Recurring Dreams

carrieo888

Here's a quick guide to dream interpretation (caveat: there are no hard and fast rules to this, "symbols" can mean different things to different people)

1) In general, people in your dreams represent something about yourself.
2) By stripping a dream down to the Action and the Emotion, you can get a clue as to what your subconscious mind is trying to tell you.
3) Recurring dreams usually indicate that you haven't resolved the problem yet. Figure out the message, and then you can solve the problem.

It is a really fun exercise to take control of your dreams to help solve a problem within the dream. Once you start recognizing that you are dreaming, you can manipulate the actions. So, for example, if in your dream you are being chased by a serial killer and you recognize that you are dreaming, stop, turn around and face the "problem." I've done this and either hugged the killer or beat the snot out of the killer (depending on what seemed necessary), and woke up feeling empowered. In this example, you are learning to take on any problem head on, no matter how terrified you are.

Enjoy!

auroranflash

I have been having super weird dreams lately and almost every night. I typically do no remember dreaming.... Every know and then I have this dream where I am trying to run away from something but no matter how hard I push off I am moving so slow like gravity has increased or my feet are really heavy. Idk its weird.

That reminds me of another one... Where something terrible is happening (someone is trying to kill me, or a ghost is coming after me, or something crazy), I try to scream, but for the life of me, nothing comes out. :indifferent:

I also have dreams about water with scary marine life in it and always have...

nerdyandilikeit

I have deja-vu dreams. I guess technically they're recurring, but it's a tiny bit different to me. I'll be in a place that I've been to before in a dream (which is usually a hybrid of places I've been or seen), but in the dream I'll be like "Ok, I've been here before. I remember what I did the last time I dreamed this place, let's get started." A lot of those kinds of dreams involve me running or hiding from something, but in a videogame-esque, get to the end of the level, avoid the enemies way. I'm not alarmed to be running in those, I just know I have to do it. And it's Voldemort I'm escaping from, lately, but he's like a total joke. I'm not worried at all about beating the 'level.' These dreams are always disjointed and illogical, but most times hilarious to retell. People I know are sometimes in them and do crazy stuff, or people from shows or books or movies I've seen will be there (other than Voldemort, I mean).

I had one fairly lucid dream a few months ago that really stuck with me. I was in a generic escape the zombies kind of scenario, but in the dream it felt super realistic. I was running from some zombies in a building and following some other people up these steps. They lead to a balcony with no where else to go and I looked over the edge to see people who had jumped to their deaths to avoid the zombies doing it for them. In the dream I felt so hopeless and scared of having to face the zombies, so I jumped too. I was very alert the whole way down, but I woke up just as I was hitting the ground. The hopelessness is what felt so jarring to me. It was recently after my dad died and most of my dreams were negative in some way.

Speaking of, for the first 6 months at least after my dad died last November, I was having dreams almost every night recreating (but in the weird dream way things happen for me) the last two days in the hospital watching my dad die from lung cancer. Those dreams were just weird versions of my step mom being horrible, but my dad was also usually very coherent. Coherent, but he knew he was going to die anyways. I couldn't stop it and as much as I tried to help him be comfortable or spend time with him, he would push me to go out and do whatever I would've been doing if he was healthy. Like even in my dreams I couldn't make up for what I didn't get to do before he died.

*When I'm restless or particularly stressed I'll have the slow motion kind of dreams, too. Where I want to move or run and I feel like I'm in quicksand.

nerdyandilikeit

Some really interesting stuff here, guys! Thanks for contributing.

This has reminded me of another recurring dream I have.

Reality: about three years ago, I went to visit my best friend in New York. She's been my friend on the internet for about 13 years, and we finally got to meet up. I stayed there for a week with her on Staten Island and we had all sorts of fun and adventures and traipsed about the city. It was great. It also allowed me to take a week off from my crazy home life which involved my severely alcoholic boyfriend who was very emotionally/verbally abusive and manipulative, and our two crazy toxic roommates, so I viewed the trip as a therapeutic escape.

Dream: I have tickets to fly back to NYC, but for some reason I am running extremely late. I am in a mad rush to get on the plane. I never actually make it on the plane, but I don't necessarily miss my flight either - I have minutes to get there, most times. Sometimes I am in the terminal, rushing around, trying to find the right flight, and sometimes I am at home, knowing I should have been there already and panicking because I know I don't have enough time to get there, but still desperately trying to find a way to get on that plane and go back to New York.

Another similar, recurring dream is - it's Halloween night, already about 9pm, and I'm still trying to put together my costume so I can participate and go to a party/have fun with the rest, but time is ticking away and it keeps getting later and later, and I'm growing more upset...

:indifferent:

I wonder what all the "running out of time" panic is about...

I have those kinds of dreams too! Or that I'm just lost somewhere and keep going in circles. I wake up so frustrated after those! I also have dreams where my best friend is a giant *kitten* to me (which never happens, ever), or that my mom is taking my brother's side and not listening to what I'm saying (which happened all the time, lol!).

auroranflash

Speaking of, for the first 6 months at least after my dad died last November, I was having dreams almost every night recreating (but in the weird dream way things happen for me) the last two days in the hospital watching my dad die from lung cancer. Those dreams were just weird versions of my step mom being horrible, but my dad was also usually very coherent. Coherent, but he knew he was going to die anyways. I couldn't stop it and as much as I tried to help him be comfortable or spend time with him, he would push me to go out and do whatever I would've been doing if he was healthy. Like even in my dreams I couldn't make up for what I didn't get to do before he died.

*When I'm restless or particularly stressed I'll have the slow motion kind of dreams, too. Where I want to move or run and I feel like I'm in quicksand.

So sorry for your loss. Maybe somehow the dream worked out like that because he (or some part of you) was trying to get you to push past the hurt and continue to live your life. :flowerforyou:

nerdyandilikeit

Speaking of, for the first 6 months at least after my dad died last November, I was having dreams almost every night recreating (but in the weird dream way things happen for me) the last two days in the hospital watching my dad die from lung cancer. Those dreams were just weird versions of my step mom being horrible, but my dad was also usually very coherent. Coherent, but he knew he was going to die anyways. I couldn't stop it and as much as I tried to help him be comfortable or spend time with him, he would push me to go out and do whatever I would've been doing if he was healthy. Like even in my dreams I couldn't make up for what I didn't get to do before he died.

*When I'm restless or particularly stressed I'll have the slow motion kind of dreams, too. Where I want to move or run and I feel like I'm in quicksand.

So sorry for your loss. Maybe somehow the dream worked out like that because he (or some part of you) was trying to get you to push past the hurt and continue to live your life. :flowerforyou:

People have suggested this to me, and I think it's probably true. It's taking a long time to really put it into practice though

SuffolkSally

I have lots of lucid dreams - which is great when they're interesting, you can sort of slightly wake up, and go back into the dream, altering its course. A lot of those are far out - I'm not usually myself in these dreams, so it's a bit like reading a novel.

I have a lot of recurring ones; mostly these are about feeling lost or an outsider in a place which I have never visited. Brisbane, now, I've never even been to Australia but it has a complete landscape, architecture, shops, set of people there; I'm always stuck without an onward flight ticket, and everyone's horrible to me. Sorry, real Brisbane, you have never done me any harm; and the only person I know there is a friend's rather lovely mother!

My deceased brother sometimes turns up in a dream about something else (like a group of friends planning a holiday or something of that sort) he never interacts with the others and whatever the situation is he and I are able to communicate but we both know that he is dead, and joke about it - which is very much the kind of conversation we would have had if it were possible.

I dream in full sound, colour and sensation, and sometimes find it hard to shake them off.

opalescence

I have a terrifying one from growing up in South Africa where my entire family is slowly murdered by home invaders in front of me, and for whatever reason I get stabbed last. I can feel being stabbed, and then I slowly start drifting off and I have to wake myself because I know I'm dying in the dream and it's awful. It had it the first time after a brutal home invasion on our neighboring farm in 1995, and then flared up again after my uncle was shot in killed in a carjacking. I haven't had it much since I moved to the US at age 14, but had it again earlier this year after my cousin's fiance was shot and killed in a home invasion in SA as well. I think those kinds of events trigger it.

Then I have a really happy one where my favorite ex and I go to Coney Island and ride all the rides for hours. I love those because he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan in 2010 and I miss him, but I always feel like he was just in the room after I wake up from that one.

(I swear I don't only dream about death and people who died hahahahahahahaha)

^^ this gave me chills. not in a bad way but in a deja vu kinda way

opalescence

Its not recurring but its etched into my brain it was so specific.

Worf from Star Trek the next generation was in my kitchen and he just killed everyone in my house (obvioulsy a party was going on because there was so many people in the floor dead and not sure if I knew any of them or not) it was all in a weird shade of pale blue, the house was not my house but it was... I had never seen it before ever... I took of running and jumped in my moms car (a very old old old car that was 20ft long) and ended up stealing it and picked up some friends and we parked at an abandoned 18 wheeler cab and people were having sex on the exposed metal and asking us to join in.

I have bizarre dreams...

Dancerten

Speaking of, for the first 6 months at least after my dad died last November, I was having dreams almost every night recreating (but in the weird dream way things happen for me) the last two days in the hospital watching my dad die from lung cancer. Those dreams were just weird versions of my step mom being horrible, but my dad was also usually very coherent. Coherent, but he knew he was going to die anyways. I couldn't stop it and as much as I tried to help him be comfortable or spend time with him, he would push me to go out and do whatever I would've been doing if he was healthy. Like even in my dreams I couldn't make up for what I didn't get to do before he died.

When I had to put my horse down last year, the entire week before and for months after I would have horribly depressing dreams of either him dying or suffering from some horrible foot deformity/injury (I had to put him down because he had severe laminits - a debilitating hoof condition). I still have those dreams from time to time, and they are always disconcerting. I wish I could have one happy dream with him in it.

TropicalFlowerz

~My mom is 80yrs old,and for years she's had the same dream.....she's in an old farm house in the middle of no where..she goes up to the addict,and there she finds this box,.she starts to open it,& inside is another box,& again,this goes on and on,..just a box inside another box...and when she wakes up in the morning sh'e so tired,...as if she had'nt slept at all,..but was really up opening boxes all night.,...if I had 2 guess,I'd say she's been searching 4 something her whole life and has'nt found it yet.

Dancerten

When I was a kid, I would always have dreams where I was trying to protect my little brother from doing something stupid but he would do it anyways and get hurt lol. In one dream he was playing near a cliff and I told him to be careful, but of course he didn't and he fell off. In another, he was riding a dirt bike and I was trying to get him to slow down but he didn't and he crashed and broke his leg. And coincidentally, I had one dream where we were hiding in the bathroom in Jurassic Park, and he wanted to go outside to find help but I told him not to (because that would be stupid in Jurassic Park), but he did and got eaten by the T-Rex. Maybe I was a little overprotective as a sister? Lol

I also often have dreams where I'm going back to high school, except I get there and I realize I'm naked (classic, right?). But, no one else in my dream seems to notice that I'm naked, so once I get over the original shock, I'm just like 'screw it, I'm naked and no one cares, so why should I?'; and I continue on with my day stark naked lol.

And then I used to have dreams a lot where I would be swimming and get bitten by either an alligator or a shark (it varied). It would always bite my leg, and when I would wake up my leg would be all pins and needles from falling asleep.

malicent

Growing up, I typically had dreams about zombie apocalypses and massive alien invasions. The zombie dreams tended to be more fun, usually with me kicking *kitten*. But the invasions.... seeing huge, mile-wide UFO's in the sky in the near or far-off distance... no thank you. I remember there was this huuuuge UFO hovering about 800-1000 feet, very close to my house. Traffic either came to a standstill in some parts, or was flooring it outta there. I remember cowering, literally wanting to shrink as close to the ground and as far away from the UFO as possible. It floated there motionlessly and silently. I wanted to go to my car which were a few paces away, closer underneath the UFO in the parking lot. But I didn't have my car keys for someone reason, only my house keys. I really didn't want to take my eyes off that floating fortress in the sky, so I didn't want to go inside the house only to find that the aliens land on the ground.. And I certainly did NOT want to take any steps closer to being underneath. I wanted to get away from it as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

I ran along the sidewalks and gingerly crossed the street at a crosswalk, which was located at a normally busy intersection, 3 lanes wide for one way a piece. But the traffic was racing by like an angry stampede. I felt like Mufasa trying to dodge all the bewildered antelope rushing by at 60 miles per hour. I barely made it across, and looked up at the UFO, still nothing. So I made my way down the road, running on the sidewalk trying to hitch a ride from someone, but no one would stop. When I made it about 4-5 blocks away, there was a loud mechanical roar that stretched across the sky. It sounded like rusted junk parts being rubbed and crashed together, like a huge rusted beast awakening from its thousand year slumber. The ground shook, my ears were shot and sent into a moment of white noise-like silence, and as I looked back, the UFO had started to creep across the sky in my direction. All I remember from there is like, fast-forward and I'm in this government complex, where there's an open courtyard area and one big sewer-like entrance hole in the ground. People were climbing down into it, and it seemed to be an operation run by the national guard and other armed forces/local police. We were all going underground to hide or something. The end.

mgobluetx12

I have lucid dreams all the time and usually just try to have sex with as many people as possible.

The weirdest dream I ever had was when I was in high school. Some local girl was kidnapped from a slumber party on Mother's Day and there was no trace of her. My dream was near the end of June because the news was making a big deal about how now it was Father's Day and still no sign of her. In my dream, she came into the hardware store where I worked and asked me to make a key for her. I told her that everyone is looking for you and go home. She told me to remember "Seven fourteen, seven fourteen..." and she kept repeating those numbers. I didn't know what the dream meant, but my friends thought it was weird and that I should go to the police, but it wasn't any real information. The police eventually found her dead body on July 14...7/14.

HurricaneElaine

Maybe I shouldn't have read this thread - it's almost bedtime and I might have another alien invasion dream.. <eeeek>



Whenever I'm dreaming, suddenly finding myself in the dream frantically searching for a toilet, eventually p'ing all over the place - I wake up and dash for the bathroom! :laugh:

girl_afraid82

How funny... I had one of my recurring dreams last night, so this topic has been on my mind anyway!

I seem to keep having a dream where I'm back at high school, but I either haven't been given, or have lost my timetable. I have no idea where I'm meant to be. Now, I'm fairly switched on in these dreams. I think 'no big deal, I'll just go to the office and get them to print me a new one'.
For some reason this is always an impossible task. In last nights dream, I was passed around about 10 different school officials and nobody would print me a timetable. Nobody took me seriously, and one lady just tried to give me make-up instead. I was so frustrated that I was crying, throwing things, yelling... woke up feeling pretty wound up! Have had this dream so many times... and I've not been in high school for about 13 years now. Think I'm destined to dream about it forever :indifferent: