needs a lot of DIY which is stressful, whilst in other dreams the wing is haunted or occupied by a psychopath. I once looked up the dream meaning of hidden rooms and apparently it's a part of your personality that is being buried which doesn't bode well for me!

I used to have work dreams that weren't stressful, just boring. Basically did a day's work in my dream and then had to go into work and do it again. I did suggest to my line manager that I shouldn't have to come into work if I'd been dreaming about work all night. He said that if I came in and my projects had been finished then I could absolutely go home again. Strangely, they never were finished.

My recurring one when stressed is I cannot find my car. Usually in a carpark but never the same one.

Occasionally have dreams about work but a bit mundane and nothing stressful.

I’ve always had vivid nightmares since I was a child, and I used to be able to end them by jumping into some water in the dream (river, stream, sea, even a puddle!) and I’d see fish and bubbles, then wake up!

I get stress dreams too. Usually involving traffic jams or airports or sick kids. When ds 1 was a toddler we discussed primary schools and the potential school runs and traffic patterns etc. We also discussed ttc again. I had a stress dream that I was in a traffic jam with twin baby girls and DS, he was shouting and babies were crying and it was hellish. Roll on a few years and I had newborn twins when DS1 started school, through a nightmare traffic bottle neck that took almost an hour round trip. That stress dream became my daily life unfortunately. The only difference was I had a boy and a girl. I've always been a bit nervous of them since but they usually are of past stresses or present worries