<p>I had a dream last night that I’ve had numerous times: I’m in college, taking a course, and I don’t understand the assignment, or I haven’t attended class all semester so I don’t even know when the final is, or I keep trying to get a hold of the professor and I can’t reach her, or I left my dorm and I’m trying to find the classroom building and I’m totally lost . . . .</p>
<p>You get the idea.</p>
<p>I used to have a very positive recurring dream about 10 years ago, but I realize I haven’t had it in a long time. </p>
<p>I had the “I can’t find my classroom and it’s finals week” dream quite a bit. When I was younger, I had a a recurring dream that my sister and I, though too young to drive, were out in my dad’s truck and, every single time, when rounding a specific curve in our home town, we went over the guardrail and landed in a large ditch. My most recent recurrent dream is that I’ve forgotten to chart on any of my patients for an entire shift, or missed giving medications or haven’t seen any of them at all during my entire shift. I still have that dream occasionally and haven’t worked in the hospital for at least 12 years.</p>
<p>hmm, interesting. i have very similar recurring dreams. . . .i often dream that i’m sitting down in a large college classroom, either being handed a test i haven’t studied for or that i’m missing a crucial assignment. basically, i’m confused, lost and clueless. . . .i also dream about running up and down different floors of a hospital rounding on patients, never having enough time to finish all my tasks.</p>
<p>Great thread. I have several, both good and bad.</p>
<p>Bad Dream #1: I’m back at Smith, sitting for a final, and the topic for the essay is: Trace the development of the agrarian economy. And I have no idea what to write.</p>
<p>Bad Dream #2: I’m back at high school, wandering through the hallway, late for class. I’m in my nightgown.</p>
<p>Bad Dream #3: I’m driving down a hilly snowy icy road, but someone has pushed the driver’s seat way back and my feet don’t reach the brake pedal.</p>
<p>Good Dream #1: I’m at a local shopping center, having just left Brooks Brothers with some new khakis for my son. I turn, and see the water – a beach – complete with sand, lifeguard, and sea shells. Right there, at the end of the parking lot.</p>
<p>Good Dream #2: I discover a room in my house I never knew we had. It’s clean, sparely furnished, unoccupied.</p>
<p>Good Dream #3: I go to work, but instead of the dull commuter train, there’s a Lazy River. I dive in, get rolled around, and arrive at work, dressed and dry.</p>
<p>I have a recurring dream that it is my final college semester and it’s finals and I haven’t attended a class. My last semester I was working 60 hrs/week in two cities 2 hours apart and I had to take 21 hours to graduate. Those were some of the worst 16 weeks of my life. I completely blame 25 years of nightmares on that semester. </p>
<p>My parents never asked a question or checked or helped guide me through anything concerning college, and they had Master’s degrees. The memories of that semester make me feel queasy. I hounded my S to stay on track for the hours needed to graduate on time without a semester like that. He did. :)</p>
<p>Most of these are typical dreams that stem from anxiety. I used to have one that there was a tornado coming and I could see it on the horizon. In the dream I am in charge of a group of people and have to get them to safety.</p>
<p>In another one I am walking through a big house with lots of rooms and long hallways. It is rundown and in disrepair and I can’t find my way.</p>
<p>I have another one in which my H sells our house and buys a new one without asking me first. The new house usually has some kind of anomaly, like a column in the middle of the living room or the back deck opens to a parking lot with lots of motor cycles. I always wake up mad!</p>
<p>Hey, me too! I got my MBA 32 years ago and I still occasionally have a dream very similar to what VeryHappy described. Funny thing is, I often find myself failing due to lack of attendence/preparation but then I say to myself, “I already have an MBA from a top school… what am I doing here???”</p>
<p>Also have found myself (in my dreams) on the basketball team (high school of college?) The team is all young guys, of course. I am my old guy self, and the coach WILL NO PUT ME IN THE GAME!!! aw comeon coach!! put me in!!! :D</p>
<p>I know an absolutely brilliant young man who lived out what was, to me, one of those classic nightmares. He took a particular class and never went—actually had to call a friend to find out where to go to take the final. I cannot even imagine. </p>
<p>And it was not something he even considered to be a big deal…</p>
<p>OP, I have that same kind of dream. Usually I am an adult and am back in high school wandering the halls, late for class, have done no homework and am fraught with anxiety.</p>
<p>I also have the dream of finding new rooms in my house or sometimes my childhood home. </p>
<p>Have recurring tornado dreams since my teens - though as my fear of thunderstorms has abated, these dreams have been less frequent and when they do happen I know exactly what to do in them.</p>
<p>This past week, I had a similar dream two times in a row. I was getting married and was so happy about the idea. Then I suddenly changed my mind and told my dad I did not want to get married–apparently, he was okay with it. Lol. </p>
<p>Yes, I’ve had the ‘OMG I haven’t done the HW/project yet and I’m screwed’ dream multiple times. I’ve also had a recurring dream for years where I’m trying to run because someone is chasing me but my feet aren’t taking me anywhere. My feet are moving but I’m stuck in the same spot. I was four the first time I had it and it always freaks me out.</p>
<p>So interesting to read all of these different recurring dreams! Most taking place in academic settings, funny. </p>
<p>Oh! I’ve also recently been having dreams where I’m completely NAKED wandering around town or the streets trying to find clothes. :eek: I’m always freaked out in my dream but not as much as I would normally be, of course. It’s like I can never find clothes and I don’t even know why I’m naked in the first place…</p>
<p>I also have been dreaming about my long-dead uncle and before this, I’ve never ever dreamt about family members or anybody that has passed away. Freaky, to say the least.</p>
<p>writer- yes I have had both those dreams - can’t move or can’t dial the phone despite trying repeatedly to punch in the right numbers and being in public and realizing you are without clothes/</p>
<p>I had the same dream over and over back when my daughter was in elementary school where I was angry with her and was trying to spank her, but my hand would never connect with her. What is so bizarre is that I don’t believe in spanking and she was the child that wouldn’t have <em>needed</em> them even if I did believe in it. I have since told her about it and we have to laugh about it and try to think of what she could have done to deserve the spankings in my dream.</p>
<p>My recurring dreams tend fall in categories. One is instructive. I used to dream I was being chased, could never see who or what was chasing me, and I would always escape though sometimes through the most absurd means. I decided the dream meant I should turn and see what was chasing me. I did and there was nothing there. Never had the dream again. When my daughter told me she was afraid to go to sleep because she’d see Captain Hook, I told her the same thing: he’s there to teach you not to be scared in your dreams, so just turn around and punch him in the nose. Worked for her too.</p>
<p>I sometimes have anxiety dreams, of the exam sort mentioned. I don’t make much of that except something in my life is causing me anxiety.</p>
<p>The same imagery appears in dreams, so I guess that makes them recurring. The imagery is confusing or, rather, the repetition is because I realized that my brain was filling in familiar pictures for missing bits. So for example I would be troubled by dreams in which people would drive into my yard, typically the house I grew up in, going right up the lawn and past the house even though that wasn’t possible. I realized I was pasting in the extremely familiar image of my childhood home to fill in the missing scenery. Confused the heck out of me until I figured that out.</p>
<p>Other dreams, like anger ones or frustration, involve similar deception and I’ve learned to see through them, though of course not right away and not as smoothly as I would love. I had a frustration dream a few nights ago in which we’d moved into our old house. Made sense because we’d driven down that road and had talked about it. I was ****ed off about the lousy decision of living there again until I realized I couldn’t recognize a single thing in the place and that it wasn’t my stuff and wasn’t our place but was just a scene the story was imposed over. This happens all the time. I think that’s the actual essence of much, if not most dreaming: story lines in which the brain uses handy imagery. If you merely follow the story line, you believe that is what is happening in the dream. If you see the pictures, which takes some conscious effort to learn as a skill of sorts - learning to watch your dreams - then you get confused by the difference between what you see and what you are imagining as a story. I remember one recurring dream of violent battle. Had it until I was able to look more closely at the scene and realized it was more likely a hotel or resort lobby and that nothing bad was actually happening. The involvement in the story can be very intense and hard to see through.</p>
<p>Twelve years ago, when we redid our kitchen, I started having a dream where I discovered room after room after room in our house. The rooms were filled with old things – not junk, but antiques or furniture of my parents’ vintage. In the dream, the stuff was valuable. I realized that I was having the dreams at the same time I was discovering new things about myself. They were very positive, exciting, liberating dreams – unfortunately I haven’t had those dreams in a few years!!</p>
<p>The “college dream” is VERY common…for years I just thought it was me, bring it up at work & you’ll find many people have this dream in different variations. For myself, it seems to happen when I’ve been slightly “irresponsible” in some way…not being as thorough with something at work, not calling someone back that I know I should, etc.</p>
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