<p>I too dream that I never attended a college class then realized that I had been enrolled all semester and have to take the final; I show up at work wearing only a tshirt and panties and feel ashamed all day; and my car continues to idle forward as I mash on the brakes.</p>
<p>Somehow it’s comforting to read about everyone else’s anxiety dreams!</p>
<p>I bet you’re glad to wake up!</p>
<p>My most frequent anxiety dream, and I’ve been having variants of this one for a looooong time, is this:</p>
<p>I’m in high school and on the football team. I keep seeing glimpses of my teammates getting ready in the locker room, views of the pre-game clock winding down… and I am late. I should be in the locker room getting dressed. But I can’t find my cleats… or my helmet… or my jersey (etc.). So I’m in my bedroom trying to find all these things… I’m going to miss the game… OMG! And then I wake up…</p>
<p>I have the exam dream every so often. About 15 years ago, when H and I were working for the same company in different departments, I had recurring dreams that our marriage was found to be invalid somehow - that we never went through with it or there was a glitch in the paperwork. They fell off sharply once I left that company. Last week I had the same dream two nights in a row - that I wasn’t going to work for some reason and I kept forgetting to call my boss and tell her. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I recently interviewed for another job?</p>
<p>35+ years later, I’m still having that same darned end-of-semester dream. Except for me, it’s always an English and History class that I’ve forgotten to go to. And I keep getting lost trying to find the classrooms.</p>
<p>The loose/crumbling teeth dream - yes, I have that too! I had no idea this was so common. </p>
<p>And the moving-numbers-on-the-phone dream. </p>
<p>So are we all normal? Or is the type of person who visits a “get your kid into a good college” website so frequently the type of person who will subconsciously obsess about making good grades 30 years later in their dreams, the perfect example of a total mess?</p>
<p>Oy.</p>
<p>If we’re not normal, at least we’ve got lots of company.</p>
<p>We are more normal than most!</p>
<p>Definitely had the “missing class, chapters behind, not ready for final” dreams for years and years. More recently, as a prof. I have dreams of not being prepared for class or not being able to find the class. Haha. Same dream, just different location in the classroom!</p>
<p>What I want to know is this: do people from other cultures have different anxiety dreams? I assume so. In primitive cultures was it that your bow didn’t work and a water buffalo was bearing down on you?</p>
<p>Minnymom! I also have that one with the car and the brakes not really stopping all the way! How weird.</p>
<p>KKMama, I have the same one about finding hidden rooms in a new house! Also that I am rummaging around my OLD house and the new owners come home (mind you, we moved from there in 1996…)</p>
<p>I have:
The teeth falling out one
The “unprepared” one (usually I’m in a play or concert or something)
The “I need to run but my legs are made of lead” one
The “I thought it would be a good idea to be naked, but now I’m not so sure” one
But, most often I have “plane crash” dreams…either I’m witnessing one, or I’m in one, or come upon one…could be anything. I’ve had them so often, that in my dream, I say “oh, another plane crash dream…wonder if it’s real this time”. And I’m not afraid of flying at all.</p>
<p>In many of my dreams, all speech (be it mine or someone else’s) is all gobbledy gook. Unintelligible. What was really wierd, was one time when H was in the hospital, there was an elderly man in the next bed who wasn’t really lucid. And his ramblings sounded JUST like my dreams. Really strange.</p>
<p>I don’t dream about my dad (who died in 1999) very often, but when I do, it’s SUPER-realistic. Like he’s sitting right there.</p>
<p>I never imagined the dirty bathroom dream was so common! My own version is very close to the description here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://braincandy.hubpages.com/hub/The-Dirty--Disgusting--Bathroom-Dream-What-does-It-Mean”>http://braincandy.hubpages.com/hub/The-Dirty--Disgusting--Bathroom-Dream-What-does-It-Mean</a></p>
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<p>I have been laughing, reading about all the common dreams.</p>
<p>“Didn’t go to class all semester” dream: Everyone I know who went to college has this dream, with variations: didn’t know about the class, forgot about the class, bizarrely just didn’t go to class, don’t know which building and/or room the class is in, etc.</p>
<p>“Naked or in underwear in public” dream: Yep. For some reason, no one else realizes it but I am humiliated.</p>
<p>“Teeth crumbling” dream: In my dreams they don’t crumble but start falling out, and I feel one, then another, then another start coming loose and am desperately trying to hold them in. It’s quite a tactile dream.</p>
<p>“Bathroom” dream: I either can’t find one or find a huge room with a line of toilets (clean, not dirty) and NO privacy.</p>
<p>“Can’t move” dream: I’m being chased and am moving in slow motion. The chaser doesn’t actually catch me, but it’s a terrifying experience.</p>
<p>My driving-fast-with-brakes-not-working dream also involves abrupt zero visibility. It is so scary - driving fast, trying to stop, unable to see the road-is it straight or curving, up or down, a cliff, a wall… ((Shudder)) My least favorite of the anxiety dreams.</p>
<p>Okay, I hesitated to mention this, but because so many of us have the same dreams, maybe it’s not as weird as I always thought. Does anyone act out physically in their dreams (or have spouses/partners who do)?</p>
<p>My husband always claims not to remember his dreams. But when he was a first-year pediatric resident, I know he was having anxiety dreams about starting IVs because at least half a dozen times he grabbed my arm in the middle of the night and tried to start an IV. I swear I am not making this up. He’d sit up and curse and mutter while he had my arm in an iron lock and poked around. He actually wound up being the house staff officer you wanted to start a tough line, but that was an interesting few weeks.</p>
<p>When he started a fellowship that required him to use cardiac catheters inserted through the groin - same thing, though he only did it twice. It is not fun to be awakened by someone trying to figure out where to place a catheter in the dark. I guess I’m fortunate he wasn’t training to be a pathologist.</p>
<p>I have read about people walking, eating, and even driving in their sleep, so maybe this was a variation.</p>
<p>I am not going to read the 5 pgs of anxiety dreams as I’ll probably then have several of them. I’ve definitely had the “forgot to drop the class, never went and final is tomorrow” one, though I din’t remember what subject it is in. I’ve also had the " I forgot to finish my dissertation and now have to go back to grad school with the young whippersnappers and my old professors and finish up, write the final draft and defend it" nightmare. Haven’t had these in a while. Hope it stays that way.</p>
<p>A friend of ours was awoken during the night by his wife-she was creeping around on the mattress, along the headboard behind him. He asked her what she was doing and she said “Shhhh!!! It’s right over there.” He didn’t see anything. He finally convinced her lay back down, and the night proceeded without further incident. The next morning, his wife said “God, I had this bad dream there was a tiger sitting at the foot of our bed.” </p>
<p>Another friend, whose husband likes to bet on sports games, is occasionally awakened by him sitting up in bed, holding his arms straight above his head, and yelling “Touchdown!”</p>
<p>These aren’t really the the same as what you’ve described. They aren’t trying to perform interventions on anyone.:D</p>
<p>One time D1 crawled into bed with us when she was 5 or 6, and in the middle of the night, clear as a bell, she said, “Welcome to McDonald’s. May I take your order?” DH rolled over and said to me, “Okay, you’re buying her too many happy meals.” Neither one of them had any memory of any of that.</p>
<p>I have a lot of those same dreams - tornadoes, losing teeth, the college class I forgot about until finals, misdialing a phone during an emergency. WOW. And about being able to see the school bus coming toward my house and I am not ready.</p>
<p>I used to dream about quicksand. </p>
<p>And green witches. I never liked Wizard of Oz. </p>
<p>I dream about things going wrong during business travel to conferences and the general confusion of the last day of the trip. Do I check out of the hotel early in the morning? Then what do I do with my suitcase? Can I keep the hotel room until lunch break? What if lunch doesn’t start until after checkout time? What if I bring my suitcase to the conference room, and then it is stolen when we all leave for lunch? And so it goes…</p>