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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:
SparkyTheCat · 12/09/2017 22:40

I have dreams where I know I'm dreaming and can even direct the dream.

Teddy1970 · 12/09/2017 22:42

Rufus....streuth!

Lindy2 · 12/09/2017 22:45

I had one very vivid dream where my children were in danger and all I could do was watch. I couldn't reach them.
I knew it was a dream as soon as I woke but I felt very shaken. In the dream I could clearly see the particular dress my youngest was wearing. I haven't let her wear it since and now thankfully it no longer fits. It felt like if she wore that dress something bad would happen.

FrankieStein · 12/09/2017 22:48

Glad it's not just me!

Once I had a dream that I was asking to a friends mum. We were having a great chat about a rough patch he was going through. She thanked me for giving him support at the time and told me not to worry when I told her that I couldn't be around as much because of loads of changes at home. She then said that someone else would be coming who would look after him when I was busy.

When I woke up I honestly thought that I'd had an awesome chat with her. To the point that I almost called him to tell him how proud she was of him.

Then I realised that A) I'd never actually met his mum. b) I couldn't recall what she looked like and C) His mum had died years before I ever met him.

So glad I realised this before I made that call. I would have looked crazy.

Two weeks later he met a girl. They've been together for going on 8 years now.

FrankieStein · 12/09/2017 22:48

Talking not asking. Damn autocorrect

Iusedtobecarmen · 12/09/2017 22:50

Frankie
That gave me shivers

Original poster
vividdream · 12/09/2017 22:50

Just gonna say it OP; could you be pg?

Lol, I bloody hope not! I'm too old for more kids.

OP posts:
FrankieStein · 12/09/2017 22:53

Carmen it was just so odd. That's the most vivid one but my mum tells me that I used to have quite a lot of dream conversations when I was a child.

Apparently I'd chat with my grandad (died when I was 2) and be coming out with his sayings and mannerisms.
I do get more normal vivid dreams as well, normally about boring normal stuff though

Tainbri · 12/09/2017 22:54

Yes for the dreams but also I sometimes get this weird deja vu. I am awake and not dreaming and can feel like I've had a dream like I've been there before. I hate that, I presume I'm not the only one as there is a name for it, but I've never actually asked anyone if it happens to them!!

ParkheadParadise · 12/09/2017 22:56

I had a dream the night before my Dd died. I still think sometimes nearly 2years later it was real.

I was in bed and I heard her coming up the stairs. I can remember the weight of her sitting on the bed I was pregnant at the time. She told me she knew what I was having. I must have woke up because I got up to look for her. The next morning I told DH she had been in the house during the night.
I tried to fone her and got no answer I got ready to go to her flat. When the police came to the door I knew she was gone.
I told the police she had been in the house it felt so real. It wasn't until they looked through CCTV they informed me that it wasn't possible for her to have been here.
I'll never understand what happened that night it felt so real.

Iusedtobecarmen · 12/09/2017 22:59

I'd love to get my dreams analysed properly

frankie.sounds like defo something more than just a dream going on.
I've had the odd one that's been extra strange.
Once I dreamt i was out in a big field and a plane was in trouble and literally getting lower and lower,so low I could see the passengers. It landed in the field and I ran towards it but couldn't find it!!
A few days later a plane crash was on the news (not big passenger jet-more light aircraft).
It made me think was there a connection .

mirime · 12/09/2017 23:01

The worst realistic dreams I had were while taking 30/500 Co-codamol after surgery. Horrific things. On the plus side there was no chance of me getting hooked on the damn things as I was off them as soon as possible.

Iusedtobecarmen · 12/09/2017 23:02

Codeine and tramadol definitely enhance dreams and not always for the good. Also DHEA does too
Its weird.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 12/09/2017 23:06

teddy

Pissed me off a bit...

I dont think im going to be able to do it again

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 12/09/2017 23:06

parkhead

Thanks
LefDeppard · 12/09/2017 23:08

The strangest one I had was 4 or 5 years ago, I randomly dreamt that I was talking to an old school friend's brother, a lad I'd not seen in 10+ years, and I didn't remember my dream until the following morning when I was in the town centre where I live. As soon as the dream popped back into my head I knew, I mean just KNEW I was going to bump into this fella. About 2 or 3 minutes later he walked past me in the street and said "hello" and I just stood there open mouthed I must have looked ridiculous. It wasn't just that I'd not seen this guy in 10 years or so, it was that I had t even thought of him/forgot he existed. Essentially meaningless (I think) but freaked me out for the rest of the day!

JeReviens · 12/09/2017 23:14

Such an interesting thread! Does anyone else have recurring dreams on a theme? Two or three times a week I have really vivid and exhausting dreams about being at an airport then either on a plane or needing to get on one and there's always some bloody problem but when I wake up I can never remember what it was. Hugely annoying and so very tiring.

ijustwannadance · 12/09/2017 23:19

Agree about the looking at screens thing to know if dreaming. In dreams where i'm trying to use my mobile to call or text I can never quite read the screen or numbers are all over the place.

Theresnonamesleft · 12/09/2017 23:19

Yes all the time. Even cat naps get me.
They are exhausting for many reasons. I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, crapping myself about the dream. My mind tells me this reality is a trick, I am hallucinating to get away from what I have left behind. I have a scent I use to bring me back to reality. But because I can return to dreams I stay awake fearing I will return to it.

Then there's the medium level dreams - these are none scary but the weirdness last for hours if not days, and often affect further sleep. Even in the distant future.

Then I have the run of the mill dreams. Where I still remember them but they fade easily.

Each dream you smell everything. You feel everything. Everything that you would expect in rl. I have often checked myself for injuries beucase of dreams.

Mrsjohnmurphy · 12/09/2017 23:28

Lots of recurring dreams too, yes to the killed somone and hidden them, hidden rooms/wings in houses. I have a variation on the exam anxiety dream where I go to school then tealise whilst sitting the exam that I have already done it all before and don't need to sit the exam. Think that ine doesn't take freud to work out.

I once had an amazing beautiful fream that was a bit like ponyo before I had ever seen it, where instead of roads it was tropical water with coral and fishes, I felt so happy and peaceful when I woke up.

Trumpton · 12/09/2017 23:28

ParkheadParadise
I do hope the memory of that dream brings you comfort .

Mrsjohnmurphy · 12/09/2017 23:28

Damn phone

WetsTheFinger · 12/09/2017 23:35

I saw a huge plane approaching my bedroom window. Like, crazy close. It was clearly crashing, I actually ducked and screamed... But I'm nowhere near an airport and it was never reported, no one else in the area mentioned it, family didn't see or hear it. So clearly it was a dreamConfused

Pimmsypimms · 12/09/2017 23:36

Yes, I had a very vivid dream about my grandma, whilst I was pregnant. She had passed away 4 years earlier and I was always sad about the fact that she was on her own when she died. Anyway, In this dream, we were sat having a cup of tea in her lounge and she was saying that its ok, she's fine and not to be sad about it. Now, I'm really not a believer in this kind of stuff, but it just felt like she was there. I woke up sobbing. This was 13 years ago and I can still remember feeling like it was her way of saying hello.

Bosabosa · 12/09/2017 23:43

I love this thread.

My dreams fairly regular and average although when I was younger I used to dream I was pregnant and wake up petrified that I was-it took a few minutes each time to remember that I wasn't pregnant.
And I often wake up feeling very guilty I have cheated on DH.