<p>A dream of finding myself in some social situation… naked.
A dream of being in college and, with 2 days before finals, I realize I forgot to attend a class - often a science or math class.
I used to work in television, and I still have dreams of suddenly having to produce a newscast… time is ticking but I can’t log into the computers… I’ve forgotten all the terminology… I can’t find any video… and it’s minutes to the show and I 've got nothing on paper to give to the director or the anchor… and then it’s showtime and the anchor pops up on the set and wants his scripts and there is nothing for him… just me feeling aghast…</p>
<p>Wow, I have so many of these dreams: the unprepared for exams; the dirty/not private bathroom (usually involving a disgusting mess of my own that I need to clean up); the teeth falling out; the brakes failing; the trying to dial an emergency number and failing; the obstacles-on-a-journey, etc. So strange that the imagery is so similar!</p>
<p>I often find that my recurring dreams contain powerful visual puns. This fascinates me. For years, I had recurring dreams that I was living in a “ramshackle” house. This was when, in real life, my marriage was failing – my symbolic house was falling apart – but for whatever reason I felt shackled to the marriage and couldn’t bring myself to leave. </p>
<p>I have runaway rollercoaster dreams when I feel like my life is a rollercoaster. I have claustrophobic dreams where I’m stuck in narrow passageways when I feel, in real life, I’m stuck in a tight place. I’ve found it interesting to describe my dreams out loud in words and somehow they make more sense. I now delight in these visual puns.</p>
<p>As I am aging, I still have these anxiety dreams regularly but, for whatever reason, the anxiety in the dreams is less intense. </p>
<p>To me, the worst anxiety dreams are ones where there are levels of dreaming in the dream. Like, I’ll be having an anxiety dream and, in my dream, I will wake up only to face a new set of anxieties (mountain lions in my bed, say), and then I’ll wake up again to a new round, etc. i finally wake up for real drenched in sweat. I think this is related to perimenopause.</p>
<p>I frequently have the “trying to get to a destination” dream. The places seem vaguely familiar, and sometimes my mother (RIP) is trying to help. I have both after my “first alarm” (husband) goes off and I go back to sleep. I believe this is a reflection of sleep phase, rather than psychic conflict. I DO know, even in my dream, it means “GET UP!”</p>
<p>And yes; another classic that I thought was “special”; the one about all my teeth suddenly crumbling and falling out. What’s THAT about? Looking it up…again.</p>
<p>Oh, I forgot to mention, that ever since my daughter has gone away to college I’ve been having recurring dreams that my daughter encounters animals in the wild – bear, lions, tigers – and instead of trying to escape she tries to pet them. I see this happening but I’m powerless to stop it. It is only now as I describe this here that I realize that these must be fear-of-date-rape dreams – “petting” dangerous “animals.”</p>
<p>I’ve had the teeth falling out dream too. That one is creepy.</p>
<p>But so many people with the can’t find a clean bathroom dream? That’s kind of odd. Because who cares if the bathroom is actually clean? You don’t sit on the seat anyways! Plus, it’s not the stuff I can see that bothers me, it’s all the germs that I can’t see. You just don’t touch anything if you can. That doesn’t even seem like a valid nightmare. Not that nightmares ask your permission. Nor that there is any sense whatsoever in dreaming.</p>
<p>I have a theory on the bathroom dream (have had variants). Usually when I wake up, I find I really do need to use the toilet pretty badly. I feel like the inability to find a suitable bathroom in the dream is the subconscious preventing me from actually urinating in my sleep. I never have actually used a toilet in my dream and sort of dread that sometime I might!!</p>
<p>You know what I never ever dream about? People who I love who have died. I was so hoping to see my dad in my dreams, or grandparents. Nope. I had one dream when my best friend died shortly before my wedding. I was in my high school parking lot and she pulled up in a long stretch limo and jumped out. I hugged her and felt the hug and was so relieved it wasn’t true and told her how sad everyone was that we thought she died She told me she knew, she was sorry, but she was fine and she had to go. And she jumped back in the limo and drove away. I never dreamed about her again.</p>
<p>@amarylandmom: When I have the bathroom dream, it’s not because I have to urinate; actually I don’t think it has anything to do with needing to go. On a symbolic level, it probably has to do with feeling like I can’t deal with a lot of the doodoo in my life.</p>
<p>What’s interesting – in general; not about my dream in particular – is that many of the dreams we’re all citing have to do with 20th and 21st century things – toilets, cars, college. I wonder what the common anxiety dreams were a hundred or two hundred or a thousand years ago.</p>
<p>My best friend in High School got killed in a car wreck and I still dream about her 30 years later. </p>
<p>When my kids were little I had dreams where I would just leave them in stores or shopping carts and not have the proper sense to get them back? I wouldn’t be in a hurry or wouldn’t call the police. </p>
<p>I have never had the college dream that so many people have -I am not sure what that means. My husband has it
I have lots of dreams where the wrong people are in the wrong places at the wrong age. For example I am at my aunts house from when I was a child with current co-workers </p>
<p>I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, though I know it’s a common dream scenario, certainly for me - trying to run from something dangerous and being unable to move at all, or only being able to move in slow motion. Or trying to talk/scream, but nothing comes out. These are true nightmares, though. I’d rather have just an anxiety dream, if I could choose.</p>
<p>So many people have tornado dreams, me included. I always thought I dreamed about them because of the obsession I had with “The Wizard of Oz” as a child. Maybe everyone was similarly obsessed? </p>
<p>@frazzled1, I feel that way a lot too. Like I am trying to yell for help, but I cannot. Or I can’t run away. My physician husband says that our muscles are “paralyzed” during REM sleep, so I often wonder whether that contributes to the feeling of being unable to move or yell. My husband says I do make noises when I am trying to yell in my dream.</p>
<p>@VeryHappy, your analysis makes sense. I think your question about what people dreamed in earlier centuries is such an interesting one. I wonder if there are any research papers out there.</p>
<p>Sleep paralysis is causing that can’t move, can’t scream kind of dream. I suffered from those for a long time when I was younger. They are often accompanied, as mine were, by the image of a person in the room with you. This is often threatening. And terrifying. It occurs when you are between wake and sleep and you’re in a dream state but are somewhat aware of the room around you. Mine would occur in the early morning hours. I would try to open my eyes but could barely and I would “see” a man in the doorway of my room. I couldn’t move or scream. I finally did some reading about it and found out that the best thing to do is to consciously realize that you are in sleep paralysis and allow yourself to go back to sleep (not easy when you are half convinced there is an intruder in your room). Once the sleep cycle is complete, it is over.</p>
<p>There are even some researchers that theorize that people who believe they were abducted by aliens in their sleep were actually suffering from sleep paralysis.</p>
<p>When my boyfriend died at the end of my junior year in college (we’d dated since I was in 9th grade), I had many many dreams about him. I’d dream that he was okay, that it had all been a case of misidentification. Or that he’d been in a hospital somewhere else because his parents didn’t want anyone to know he was in a coma, but now he was better. I’d wake up, and reality was the nightmare. I slept a lot during that period, because it was the only time I got relief.</p>
<p>Now I’ll still have dreams about him, just every once in a while. He is still young and beautiful (21 when he passed), and I’m always a little glad that I dream about him, because I used to fear that as time went on, I’d lose the ability to remember him clearly. </p>
<p>My daughter and I have this other dream. I am walking somewhere (shopping, on a college campus, it doesn’t matter) and my legs feel a little paralyzed and like they can’t support my weight. And it hurts to walk, the way your quads feel if you just climbed 5 or 6 staircases. I am so worried that I’m going to be stuck wherever I am because I can’t walk home or to my car etc. </p>
<p>My husband and I call all of these types of dreams “school anxiety” dreams, whether they are about school or not. We both have them. They’re not fun, and usually occur when we’re anxious about a project or feeling over-committed. I think it’s better to be anxious and slightly insane in dreams than in real life.</p>
<p>I’m a teacher and one of my teacher friends posted on Facebook that she has started to have those school anxiety dreams that are particular to teachers. We all have the same ones. We oversleep on the first day of school, we get to school and realize that we never set up our classroom for the new year. We get a new room and don’t know where anything is. I have one in which I am SCREAMING at a student, which is something that I would never do.</p>