Dream a Little Dream
Amanda B Reckondwyth
Shipmate
in Heaven
I've come to realize that recurring themes in dreams that I have also recur in other people's dreams.
Some themes common to my dreams:
Some themes common to my dreams:
- I'm still at school, and need one class to earn my degree -- but I've been forgetting to go to it.
- I'm in a play but have forgotten my lines.
- I'm on a train that is following a strange route.
- I'm waiting for a bus that never comes. I get on a different bus only to discover that the route doesn't take me where I want to go.
- I'm driving in a familiar city but don't recognize the route I'm taking.
- My father is treating me cruelly (he never did this in real life).
- I'm still working at my job, which was advertised as a temporary position that could end at any moment -- but it goes on indefinitely (again, this is contrary to what my job was in real life).
There are other recurring themes as well, too numerous to list.
What recurring themes appear in your dreams? Any of the above?
Comments
Another one I had in my teens was of being on my honeymoon. It was many years after some disaster, where we would be walking on a surface that was about 5-10 feet raised above the normal level of the old city. The building was extremely distinctive. It was only about 10 years later that I discovered that building existed in real life, even though I had never seen it heard of it at the time the dreams began. But as soon as I realised it was a real place, the dreams stopped. And, of course, I never married. The nature of the disaster was never clear.
Buses. Either you can't find to go where you want to go, or you are somewhere and can't find one to take you home. And it's dark. (Occasionally other journeys, by train or plane or on foot, but always frustrated).
I've to sit an exam, for which I've done no preparation. Or I've simply not turned up for work, even though there is something I should be doing.
Also hotels. I am forever staying in hotels, but either I can't find my room, or I can't find the exit.
A more recent leitmotif is a computer or smartphone, with which you are trying to communicate, or discover where you are. They never work and frequently morph into some completely different object.
Last night I dreamt that me and all my friends were staying at my brother's house and my sister-in-law provided the most amazing luxurious towels for everyone. 🤷🏻
I too have dreams about being at school, but I’m simply hanging around.
Most commonly though I’m in a city of my own making.
Strangely the version that most embarrassed me was one in which I was at work (I am a hospital receptionist) and realised that people were looking at me oddly. I looked down at myself and saw that I was wearing a t-shirt. *Just* a t-shirt.
One of the oddest and funniest dreams I remember was when I was asked to organise an event at very short notice at work.
I dreamt about it and in the dream I had to book an orchestra to play at the event. They weren't available and unable to find another at such short notice I decided to learn how to play all the instruments myself.
So there I was, before a music stand trussed up like a one-man band with a book called 'How to play the violin' propped open before me. I woke with a start and laughed out loud with relief.
My daughters often appear in dreams too. I had one the other might where each had the other's job and we were in a weird city which was part Stoke, part Crewe, part Polynesia/Moari-ish (everything covered in South Sea island type designs) and with bits of London and Romania thrown in.
Unsurprisingly, having posted this, last night I had a series of bizarre and disjointed dreams - to the point where I woke up wondering what the flip was going on!
I also have dreams where I have the care of a small animal (such as a guinea pig, which I did keep as pets when a child) and suddenly realise I've forgotten to feed it for weeks; or that I know how to look after the animal (very occasionally it's a baby - always someone else's, not mine) but everyone around me is preventing me from getting what I know it needs.
At times I dream of people I love who have died; I seldom remember in my dream that they are dead and the realisation on waking can be hard.
Sympathies @mark_in_manchester . My husband has difficult dreams most nights and there are times when he's audibly distressed and I have to wake him.
(ETA - your forgotten Guinea Pig equates to my forgotten grandparents, who despite being dead since about 1980 sometimes turn up in dreams where I just forgot to go and see them since then, but they're still with us. Those are pretty strange ones, not least because they are age over 120).
From time to time I have busy, brightly coloured and vivid dreams about a lot of people milling around, none of whom I know, and I had that dream a couple of times about this house before we moved here.
ETA - I know I dream every night but I don't often remember them. Sometimes I wake in the night from a dream and am sure I'll remember it again in the morning and I never do.
We called for a visit and it had turned into a glorious mansion with huge rooms, an indoor swimming pool and lush vegetation in a beautiful orangery.
My late wife and I were on holiday in the Peak District. It was 1951, ten years before I was born and the landscape was a mixture of the actual area and 1930s-50s railway posters. In fact some of the buildings were cut-outs from Ravilious style prints, Shell motoring posters and the like.
An eccentric couple from Loughborough (or Coventry?) were travelling the country by car and had someone managed to produce a one-off book showing where they'd been. They left it behind and although sorely tempted to take it back to the 21st century with us my late wife encouraged me to do the right thing and return it.
We caught up with them and attempted to do so but they were so pleased they told us we could have it on the proviso we got it mounted like a calendar we had with us with spiral binding etc.
The dream ended with my puzzling how to keep the book clean as for some reason we had to park in a great slick of slurry.
Weird.
I am currently putting off hanging some pictures and wondering whether the late Mrs Gamaliel would approve. The house isn't as tidy as when she was alive but it's not a slick of slurry.
Maybe I'm about to start a new project?
I used to dream about having to look after babies all the time. I'm not great with babies!
In the dream, I went to visit my sister and the bus from the airport was very crowded. It left me off at a church some distance from her house. As I collected my luggage, I noticed that I had been handed a suitcase very similar in appearance to mine, but it was not mine. I finally was able to locate the correct suitcase, but it had somehow come open and items that were not mine had piled on top of it. I removed most of these, but decided to keep one item that had somehow worked its way deep down into the suitcase.
At the church, I called my sister on my cellphone but was unable to press the right buttons. I finally did get through to her. She told me she would send my nephew to pick me up. (My nephew is indeed a handsome young man, but I do not harbor feelings of incest toward him.) It had begun to rain, and I told my sister that he'd have to look around for me, as there was a shelter I could stand under to get out of the rain but it didn't have a view of the street.
I think the techs must see a lot of strange goings on from patients who are trying to sleep!
Gone though three sleep studies, myself. Hate it when they wire you all up, and then they say sleep well or normally.
Two nights ago, I dreamt that Mr Puzzler and I were on a coach tour ( unlikely as he never did one ) but we had just missed the coach after a lunch stop and had no idea what route the driver was taking from there. We were stranded on a Scottish peninsular.