I had the inspiration to create a "Dream Thread." (I hope this hasn't been done before?)

I find dreams so interesting - dreams that I have, dreams that others have, recurring dreams, dreams that symbolize something, and so on. It's so odd how various people and things show up in dreams that you would never expect, and I'm just amazed with the subject.

I thought it'd be fun to use this thread to share dreams that we've had (recent or in the past), perhaps try to find a meaning for our own and/or others', and just talk about them.

I'm not sure how well this will go, but we'll give it a whirl. I feel like I've been having a lot of dreams lately, but I'm not sure how much we'll have to talk about. Just please feel free to share any of yours whenever, to keep this thing going!

A recurring dream that I have is that it's either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (or very close), and I haven't bought [i]any presents for my family. In "real" life, I always either buy presents, bake sweets, or make crafts for my family, so this "nightmare" scares me everytime I have it! It's not so much not having anything to give, just that I didn't realize I didn't have anything to give. [/i]

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Don Andrew, you should appreciate this.
A while back, I had a Blues Brothers-themed dream. I (really) was in a Jazz Band in 8th grade. When I moved on to high school, most of the kids I knew in 8th went to another school than I did. Anyway, in my dream, I was sitting in an audience watching these kids perform. The stage curtains opened, and they were all dressed in white suits just like Cab Calloway and the band members were in, in the Blues Brothers, and they were playing this jazzy-type song reminiscent of Minnie the Moocher.

(More to come... )

There was such thread before, and I wrote there about all my recurring dreams. And I'm going to have some right now, so I'm terribly lazy to repeat myself, and so sorry for that...

So there was one before?

So sorry to make a repeat!

I ran a search, but I didn't find anything...

Great topic. Without having read into them or anything, dreams, and their connection to memory and the unconscious, fascinate me also.

I never have, nor have had, recurring dreams. Perhaps the same dream more than once in one night, but never over different nights. Apart from a couple of common ones, which I think everybody has: that you're in the swimming baths, and, under the water, realise you have no clothes on, at all. The same applies for school assemblies.

Does anybody believe that dreams can predict the future? I don't. I think they're connected to the future insofar that we attach importance to an upcoming event. For instance, you may dream of an exam the night before you actually take one. But primarily, dreams, for me at least, hold a great, significant attachment to the present and recent past.

Mick

"Do you guys know 'Minnie the Moocher'?

"I know a hooker named Minnie Mazzolla..." :p

Dreams. What a wide ranging topic. As for my dreams, I don't really have any recurring dreams. I actually haven't really had a dream in a while, either that or I don't remember them.

The really bad dreams I have involve losing one of my kids or my husband. Then I wake up in a horrible sweat and can't go back to sleep until I check that everyone's ok and asleep in their beds. This type of dream mostly involves my older daughter, who had several surgeries when she was little. I guess that fear is always lurking in my subconscious.

I do dream about my Dad, and I'm surprised how vividly I can see him in my dreams. In the past, if I ever dreamed about someone who was dead, I wasn't able to see them, like they were in another room, and I knew they were there, but I never actually saw them in my dream. When I dream about my dad, he is THERE. Those dreams are nice.

I know that dreams are supposed to be an expression of your subconscious, but I don't know how many I have that I can't remember. Or did you ever remember a dream because of something that happens the next day?? That's REALLY strange.

I agree. I guess it's possible they're connected to the future, but I don't really think so. I really think you've got it, Mick, when you say it's the past and present. I have dreams concerning people that I think about a lot, things that I worry about (or that I enjoy), and, as was the case in my Jazz Band dream, people or things I remember from my past.

DA: You know, you mention you haven't had many lately. I just recently have had a lot, this past weekend, and it was my first weekend off from school. I'm starting to think that I dream more when I have time to dream. You know, when I get more sleep, and I'm more relaxed.

SB, I think I forget many of my dreams, too. Something I've always noticed is that I dream in "scenes," I guess. Nothing really goes together - it's all just a scramble of random stuff, and the longer I sleep, the more I dream about.

Yeah, usually in (my) dreams you know the people in them, but never physically identify them.

Also, you only remember dreams if you wake up in the middle of them. We dream everynight, but only remember a few. That's why nightmares are usually easier to remember, because they always make us wake up.

I hate it when you're having a great dream and then you wake up, and then you try and go back to sleep so it can continue its next chapter.

Mick

A great topic indeed.

I have had several recurring dreams. Mainly the recurring ones are of me drowning, usually being pulled under the water by an invisible source, or a couple of times by a shark and even one time by sand (doesn't make any sense, I know).
I've also had several dreams or nightmares rather involving spiders, which I have a slight phobia of.

It has been awhile since I've had a distinct and vivid dream. Usually I'll be doing something during the day and suddenly remember I had a dream about something similar the night before.
The strangest and most linear dream I've ever had happened a few years back. I was driving a truck down a dirt road in the middle of the night. Another truck came up behind me and kept honking it's horn and flashing it's lights. It soon passed me and crashed through a fence up the road. I got out and opened the door of the other truck, and the driver fell out, only he was headless.

As far as dreams predicting the future, I've had one or two of those. I don't believe I am psychic, and I'm not sure I believe in any of that, but I had a dream once that my friend and I were on a boat and my father came out of nowhere telling us it was going to sink.
Then a few months later, that same friend came with my father and I to New York City for my birthday, and we took the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. My friend and I were at the bottom of the boat when my father came down through the crowd telling us to come up with him because we were about to dock.

Maybe not identical, but the way it played out was exactly the way I dreamed it. I was speechless for a few minutes.

"Chapter" is a great way of wording it!

What I really hate, is when I dream something good (perhaps I got a good grade in school, or I got to see/talk to that special guy...), then I wake up and realize it didn't happen.

Omar...wow! Maybe the future dreams are possible, and I just haven't come upon one for myself?

Sleep is a big thing with me. I often have a recurring dream that I'm falling in tan-ish clouds endlessly, which leads me to a question: Does anyone FEEL things during sleep? When I fall during sleep, I feel the wind blowing.

Another thing I often get are dreams that cause huge mood swings or sudden infatuations, especially with girls. If I dream about someone, I get a strong, temporary attraction to them.

Finally, I VERY often get Sleep Paralysis. Half awake/half asleep. Sometimes I can see my room in the dark, but can't move at all (which is why it's called that). I also have some mild hallucinations like shadows moving through the walls, or sometimes it becomes more of a dream and I can move in super slow motion. I usually feel uncomfortable during this and I try to force my eyes open, which causes me to blink very fast, flashing in and out of sleep.

Once, I watched half a segment of Unsolved Mysteries during Sleep Paralysis, and woke up and finished the end of the segment.

Yeah, I'm a freak. :p

Two very interesting dreams, Omar; the first one in particular would make for a good scene in a film; the second could be, in some strange way, an extreme case of deja vu, which is itself I think linked to dream, memory, and the unconscious, and just as fascinating.

The last horrible dream that I remember having was a while ago, I don't know exactly. In it, I was in a door-less room, just a box. And, somehow, it was slowly being filled up with water. I woke up with inches to spare.

I've woke up crying before after having nightmares, but the next day I only remember the dream, and not the waking up crying (the cause of much embarrassment when my mother asks me why I was crying, haha!). One of those was when I was barely a teenager, where this woman invaded our home and killed my mother. The only way I can describe this woman is she looked like Luna Vachon. The second of those dreams involved me watching a wrestling match, and Doink the Clown killed Bret Hart.

DV, you freak! :p

I might have a dream about the guy I'm already attracted to, but it ends up "getting to me," (like where I said that whatever happened turns out to be just a dream...that bothers me), so it ends up being an awkward situation when I see that person in "real life."

And your question about feeling things in dreams is going to drive me insane. I honestly don't know if I do...and how am I supposed to remember to find out?

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I guess I've been lucky, because I very rarely have nightmares. I can't recall any dreams where I've almost died, or a family member/friend did. I think I used to have bad dreams about spiders when I was little, but that's about it.

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Does anyone hold a grudge against someone for what they did in your dream? I have. Not seriously, but just teasing. In a recent dream, my friend stole all of the french fries from the lunch I was eating, so I teased her the next day by yelling at her about it.

Omar, dreams of spiders? You should listen to The Cure's "Lullaby."

I hate the insect dreams!! They're awful. Just this weekend, I pulled out a container of grits which had been sitting in the cabinet for months. Well, without going into detail, I had to have my husband throw it out, because otherwise I was going to have a bug dream when I went to sleep last night! YUK.

My husband has that sleep/dream thing going. He will often get his hands tangled in the covers and then he will dream that someone is trying to hold him down. In real life, he will struggle to get free, and will usually end up hitting me with his flailing arms.

I've remembered another one, and this is possibly a recurring one. Recurring in the sense that when I last had the dream, during it I was thinking I've had this dream before. But whether I had or not is another matter. Anyway, it's a simple scene, wherein I can fly by running a few steps, jumping into the air, and doing breast stroke, as if the air was water.

The only other time where I've told myself I've had the dream before was a one involving an animal on some train tracks by my school. The animal was either an elephant or a rhino, but definitely larger than it should have been.

It's funny how you remember dreams, how the memory holds onto them, but, if there was a way we could actually revisit them and physically re-enact them, we'd probably find that the memory was only vaguely accurate, and the actual visuals themselves were very different.

My memories of dreams, for instance, are just like dreams themselves: an intangible presence.

Vercetti, I too have had dreams about somebody I wasn't all that attracted to, and couldn't wait to see them again, having this unsatisfied and immediate urge to be with them.

It's more of a longing too. They love you in a dream and all of a sudden you desire their attention for a short while.

Sometimes I know I'm dreaming, and take advantage of it, although I can't control what happens in my dreams by thinking of it like many claim to. As for nightmares, usually I get stalking ones. I remember a dream where I was stalked by Nosferatu, although it was YEARS ago as a kid, and it was because of his appearance in "Are You Afraid of the Dark," not the film.

Then sometimes you get the random dreams that have ridiculous "plots" if you will. In fact, I think if we remember dreams we have for the next few nights, we should post them here. I remember many dreams about my school, only my school was like a huge mall.

Oh, Gina, yes! Once I had a dream that my husband left me for some girl he worked with. I was so angry at him the next day!! And he didn't know why! When I finally told him, I realized how insane it truly sounded! But it didn't matter - I was still p.o.'d!!

Good idea.

By the way, if I'm dreaming that I am having sex with a beautiful woman, 95% of the time I wake up right after it begins. :p

It's still his fault, right, SB?

That's what I was thinking...that we could use this as sort of a "dream journal" anytime we remember our dreams.

Mine are even better. Whenever I have one they're usually as pleasurable as anything anyone can ever encounter, and go all the way to the end. When I wake up I find that I was dreaming about someone I'd rather not...

Another thing I recall is the blur of dreams. I mean how vivid are our dreams? I always feel like much of the outer peripheral vision is blurred.

Me too.

I once had a dream where Jennifer Lopez called me and invited me to her house for sex. I entered her room where she was taking her clothes off. But right before anything happened, I woke up.

Terrible. I tried so hard to fall back asleep but couldn't.

Deja Vu is a better term for it. I've had several experiences that evoke the feeling of deja vu from dreams, but none were as strong as that one on the boat.

Vercetti, I'll check out that song.

The song is based on a dream Smith would have as a child where he was eaten by a spider. The music video is very odd, featuring him in bed while figures similar to him stare from outside his window. The guitar is great in it too, very dreamy-like.

Be still, be calm, be quiet now my precious little boy. Don't struggle like that or I'll only love you more. But it's much too late to get away or turn on the light.

Which leads me to yet ANOTHER question.

Has anyone fallen back asleep and RESUMED their dream from wherever you left off? I have, but unfortunately it's usually when I have nightmares.

The last nightmare I had was one where my 9 year old sister died. I remember it vividly. I was in the waiting room at the hospital when the doctor came out and told my family the bad news. But as I was hearing him say it, my vision sort of went into split-screen mode, where one side I saw the doctor babbling on, and the other side I saw my sister in a bed crying. It was by far the worst feeling I have ever had. I woke up in a suddent jolt at about 4 AM, and for a few minutes, I didn't know if my sister was dead or alive. I thought the dream was real. I was crying hysterically, and couldn't stop. I walked over to my sister's room to see if she was okay, and I remember being so relieved that she was. I gave her a kiss and went right back to sleep.

From then on, I've never looked at my sister the same way again. I've treated her like a Queen ever since.

Here's a dream I had last May during an afternoon nap, right after I had listened to "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin:

I was sitting in a classroom full of kids around my age, and they were all talking about what they were going to do "when the levee breaks." One girl said, "Last night my dad took me to the levee, and we sat there all night and moaned." Then some guy said, "Dude, my dad says the levee isn't even gonna break. It's all bullshit." Then this one hot blonde girl goes, "Well, if the levee DOES break, my family is headed to CHICAGO." Then she turned to ME and was like, "So what would YOU do if the levee broke?" And I said, "I'm going to California." Then a split second after I said it, I woke up with a sudden jolt.

Why did I post this? Because about 4 months later, Hurricane Katrina hit.

Weird.

Has anybody ever had a dream where they actually feel pain? I've always had a recurring dream where I go down in my basement, and a mean ass bulldog comes out of nowhere and bites my balls. When I have this dream, I can actually feel somebody squeezing the life out of my testicles. I wake up and everything is back to normal.

So strange.

I also have a recurring dream where it's the first day of school, and everything is unorganized. Kids are just running around doing whatever they want, it's just one big party. Always have that dream.

Also, when my little brother was 3 years old, I saw him fall down my basement stairs and hurt himself pretty badly. Ever since then, I've been having dreams of him falling down those same stairs, the same way he did when he was 3. It's like somebody taped it and stored it in my mind.

Usually I remember dreams more vividly than other people. My family thinks I'm crazy because of how many dreams I have, but they don't realize that they have the same amount of dreams, but just don't remember them. When I'm dreaming, I often realize it during the dream, and start to control it. It's fun that way, because I can make whatever I want to happen, happen. It makes me happy.

Dreams. There are many theories about them. One theory that I believe is that we attempt to solve or finish something that happens to us during the day. Or we try to find the answer for something that has been bothering us.

Having witnessed the collapse of WTC 2 and spent the day escaping from NYC, I never dreamed about it. It was too vivid, too complete.

Also, anxiety dreams, or fears (the spiders!) Mine is a recurring golf dream. I can't get off the first tee and the first hole takes forever to complete. Trees are in the way; uneven ground; wrong club; you name it.

Sex dreams. Too many, too varied, too weird to go into....and at my age!