What recurring dreams have you had?

[aschultz]

@The_Xenographer

It’s been years since I commuted on public transit, but I still have nightmares about it on the regular. I drew on them heavily for inspiration when I wrote What the Bus?, although the scenarios in the game get a little wackier and more fantastical than the dreams usually get.

I enjoyed What the Bus because it provided me with “interesting” public transport events without actually having to deal with them. I suppose the scenarios get crazier because you can draw on the best parts. I’d never have suspected you had nightmares about it. Mine would be more about getting overcharged by a car mechanic.

As for my regular dreams, I hope these are fun.

I have a pretty big one about being 20 or so and given a golden chance to make Eagle Scout, even though you can’t be a scout any more when you turn 18. Somebody has pulled strings for me, and even my unmotivated self should be able to get through the last few requirements, but I can’t, and people are both disappointed and unsurprised. Boy Scouts was kind of awful, despite some nice adult leaders. I stayed longer than I should’ve.

A similar dream is doing very well in a college class and hearing “but no fair! You have a head start on us!” from people who actually are 20. I don’t know how old I am, officially, in the dream, which is more confusing.

These are pretty easy to laugh off, but one that wasn’t–though I managed to–was simply having arguments with people I disliked. Basically they would insist on something I knew wasn’t true. For years I would lose such arguments. About 10 years ago I was able to hold the line a lot better.

Then there are the ones where I have a fixed amount of time to play with cats who have long since passed on. It’s always a bit confusing. I’m not sure of the death-logic in the dreams, but I know they shouldn’t be there, and they won’t be there for long, and I’m glad they’re there.

Finally I suspect I’m not the only person who dreams of entrance interviews for the afterlife.

(Office Space Bob&Bob voice) “So why is it ya say … ya DESERVE heaven?”

At this point I feel very, very guilty about maybe asking if there is a Limbo. It feels like something I should have figured out while on Earth.

@J_J_Guest

If I correctly deduce what a recurring dream has been trying to tell me, it goes away and I never dream it again. I’d be interested to know if anyone else has experienced something like this.

I’ve sort of had that. Well, I’ve been able to push back against nightmares more as I’ve grown older. Slowly I pick apart the logical holes in a nightmare, and the next time it’s less awful. Sometimes I’ll wake up and remember that one person from the dream that I hadn’t thought about for a while and say, yeesh, what a jerk, glad I moved on. Or – I have someone nice to google/remember.

[cchennnn (autumn chen)]

I don’t know why I still have so many dreams in which I am a student in high school. It’s been more than 10 years! Same for dreams about college.

Also, I’ve had a lot of dreams about being in a public space and then suddenly realizing that i wasn’t wearing a mask and then waking up in a bout of anxiety.

[Scrooge200 (Lance Cirone)]

For some reason, I always have dreams where I’m in an airport. Usually, I have to catch a flight that’s leaving on short notice.

There’s also this arcade place that shows up a lot in my dreams, and sometimes I run into other people there (I particularly remember seeing Bob the Builder and Will Smith on separate occasions).

[jbg]

Longest running recurring dream I have has got to be the one where I find out at the end of the semester that I’m signed up for a class that I’ve never attended.

Unless I immediately stop having that one and then go on to significantly outperform my actuarial life expectancy, I don’t think it’s possible that I’ll ever have a dream that recurs for as long.

[ChristopherMerriner (Christopher)]

I usually don’t remember dreams, oddly, but there are a handful that I do remember as they’ve definitely occurred more than once. There’s a couple of house dreams, set in places that are definitely mine but I don’t actually inhabit in real life. Always much bigger than my actual house! In one of those dreams, I’ll either find an unknown cellar or basement room that’s alarmingly flooded, with no indication of where the water is coming in (but it’s still coming in). I think one time the house was actually a big boat, and the water was coming in the bilge (I did actually live on a boat at one time, so that’s not entirely without foundation). The other house dream involves me looking up (something I’ve apparently never done before in the many years of living in my dream house) and finding there is no ceiling, half the roof is missing and open to the sky, and there are birds swooping around and rain coming in.

The other dream that I get, and the one I’ve had most frequently, is that I’m in a play but haven’t learned any of my lines and then find out that the first night it tomorrow, so I have learn pages and pages of dialogue super-quickly! Again, not entirely unrooted in reality as I do a lot of acting, and I guess that’s just a standard actor’s anxiety dream. I’m actually pretty good with lines and very rarely forget them on stage (and am experienced enough to work around if I do), but it’s clear that, subconsciously, it remains a deep-seated fear of mine. Which surprises me a bit. That’s dreams for you!

[EJoyce]

@aschultz

I enjoyed What the Bus because it provided me with “interesting” public transport events without actually having to deal with them. I suppose the scenarios get crazier because you can draw on the best parts. I’d never have suspected you had nightmares about it.

That’s why it’s subtitled “A Transit Nightmare”! Not many people picked up that it was meant literally, I think. Though a lot of it is “things that actually happened to me in real life + whimsy” also.

@aschultz

Mine would be more about getting overcharged by a car mechanic.

Heh, I guess we all have our own transportation anxieties!

@ChristopherMerriner

The other dream that I get, and the one I’ve had most frequently, is that I’m in a play but haven’t learned any of my lines and then find out that the first night it tomorrow, so I have learn pages and pages of dialogue super-quickly! Again, not entirely unrooted in reality as I do a lot of acting, and I guess that’s just a standard actor’s anxiety dream. I’m actually pretty good with lines and very rarely forget them on stage (and am experienced enough to work around if I do), but it’s clear that, subconsciously, it remains a deep-seated fear of mine. Which surprises me a bit. That’s dreams for you!

Ah yes, I get this one a lot too. I think the most entertaining variation was the one where the director decided right before opening night that we were going to do a completely different play than the one we’d rehearsed. (Of course, I was somehow the only person who had a problem with this.)

[inventor200 (Joey "Jess" Tanden)]

I know I’ve told a few people about this, so I won’t go into as much detail here (more for content reasons than anything). I was hesitant to post this, at first, but since we’re all sharing…

For about twenty years now, I’ve had a recurring nightmare that someone is hunting me. They never stop making progress in moving towards me. They cannot be killed, and they cannot be otherwise stopped. When encountering anybody else, they act super nice and kindhearted, but they definitely want me dead.

They don’t chase me at speed, though. They use the ol’ natural human technique of simply walking towards the prey to slowly wear them down.

Any attempt to talk to them or reason with them is met with cruel laughter. Nobody else understands he is trying to kill me, and everyone thinks I’m being too hard on him.

I think the worst part is that he just looks like a completely average person. He doesn’t look like a monster or anything; he’s like anyone you’d meet at the store. Someone my own age, and so normal and (apparently) nice (to everyone else), and he is spending so much energy and dedication to see me killed by his own hands, for reasons he will never explain.

[dsherwood]

It seems the house dream is really common. I have one too but not as often as the dream where I am flying up and down the street I grew up on in Albuquerque. I haven’t physically been there for 2 or 3 decades but I visit it in my dreams quite often with a lot of details. I know every house and tree and even who lived there at the time. I guess it is a very strong, emotional memory.
The flying part is a wonderful sensation.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

I’m sorry to became the centre of the envy, if not outright hate of everyone…

I must disclose that not only my house is, as pointed already, Burbank-sized, but also that my grandfather was one of the most important antique dealers, so, I never have those “elaborate, eccentric houses full of antiques” dreams because, well, was the reality for me…

Also, more than “recurring dreams”, I have “recurring themes”, one of which is decidedly familiar to Trinity players, I often dream of “inverted L”, for example, finding at the end of a corridor, that the room(s) at left are at right.

Another is that I’m in a tiny, two-track, tramway terminus at the end of a rather narrow blind alleyway, this is more a “setting” than a theme, the dream being different.

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[AmandaB]

I often have dreams that I’m reunited with long-dead pets who are miraculously alive again. Never people, oddly. Just pets. It’s both really wonderful because I get to see a beloved again, and a crushing disappointment because then I wake up and it’s not true.

[Piergiorgio_d_errico]

Amanda, this happens also to me… and I have the same crushing disappointment, but I also know that I must quickly overcome it and keep the dream and its detail in mind.

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.