Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you ever have recurring dreams?

173 replies

Frosty6611 · 14/08/2018 08:14

I have one about a huge tidal wave coming towards me in the distance. Must have had it at least 50 times in my life. If anyone knows anything about dreams, what does it mean?

OP posts:
Carrotmama · 14/08/2018 10:26

Another one with the toilet dream! Usually I am checking cubicle after cubicle and each is either flooded, filthy, no door etc etc. Usually it's a school toilets with some scary bully girls in there too.

Also the teeth falling out. Also having to get to a classroom to teach a lesson (I'm a teacher) but can't find the room and am getting later and later.

While pregnant and with a newborn I regularly dreamed that DP had left me and I didn't know why.

McFugget · 14/08/2018 10:29

I have the getting to the airport and not being packed/organised too!

Most recurring one is a dream about 2 awful exes. I dream that I have allowed either one of them back to live with me and regretting it terribly, like wtf have I done!! I guess it's my subconscious reminding me I don't do well in relationships - I am rubbish at putting my own boundaries in place and too much of a people pleaser.

I think Bertie has it spot on re. OP's tidal wave dream.

Lellochip · 14/08/2018 10:58

@chaffy Same as you - the teeth crumbling rather than falling out. Always have a gritty feeling before the realization "oh no, it's happening again" (it feels familiar every time yet I never realise I'm dreaming until afterwards)

And the toilet dream. Always overly public or filthy and no one else seems to mind. Quite often it's like old school changing rooms but just with holes cut into the long wooden benches Confused

SerenDippitty · 14/08/2018 11:05

Yes I have the tidal wave one and the toilet one. Never had the teeth one. I have one where I’m at work, it’s time to go home but I just can’t get everything done that I need to and it’s getting later and later and I want to go home more and more. Or the work car park has suddenly become labyrinthine, I can’t find my car or I can’t find the exit.

MrsBlaidd · 14/08/2018 11:58

I don't have recurring dreams - but all my dreams happen in a specific world of my own creation, almost like a stage set that I can make my way around easily. It has nice bits and scary bits but it's all in the same place. I've never dreamt about an environment from real life.

DH thinks it's weird but he never remembers his dreams which I think is weird.

DarlingNikita · 14/08/2018 12:07

I also have dreams where I need to go to the loo but they're all really exposed or they've got no doors on them etc

Me too. Often I wake up from them and do genuinely need the loo, so on that level it's presumably my brain telling me I can't just piss the bed Grin

But there's definitely a common thread of feeling under pressure to find a loo and then finding on that doesn't have a door, is in the middle of a room or whatever.

There's a variation on it where I need to shower and/or get changed for an event like a party or wedding or something, and I can't find any rooms that have a door that closes or that aren't full of people, and time is running out for me to get ready.

Mari50 · 14/08/2018 12:08

Lots of dreams where I’m unprepared for my university exams and it’s always maths so I can’t waffle.
I also have a recurring dream where I’m running but my legs are different lengths so I’m all over the place. I have had that one a lot over many years.

Pinkvoid · 14/08/2018 12:13

I used to have something similar but it was like gigantic metal rolling things that would crush all of the buildings around me and I was frantically running away from them. This was when I was about 8/9 and was ridiculously petrifying. I developed insomnia as a result.

DeadBod · 14/08/2018 12:20

vampire I have the exact same same.

IllHaveALargeGlassOfRed · 14/08/2018 12:31

Three which recur with alarming frequency:

Driving a vehicle up a hill which gets steeper and steeper until it's totally vertical

Water leaks in my ceiling and walls which never actually burst. They're just bulges that get bigger and bigger

This is my favourite! When I need to pee in RL this comes through in my dreams. The toilets I find in my dream are either filthy, covered in spiders or in a really public place like the middle of a shop. This is my subconscious stopping me peeing myself in my sleep!

PS it doesn't always work 🤨

WillowKnicks · 14/08/2018 12:55

I've had a recurring dream on & off for years.

I'm on an aeroplane that never gets up in the air, we travel on roads & maybe get a few feet in the air at the most & I get really frustrated.

Original poster
Frosty6611 · 14/08/2018 12:57

I also have a recurring dream that I’m in a plane crash but I always survive it

OP posts:
TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot · 14/08/2018 13:05

I have recurring dreams about darkness. There's either an eclipse or the light bulb's gone or I suddenly realise I'm in either the Arctic or Antarctic during winter so there will be no day time.

rainbowstardrops · 14/08/2018 14:42

@WillowKnicks I have that dream too!!! I'm terrified of flying in real life but I'm on the plane and a mixture of anxious/relieved that I've got on a plane but it just drives on roads! Never takes off.

BertieBotts · 14/08/2018 17:29

Needing to use the toilet but not being able to find one normally means that you can feel your bladder is full IRL but your brain knows you can't wee because you're in bed. If you were awake, you'd respond to a full bladder by looking for a toilet. Your brain knows this so it recreates this in the dream, however it also knows you can't wee, so it interprets this as "none of these toilets are suitable". Then you wake up so you can go to the toilet in real life.

I used to have one when DS was little about being out, at work or on an evening out or whatever and suddenly realising that I'd forgotten to arrange childcare so he was at home on his own and trying everything to get back to him but could never get there quickly. That stopped once he was old enough to be fine being left at home for short periods. I think this is similar to the unprepared for an exam one. I sometimes have one where I'm unprepared for something I have to do at work.

As a child I'd have recurring dreams that the building I was in caught fire and I had to escape, those ones really frightened me.

WillowKnicks · 14/08/2018 17:47

rainbowstardrops oooh I'm not the greatest flyer either. I'd love to know what it means!

CoughArghCoughArghCough · 14/08/2018 17:51

I have the filthy/exposed toilets one too. Nice to know it's my brain protecting my bed for me!

I have a recurring house dream, and it's always really lovely and comforting. It's just off a junction and round a corner from where I used to live, but of course it doesn't exist in real life. Nice things always happen in the house, and in the last dream the landlords moved us into a much bigger and even more beautiful house in the same grounds.

The weirdest recurring dreams I've ever had were when I was taking Seroxat. I'd have scary, chased by a ghost dreams every night, and every time I'd wake up - well, think I was awake, get out of bed but realise I was still dreaming as there were ghosts everywhere. Then I'd wake up, think, "odd dream!", get out of bed then there'd be ghosts everywhere again. Still bloody dreaming! It was so hard to believe that I was awake even when I really was. I don't know if that's a typical side effect of Seroxat...

MotsDHeureGoussesRames · 14/08/2018 17:53

I have the school one too! It's always A-level English. Didn't realise there were common themes in dreams across the population - how weird! I also have a particular dream when dehydrated. In the dream my mouth is parched dry and I am drinking drinking drinking water but I can't feel it at all, there's no cold or wet in my mouth and it's the most frustrating thing ever. I also have dreams about DP cheating quite regularly. Brains are weird and awesome!

Metoodear · 14/08/2018 17:54

I have lots of death dreams and often wake up sobbing

MotsDHeureGoussesRames · 14/08/2018 17:56

@Cough it's a long time since I took seroxat but in the first few days, I had terrifying dreams just as you describe - not ghosts and I can't remember exactly what the dream was, but the sensation of waking up and then realising I was still dreaming over and over, I can remember very well. It was awful and so disorienting because when I woke up, I remember genuinely feeling scared that I didn't know for sure what I'd done and what I'd dreamt. Never experienced anything like it again but it was horrid.

MotsDHeureGoussesRames · 14/08/2018 17:59

And omg @bertie, me too for the fire dream. It was so distressing. My house was on fire and it was moving up through all the houses on the street and there was no escape. I also used to have one where we'd gone on holiday to the sea as a family (as we did every year) and I had fallen over the edge of the white railings and was gripping on over the sea for dear life and they all turned and left me. Horrible dream.

Itsallaswizz · 14/08/2018 18:02

I have the toilet dream too!!! I need to go but the toilets are blocked and filthy and I can't find any nice clean ones. have had this dream loads, it's my most common one. Similar is one where I want to get out of a public place (pub, cafe etc) and can't because the exit is blocked by someone having thrown up in it Envy
Also dreamed we had two extra rooms in the house that we had apparently just forgotten about, then remembered and decided to do them up!
Have also had teeth falling out and dreams of being back in halls at university with no stuff, no reason to be there and not a clue what I'm doing.

ClaudiaNaughton · 14/08/2018 18:03

Glad to discover why we dream about impossible loos.
My recurring one is a plane about to take off and I realise I haven’t started packing and I’m frantic. Possibly being disorganised in real life.

DarlingNikita · 14/08/2018 18:09

Funnily enough the loos in my dreams aren't ever filthy, they're just in inappropriately public spaces.

I generally dream about houses a lot –or to put it another way, the houses in my dreams are very vivid. I've been describing them to people before and they've been amazed at how much detail I recall, but it's totally normal to me. I can still recall the houses and rooms from many of my dreams now, weeks/months later.

AnnDerry · 14/08/2018 18:12

Yes, 3.

I can't make a phone call (used to be that I couldn't dial on a rotary dial, now I can't get a signal.) I assume that this is a general dream about lack of communication.

That I am sitting French A Level without having read any of the books (goes back to a deep hatred of a Mauriac novel at A Level 30 years ago)

That I am in new university accommodation which is unsuitable usually because it is shared with several other people. The other night's version had a strange hand operated washing machine in it. It is never the same accommodation in the dream, but I have it regularly. In reality I loved my university accommodation, and DD has lovely rooms in college, so there's never been any student living angst in the family. Don't get this one at all.

Actually make it 4. My teeth are always falling out.

Swipe left for the next trending thread