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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask if you have ever had a dream so vivid you couldn't distinguish it with reality?

142 replies

vividdream · 12/09/2017 19:02

I had a very vivid dream over the weekend which seemed unusually clear and real. When I woke up I wasn't sure if I was still in the dream as everything in the dream seemed so real and solid and since then it has made me think about reality and whether I am still dreaming as it was so vivid and elements of it were indistinguishable from real life. I have never had a dream that real and lucid before.

Has anyone had an experience like this?

OP posts:
TheLegendOfBeans · 12/09/2017 21:57

Yep titsbum - same here. It's shitty.

Iusedtobecarmen · 12/09/2017 21:58

Me too,titsbum

titsbumfannythelot · 12/09/2017 21:59
Flowers
Skinidin · 12/09/2017 22:01

Yes, this happens nearly every night, or at least several times a week. I also share the experience of a previous poster who said they woke up, and then fell asleep to the same dream.

Had the Exam dream (ad nauseam), the dead relative come back to life, the killing someone all too many times to bear thinking about. And always in colour.

I thought everyone did.

QueenofLouisiana · 12/09/2017 22:08

Yes- about killing someone and burying them in my garden. Only the fact that I was 8 months pregnant reassures me that I really couldn't have done this. I was massive and physically could not have managed it!

Horrid dream, I felt sick for days.

Trumpton · 12/09/2017 22:10

My mum had a wicked sense of humour . After she died I dreamt I met her and I said " Oh mum ! They said you were dead ! "
And she twinkled at me and said " the buggers were exaggerating ! "
I woke up laughing .

More recently I dreamt I had a HUGE row with Dd who lives in London . It left me so shaken that I had to message her before work and she reassured me that she loved me and her friends did NOT think I was horrible !

tigercub50 · 12/09/2017 22:12

The worst experience of sleep paralysis was on holiday abroad & I was struggling under the weight of " something" - it was dark but I could make out the outline of a black figure. Terrifying.

mirime · 12/09/2017 22:16

I had a full blown alien abduction style sleep paralysis dream/hallucination once. Terrifying, and very, very real feeling.

I often have very real dreams, last one was last week. Main bit I remember is where I actually realised it was a dream. I thought I'd seen someone walk past the front door towards the gate into the garden and went and looked through the kitchen window. All completely real, but it wasn't our garden out there. I looked away, closed my eyes, opened them and looked back out the window. Not our garden. Did it again, really believing I was seeing things and the right garden would be back where it should be. Nope. Realised I must be dreaming.

I can still remember the wrong garden quite clearly.

Jamon · 12/09/2017 22:17

@peachgreen I have dream about DH too! Freaks me right out

I have a recurring dream about getting to my finals at uni and realising I haven't read any of the set texts. It's so real that it creeps into my real life and I still feel like it's something that actually happened.

SomewhatIdiosyncratic · 12/09/2017 22:19

The ones that have me doubting reality tend to be quite mundane. I can have my mood affected by a dream as the emotion fades on waking. I love it if I wake myself up laughing, but that's been a while (I remember one from 15+ years ago where we stripped a school friend naked in the RE classroom and were laughing about it as he cowered under a desk Blush) If I've woken abruptly from a bad dream, I find it helpful to replay the dream and change the scenario to my advantage to shake off the emotion of it.

A few weeks ago I woke DH up by shouting in real life as I was dreaming that the DCs had made a huge mess in the lounge and hall and was yelling at them in the dream. It's happened a few times over the years. Once I woke up shouting "cat!" and another (heavily pregnant) where I ran through my home town dressed as a cat and took a leap through the air shouting (literally!) "Miaow!" I remember asking if I shouted, then if I shouted "miaow".

(Maybe I should get some pets Grin)

Jamon · 12/09/2017 22:21

@Trumpton that made me laugh out loud

ALemonyPea · 12/09/2017 22:22

All the time.

I still have to convince myself I've never been on Big Brother, because the dream was so realistic I can't see how it didn't happen, and that was a good three or four years ago.

I also once dreamt I was shot in the neck. I woke and had a painful neck in that exact spot for days.

FinallyDecidedOnUserName · 12/09/2017 22:22

I once (40 odd years ago) dreamt that id murdered someone and chopped up the body - it was so so real feeling I was combing the papers for reports of missing persons and waiting for the police to knock on the door.

Jamon · 12/09/2017 22:23

@SomewhatIdiosyncratic 😂😂😂 the cat shouting miaow 😂

I've had an occasional dream too where I've been in a very stressful situation and trying to shout and woke my myself - and DH up - yelling

MorbidBibliomancy · 12/09/2017 22:24

Does anyone remember the Judderman advert for Metz schnapps alcopops? At one point I had sleep paralysis every other night, and was convinced the Judderman was standing over my bed. It felt so real. That sucked.

DP once had a dream that I was a mind-controlled assassin, and was a bit freaked out the next morning.

I've also had dreams where I've had to leave DP for one reason or another, and always wake up feeling horribly guilty Blush

SomewhatIdiosyncratic · 12/09/2017 22:27

I had a vivid dream about my dad 20+ years ago where I got one more day with him. He had to go at the end Sad

One that's stayed with me since I was a young child was as though I was lying on the ground next to an escalator as it goes in the ground. I associate it with a claustrophobic feeling and can have issues with claustrophobia. I also struggle with things being out of proportion which I think comes from a very old dream.

Maudlinmaud · 12/09/2017 22:27

I get them every so often. The one that still haunts me was about waking up in the middle of the night and hearing a very loud noise overhead. I got out of bed and looked out of the window, only to see a huge aeroplane fly really low overhead. I could see all the lights in the plane and the noise was deafening. I just got back into bed though and went back to sleep Grin it was so real though.

Iusedtobecarmen · 12/09/2017 22:29

I've too tried to shout in my dream many times and women myself up.
I.have also had the uni dream where I've got to hand in final work and it's nowhere near done. The panic is terrible. I wake up feeling it's actually happened.
I qualified quite a few years ago.

BertieBotts · 12/09/2017 22:30

Yes occasionally but it usually fades over the day.

You can check if you're dreaming at any time BTW - it's actually interesting to start regularly checking whether you're dreaming because it means you'll start doing it automatically in your dreams, and then you end up aware that you're dreaming which is quite fun because you can make yourself do stupid stuff like fly or jump into explosions or whatever you like.

To check if you're dreaming look at any display like a clock face or digital screen/sign which you'd normally expect to stay the same or at least be predictable in its changes (e.g. clock may change by one minute/second at a time). Look away and then look back. In real life of course it will be the same but in a dream it will be totally nonsensical and have changed to completely different numbers/text.

And yes to the vivid dreams being more likely when pregnant. But God :( The dreams I had after miscarriage were utterly horrendous and so, so real. Once dreamt I was driving through a war zone and seeing these horrendous mangled bodies everywhere, skeletons driving cars (it was a kind of surrealist war zone) and I was so scared. Another time I dreamt I'd been forced to give my DS into foster care and we were looking around the foster carer's house and she was so lovely but I felt wretched and I was trying to be brave for him and I just woke up in floods of uncontrollable tears.

I also sometimes dream that I'm giving birth and then snapshots of having a newborn and then I wake up and realise it's not real and feel a proper sense of loss for the whole day Confused The other day though I dreamt I was pregnant and didn't know if it was DH's baby! That was an anxiety provoking one and I was quite glad not to be pregnant when I woke up :)

LuxuryWoman2017 · 12/09/2017 22:32

I've had the dream I've killed someone too. It's so vivid, in my dream I suddenly remember I killed someone and I'm fascinated and reassured that it is quite common.

Maudlinmaud · 12/09/2017 22:33

I think the dreams about dead relatives must be very common and I'd love to understand what they mean. I've had conversations with my late father in dreams, I'm quite puzzled by his presence and reminding him that he is dead. But he just shrugs it off.

Iusedtobecarmen · 12/09/2017 22:35

*woken myself up

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 12/09/2017 22:37

When i was very young i had reoccurring nightmares about a figure on a pogo stick jumping over fences

I had to learn to bring something or someone into the dream to stop it

I can wake myself up but some of my nightmares are awesome to be fair

MayhemandMadness01 · 12/09/2017 22:38

I kicked ass in Buckingham palace the other night, foiled a plot to kidnap the queen. Right down to using my high heels to stab into the side of his throat and pulled forward to effectively rip out his throat - bulging eyes as well. Had to tell Prince Philip to hide under the bed and wait until he saw boots with small white dots round the soles so he knew they were the good guys before saying 'pillow' so they knew he was there and didn't shoot him be mistake. Lizzie and I nabbed the crown and escaped through a secret passage within the walls.

No idea where the plot came from but the level of detail in the dream - cushion pile, feeling carpet under my feet, smell of cake (they were having afternoon tea), cold handle of the door etc was unbelievable.

chitofftheshovel · 12/09/2017 22:40

It's the dreams where I've done all the washing cleared and cleaned the house, done all the cooking and all in a really efficient manner too. And then I wake up and have to do it all again. They suck.

When I was little I regularly walked up walls. Family would pass by and ignore me, I could never figure out why they weren't more amazed.