recurrent dreams

[luminous]

Anyone have 'em? Or have any ideas as far as interpreting them?

Myself, I've got two of them that go on and on and on repeatedly. The first I cannot remember. However, I am always aware that I've had the dream because I always wake up bleeding. I have a nasty tendency to bite myself, hard, during this dream.

The second is strange and less frequent than the first. It's me walking through a city. There's a bar and I go inside. The bartender asks me to take some drinks to the upper levels. Funny, I think, from the outside it looked like there was only one level. He points to an elevator and hands me the drinks. I press a button and go to a level high up. The elevator opens to an industrial looking place with very dim orangish lights. There's machinery and large holes (with railing around them) in random places. After looking around and seeing no one, I set the drinks down and go back to the elevator. I press another button and this time the elevator opens to complete darkness. There are footsteps, and I'm panic stricken and jamming elevator buttons. The door closes before the footsteps reach the elevator. Back down on the main level, in the bar, I see there is no one there. Not even the bartender. I reach behind the counter and take all the money in the register and leave.

Strange. Creepy. Yes. What about y'all?

[IrishDrums04]

Hmm, I don't know if this really counts but sometimes I'll have a dream and then months later I'll have the same dream again. They're just random dreams that really don't mean anything.

------------------
"Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time that we fail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Bicho the Inhaler]

I haven't had a recurring dream since I was a baby. Back then I had at least a couple. One of them involved playing with blocks in the middle of the night. The other one involved blocks as well. In real life, I had a set of blocks that I really liked to play with, and in my dream the blocks had some nifty extra pieces. When I was awake, playing with the normal set, I would always wishfully think about playing with the extra blocks, and when I had that dream I would get to do it. Back then I hadn't figured out that it was a dream.

[Ghost Post]

i've expertly analyzed your dreams
you obviously have some strong desire to shower me with gifts and money. i'm willing to allow this, since we're friends and all

[Lucresia]

I definitly have them. I can't really interpret dreams well though, so I can't help you there.

However I have about 10 or more different recurring dreams. Some are once a year, and some are a few times a year. They are always the same way, except only for some minor details. (Like for example who is around me in the dream like friends and such if the dream contains them).

I used to have this one dream, havn't had it in a long time. Usually happens once a year or twice. Then again it was happening monthly around the age of 11 or 12 or so. It was strange and always difficult to describe after it happened. I'd describe, but all I can remember is something to do with something hitting these three things (kinda like pins or something) and after the third time or so something happened like i was suppsoed to die? I can't remember; really strange dreams..

In these dreams though I always know what is eventually going to happen, and that I have done this before. I can't really change the way things go drastically, but I know it is happening. Kinda freaky . I usually have noticed that my recurrent dreams are due to fears. Not fears of a certain day, but overall horrible fears that I can't get over. Esspecially death. I have a lot of dreams about that, and it is one of the most frightening things for me to think about.

[Death Mage]

I've never had a recurring deram. But I have had dreams with sequals.

I have had recurring THEMES in dreams though. For the longest time almost all my dreams were about running away from something. Then one day I stopped running, and started fighting against what was chasing me. So then that was the series of dreams.

Also, every time I die in a dream, it's due to a shark attack. Spooky. Thankfully I live far away from any oceans.

[Death Mage]

Oh, and as for yoru fist dream, luminous..

It means you should wash yoru hands before going to bed after eating Bar-B-Q ribs with extra sauce.

[luminous]

Dork. I don't eat ribs. *beats with a spoonfork*

That rhymed and you know it did.

[rlp]

Second dream: You're a thief, and those people? They were going to arrest you... Of course, that'd never happen in real life. You're probably too clever to be found out, for one.

[mith]

[Vegtable2001]

My dreams are really vague, and don't exactly have plots. Also, if i notice myself dreaming, i wake myself up. Sometimes i can recognize myself trying to think up when comes next.

[Hitchhiker]

If you can recognize when you're dreaming, and use that knowledge to control what happens next, it's called "lucid dreaming." They say it's a technique that can be learned.

[Mog]

I used to have a dream all the time when I was younger - I would be unicycling on top of a spiked wall on a really dark night being chased by an insanely large jack-in-the-box with the head of Chuckie the evil doll thing from the movies. He never caught me, but it used to scare the heck out of me.

[Lucky Wizard]

I've never had a dream repeat, but sometimes a weird aspect of one dream shows up in a later dream. Some examples:

• Weird and scary new insect species.
  
• A certain hill that has a huge hole at the top. The hole has sandy walls. (It's not a volcano in the dreams, I think... well, it's never erupted.) The hole leads into a much smaller hole which is a tunnel opening, and the tunnel eventually leads onto a nearby slope.
  
• Walking to school while there are train tracks in the vicinity.
  
• Schools themselves. When I'm in a school in a dream, it's generally one of two schools. One combines the elementary school and the middle school I went to into one school with a somewhat bizarre floor plan. The other is somewhat like the high school I go to now, but sometimes a very different size, and it sometimes has some areas that my real high school doesn't have.
  
• Finding secret rooms that don't exist in real life.
  
• There's a very specifc website that I visit regularly in real life; sometimes I dream that I come to that website, only to find that it's been radically redesigned. I've never had that dream about any other website... and no, the website isn't the GL.

As for lucid dreaming, I've never had one where I could control what happened, but I have had some interesting semi-lucid dreams, where I know it's a dream but I can't control it. One interesting one involved me walking around a garden following some people; a little later in the dream, I was whisked away to one of the two schools I mentioned above, and my parents were standing in a hallway, as was a staff member I know well, and one of those people said to the others that I had had a dream, and then proceeded to describe what had happened to that point in that very dream that I was in at the time. At this point I realized I was dreaming.

Speaking of dreams, I've had GLers appear in my dreams. Anyone else had that happen? (For the curious, the dream in question involved a bunch of regulars helping me move into an apartment... either that, or a bunch of regulars and I were helping another regular move into an apartment. Hy was one of the regulars; mith and Luna might have been among them as well.)

[Vegtable2001]

It's not really a lucid dream for me. I'm not actually controlling it.... sorta. I basically just recognize part of myself thinking "ok, what happens next." Occasionally i'll go through the same dream sequence over and over till the psuedo me gets it done the way he wants it.

[pikachamp]

i had a dream with glers in it, they had all come over to my house

every summer i keep having the dream that i'm already bacjk in school, i hate those

[Neo]

I've had one where I'm in Vietnam. It first showed up a couple years ago, stuck around a little bit, then disappeared, only to reappear much later in life. Everytime the dream would last a little longer, I would see more of it. The last time I had it I think I was shot.

There are some I know are recurring, I remember it's stuff I've dreamed before, I just can't remember the details.

And deja vu dreams? I've had lots of those.

[extropalopakettle]

Originally posted by Lucky Wizard:

---

Finding secret rooms that don't exist in real life.

---

I have these frequently. They're always very vivid, realistic dreams, and I'll be in some very large room in my house (often it's a different house, but still "my house" in the dream) that either I never knew existed before, or that I totally forgot about and never used, and I'm amazed that there's all this extra space available. I usually wake up disappoinnted that it wasn't real.

Also have recurring dreams about strange houses that are much bigger on the inside than they could possibly be from looking at the outside. One has an attic above an attic above an attic, each hidden and unused. Also has multiple kitchens. I often think I'd like to build a bizarre house like that someday.

[Beartalon]

Some of my dreams are lucid, I can remember myself in dreamtime saying "This is a dream, and I can control it", but I don't always get to do that. I've had serial dreams, and recurring dreams. The recurring ones usually happen when I'm sick, the serial ones I remember only that they were a continuation of something from before in a dream, but I never write them down or remember.

Usually, I dream somewhat like extro, except the doors lead to other places not physically possible (to reach from where the door is), like opening my closet door and walking through it to downtown, which is a mile away.

[This message has been edited by Beartalon (edited 05-18-2003 01:34 AM).]

[Courk]

I like how you added the downtown part, as if it's normal to open our closet door and be on the street if you lived any closer

[lenaya]

I have deja vu dreams almost every night. Real freaky. and there was this year where i had the same nightmare every single night and i'd wake up somewhere else except my bed. sleepwalking.. ugh.

[pikachamp]

Originally posted by extro:

---

Also have recurring dreams about strange houses that are much bigger on the inside than they could possibly be from looking at the outside.

---

you've been playing too many RPG's

[This message has been edited by pikachamp (edited 05-18-2003 10:58 AM).]

[extropalopakettle]

I never touch the stuff.

[Lilifreid]

I had a series of dreams where I'd be standing with someone waiting for a train. We'd be talking, then midsentence, one of us would push the other onto the trains in front of the oncoming train. It was set at a train station I actually went to, and the other person was different from dream to dream. It was rather creepy.

[Pablo]

My wife and I have the same recurring dream. It always involves an airplane flying between two buildings or other obstructions, and it always appears that the wings are too wide to fit, but they always do. Sometimes I dream I am flying the plane, and sometimes I am a passenger. Just as terrifying either way. Sometimes it is while taxiing between obstructions. But why both of us? I don't think we've ever had the dream the same night.

I also have a recurring dream about going to take a college exam in a course where I haven't been to class all term and barely know how to get there, let alone the material. It is more disturbing than it sounds.

[extropalopakettle]

I'm sure I read somewhere that that last one is very common. I've had it myself a few times.

I've also dreamt many times that I had to go back to my old elementary school to fulfill some requirement that they'd overlooked. There I am, an adult, in my old 8th grade classroom sitting at some tiny desk with all these kids around me.

[extropalopakettle]

From this page, found via a quick google search:

quote:

---

Dear Dream Doctor,
I have a recurring dream every few months or so that I have had for years. In the dream I realize that it is the end of a semester, and I have forgotten to go to math class the whole semester and am very worried about failing.

---

and from the "Dream Doctor's" response (he's only a Doctor in his dreams):

quote:

---

“Back to school” dreams are incredibly common among busy people. Doctors, lawyers, professionals, busy housewives—nearly everyone has had one. (Do an informal survey among your friends—you’ll be surprised how many of them will say, “Oh yeah! I’ve had that dream!”)

Test-taking dreams are clear reflections of the anxiety we once felt in school—when we prepared to take a test. “Will I pass? Am I prepared? Did I remember to study everything?”

Now that we’ve grown up and the days of test taking are long in our past, the dreams strike us as odd. Surely we can’t still be traumatized about taking some test in college? The link, though, is that our everyday life still is full of similar “tests” and anxieties. Will we be able to complete all the errands we have to do tomorrow? Will we be able to grocery shop, clean the house, and pick up our kids from school—in time to cart them off to soccer practice?

If we work (in addition to all our everyday tasks) we have a second set of anxieties. Will we finish our work projects on time? Will our co-workers think we have done a good job? Will we keep our jobs? Will we “pass the test?”

---

[extropalopakettle]

But that doesn't really address the part about having forgotten to attend class all semester. Sure, in our lives, we face tests of varying magnitudes daily, but we're always prepare, right? Or at least we're not so poorly prepared that it could be compared to showing up for a school exam without having attended the course. After all, we pass our tests in life, don't we? But even though we do, I think a lot of people have the sense that their passing the tests is somewhat miraculous. A lot has been written about something called the "impostor syndrome", wherein many successful people feel like they are impostors, frauds - that they're not really as smart or competent as people think they are, and have fears of being "found out" - they don't internalize their accomplishments and identify their successes with who they are, but see them instead as something they've miraculously managed to pull off once again. I wouldn't be surprised if these dreams correlate with that sort of thinking.

[Beartalon]

Like me, except for the miraculous part.

[Antrax]

I used to have a series of dreams, each continuing where the other had finished. They would always end when the bad guys in the dream would finally defeat me (which resulted in waking up, that was their purpose in the fights, to banish me back to this world). The last one featured me dying (sorta, don't want to get into it too much). It used to freak me out, but now I just think it was a way to out some creativity, I didn't write much when I was younger.
Antrax

------------------
"If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love." -Victor Mancini, "Choke"

[Bicho the Inhaler]

Originally posted by Pablo:

---

I also have a recurring dream about going to take a college exam in a course where I haven't been to class all term and barely know how to get there, let alone the material. It is more disturbing than it sounds.

---

I've actually had similar dreams on multiple occasions, all withing the past few months. In the dream, it's the end of the semester and I realize that there was one class I had signed up for but completely forgotten to attend all semester, on account of taking a lot of classes. This might sound a little weird, but I actually got worried about this happening.

Originally posted by me:

---

I haven't had a recurring dream since I was a baby.

---

*drools on fingers, mouse, and keyboard*

[Samadhi]

I've been having a recurring dream that the LA area gets nuked. The details vary wildly, even the importance of the event (in one I only saw it in the paper, the other I saw the air blast coming over the land towards the high rise I was in - that was scary as hell). But I always wake up convinced it happened. I have no idea what that's about.

(Oh, Long Beach to be specific in case anyone is interested)

[Bicho the Inhaler]

Samadhi, have you been watching 24?

[casinopete]

*has had recurring dreams, serial dreams, and lucid dreams, but can only remember the recurring ones*

One recurring dream I've had involves me being about six, and visiting the Egg Market (a convenience store, but with a large produce section) which was just a block from my house. It's very realistic; I buy some gum, and I can remember the feel of the coins in my hand. When I walk out, heading home, I see a very large dog across the street. It wasn't barking, or even looking at me, but for some reason, it absolutely terrified me.

aside: I am not the least bit scared of dogs, and wasn't as a little kid. now, I'm pretty indifferent, but back then I adored them.

So I start running home, as fast as I can. The whole time I'm running, I can feel the dog behind me, I imagine I can smell him, feel his breath on my back. When I get to my house, I race up the stairs (I lived in the upstairs half of a duplex), get inside and slam the door. I don't hear anything outside, and I start wondering if the dog had really been chasing me or whether it was my imagination. Then the furniture comes to life and attacks me.

That's when I wake up.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this dream is that I had it all the time as a kid, but didn't have it at all for ten years, and then it came back for a couple appearances when I was 20.

[Death Mage]

Now you see, Bicho has to go and make a joke that just ruins a much better joke about being chased by killer machines from the future and having a kid destine to be the leader of humaniaty...

Phooie.

[Pablo]

Originally posted by Extro:

---

A lot has been written about something called the "impostor syndrome", wherein many successful people feel like they are impostors, frauds - that they're not really as smart or competent as people think they are, and have fears of being "found out"

---

That kind of resonates with me. I think there's a little of that going on in my head. Would never have thought it would qualify as a "syndrome". I'll have to search on that.

Wow - here it is: http://www.impostersyndrome.com/

[This message has been edited by Pablo (edited 05-19-2003 02:29 PM).]

[Bicho the Inhaler]

You're right, DM, that is a much better joke. I'm still trying to learn these things.

[Samadhi]

[AnonymousGler]

Now we know why Samadhi is so screwed up.

[Lucky Wizard]

I've never had a dream involving a door that leads somewhere completely different from where it leads in real life, but I sometimes have dreams in which I'm in one place, and suddenly I find myself in a completely different place. Usually within the dreams, I assume I walked, or rode, or whatever, but when I wake up I realize nothing happened during the time when the imagined transportation should have occurred.