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AIBU?

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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:
DickTERFin · 15/08/2018 14:24

Crumbling teeth - check
Unuasable toilets - check
Naked in public - check
Dissertation due and haven’t started- check
Tidal wave - check

My subconscious clearly lacks much individuality!

I sometimes dream in technicolor which is always cool. I had a dream the other day where I was climbing up a mountain to a cairn and there were these amazing flocks of birds swooping around the group I was in. It was sunset and the orange, reds and pinks were so intense it was like being in a womb. Those dreams I like.

BiologyIsReal · 15/08/2018 15:00

One I used to have regularly as a child, but never since. I would be at home and little fires would break out all over the place. I would put one out and another would start and so on... never did work that out.

Yes to toilet dream
Yes to teeth dream, again only as a child

liz70 · 15/08/2018 15:11

Loving this thread. I honestly had no idea how common the house with hidden rooms dream is!

ClaudiaNaughton · 15/08/2018 15:11

I had a key for my previous house and the new owners were on holiday so I moved back. To my horror I was woken up by them arriving home downstairs and I was in their bed.

Original poster
Frosty6611 · 15/08/2018 15:31

I wish we could watch our dreams back the following day if we wanted to. I bet some of them would be highly amusing

OP posts:
TimeIhadaNameChange · 15/08/2018 15:33

I don't really have recurring dreams, the closest I get is that any nightmares tend to involve my bed being full of bugs or maggots. I always jump out and, although I logically know it was just a dream and there's nothing there I usually go and sleep on the sofa.

I did have an ongoing dream when I was a teenager that lasted two or three nights. My family ran a bakery in a village somewhere in Germany. Nothing happened, I was just part of their normal life. I did start wondering if I was actually seeing someone else's life as it seemed so real (even when I thought about it afterwards, which is unusual, my dreams are utterly crazy in the light of day!) and I can still remember the street the bakery was ok though I've never seen anything quite like it in real life. It was most bizarre!

Original poster
Frosty6611 · 15/08/2018 15:34

@timel I get that sometimes too where I think there’s spiders on me in the bed and I jump out and freak out for a few moments until I realise it was just a dream

OP posts:
goforkyourself · 15/08/2018 15:54

I have the plane one so often. The plane is in the air but starts plummeting; I brace myself for the crash but it never happens. The next thing I'm still on the plane but it's never taken off, it's just cruising along a residential street in Manchester Confused

So many dreams about being in an exam but haven't studied for it (graduated 20 years ago and no intention of studying again)

Worst one is I dream I'm back with my cheating ex husband. I divorced him eight years ago (No regrets) but in my dream we're back together and I'm going through whole rigmarole again Confused

KurriKurri · 15/08/2018 16:09

I have a really unpleasant one - I had it last night in fact - and it makes me feel uneasy the whole day afterwards. Not sure I should say what it is because it's awful, - I do something awful in it and am at risk of being found out years later. I have no idea why I get it (although I am stressed at the moment) or what, if anything, it means.

I don't have any dreadful secrets in my past (which is how I would interpret it) maybe it's just stress dream ?

LaurieMarlow · 15/08/2018 16:23

House with hidden rooms, yes! Love that dream Grin

Also, bring unprepared for something academically (haven't studied for GCSEs/a levels or I've forgotten to do my PhD revisions)

Another one I have is that I'm about to go on stage and can't remember my lines. I'm desperately searching for the script but it's nowhere to be found.

DarlingNikita · 15/08/2018 17:36

Oh, I also sometimes have one where I'm SHOUTING, really yelling, at someone for ages (it's been my mum and I think another relative at least once).

IRL I am not a shouty person at all. It's weird but somewhat exhilarating Grin

OublietteBravo · 15/08/2018 17:37

Yes. My sister has the same recurring dream as I do.

ankasi · 15/08/2018 18:27

I often dream I'm swimming (front crawl, sometimes butterfly) but can't get my arms out of the water.
It took me ages to realise that I was probably really trying to "swim" but had the duvet on top of me, so of course could not get the arms out.

Another one, when I was a teenager was that I was on the bus home from school with only trousers and shoes on, but completely naked on top.

WeaselsRising · 15/08/2018 19:04

When I was little I had the same dream every night. In it my brother would close my bedroom curtains then there would be this brilliant flash and they would be open, and a wolf would come in. There were lots of variations of the dream but it always started the same way. One version I remember is both of us hiding behind the bedside cabinet throwing Smarties into the middle of the room for the wolf to eat.

I would never let my brother touch my curtains in RL. Just in case. (Just how many wild wolves are there in a city in the South of England?). I remained terrified of wolves until I was an adult.

WeaselsRising · 15/08/2018 19:19

My adult recurring dream was set in my childhood home, as the house was until I was 18.

In it, it's dark outside and I'm trying to shut and lock the back door. Something is coming down the garden path. I don't know what it is but I'm completely terrified.

Either the door won't shut, or it won't lock, or the key is missing, or the bolts slip. One time I got it shut and locked, turned round in triumph and noticed that every single one of the casement windows was wide open. Another time I gave up and ran into the kitchen but then realised that the lock on that door was just a flimsy bolt and I couldn't shut the window.

I had that dream for years and years.

Other regulars are the toilet dream; teeth falling out when I was pregnant with DC1 (not since); finding extra rooms; and driving/ being a passenger to someone else driving.

There is often someone in my dream that I have never seen before IRL but in the dream I know them well. Anyone else get that? How do you invent an actual person?

Cauliflowersqueeze · 15/08/2018 21:17

Sometimes I have a dream that someone I know has irritated me in some way.

Irrationally I sometimes still feel a bit annoyed with them the following day.

runbeerrunbeer · 15/08/2018 21:20
  1. I'm flying, but like swimming in the air! I get up of the ground by like doing breast stroke up up up until I can kind of float over houses and then a bit more swimming to keep on my journey!
This started when I was a kid and I dreamed I could fly down the stairs.
  1. The loo dream. Not so much dirty but completely see through shower curtain type toilet door, or 'cubicles' back to back with see through doors in between and absolutely no privacy.
  2. Loosing my car. Not a clue where I've parked it. Starting to rain and get dark and I want my mum! Similar dreams involving me losing shoes etc.

Who can analyse them?! Got to be some level of underlying anxiety in many of our dreams but what about the flying one?

Loonoon · 15/08/2018 21:33

If I recall correctly from my psychoanalysis training, Freud thought dreams were distorted versions of unconscious thoughts and emotions, sometimes symbolic, often distorted. Nightmares were the unconscious breaking through to the preconscious mind, if they come to close to the truth the dreamer will wake up to protect themselves from the unbearable. And of course being Freud they could often have a sexual interpretation.

I think the reason we often have similar dreams is because we have similar cultural experiences like we’ve all been to school and we’ve all been caught short and looked for a loo. I know I often have the rotary telephone dream but my DCs couldn’t as they don’t know what a rotary telephone is! Similarly an Amazonian Indian won’t dream about exams, his anxieties will break through with other images.

Dream interpretation can be very useful when working with clients but two people could be presenting very similar dreams and it will have different meanings for both of them.

MarshaBradyo · 15/08/2018 21:39

That I didn’t do all my exams at university and have to go back

Packing or unpacking a suitcase which takes ages

Bumping into my first bf although haven’t had that for a while

Waves coming in too fast on beach

Santaclarita · 15/08/2018 21:46

I get recurring dreams. It's usually my unconscious mind trying to tell me something and until I figure it out it won't go away. Once I do though it never comes back.

Recently had a strange dream although not a recurring one about a man trying to feel me up and I wanted my partner to help me but he never showed up. Woke up feeling scared and then annoyed at my partner for not showing up. Grin

Carrotmama · 15/08/2018 21:47

@runbeerrunbeer I have that exact flying one too!

explodingid · 15/08/2018 21:48

Yes to house with hidden rooms. I have had it so many times that once in the dream I thought "Hey this is a dream about the house with the hidden rooms!" Sometimes sinister rooms and others a bit like Escape to the Country Grin

I also get one dream which is about groups of people getting into the house, it's bloody awful I usually see them break through the perimeter fence or heckle from the street at the front I then tell DH but can't get through to the Police and usually wake up when they manage to get into the room I'm in.

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 15/08/2018 21:48

I have the one where I’m flying but not getting anywhere, and I’m looking down and have no idea how I’m going to get back to the ground.

Or swimming, but not moving from the spot.

Or trying to climb some stairs but there are missing stairs and I can’t go up or go down.

And the loo dream.

explodingid · 15/08/2018 21:49

Any Jungian psychologists able to decifer a few for us?

runbeerrunbeer · 15/08/2018 21:50

@Carrotmama I think we need to gather more troops; we'd have a completely awesome time up there, I'm sure 😀

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