Theme for a dream?

[firemonkey]

Are there certain themes that reoccur in your dreams/nightmares? My dream recall is rather poor. However there are 2 themes that occur quite a lot-1. Being lost and 2. Trying to speak, but no words come out.

[Dougella]

Yes, being back at school is a frequent one for me. I also get the one where I can't speak and sometimes I dream I'm having to drive a car by myself and I don't drive in real life!

[Percy]

Being back at school is a recuring one for me too.

[Seagull]

Used to have a recurring one where I’d be in this horror genre scenario facing some terrifying malevolent presence and the only way to drive it away (so the dream script dictated!) would be to speak to it in a deep, guttural, threatening demonic voice using nonsensical words, effectively speaking in tongues and out loud. A couple of times I woke myself and my ex up in the middle of the night with my demonic outbursts, having scared the crap out of her and me (I have a deep voice at the best of times!)

[Tonkin]

I've had a recurring one over the last few years occasionally where I can't remember where I live.

In the dream I've usually been on a night out and I'm going home but I can't remember where my house is. I'm wondering around a part of London I used to live in but I can't quite remember where I'm trying to go. It's very confusing.

Another one is that I didn't finish my degree and have to go back to uni. In the dream, my job and life are build on having a degree so I have to go back secretly or something.

I've had them a few times, but enough times so that when I wake up from them, I can quickly reassure myself they aren't real.

Another one I used to have but don't any more is that I worked in a factory and was in charge of the settings on the machines. I put in the wrong details, then started the machines to make 1,000s of widgets, all with the wrong sizes etc.

Strange we don't often have good recurring dream?

[Tonkin]

Interesting about the B6.

I've seen supplements that claim to promote lucid dreaming.

[hellotiger]

I’m not sure about themes that I have in that broad sense. I frequently dream about tsunamis and my teeth falling out but they are a specific event that happens in the dream and not really what it is about overall, other things will happen before which are unrelated. I also dream about former friends as if we had never parted.
One thing that my brain often does with dreams is combine settings and sometimes create a new place but imagine that it is familiar. For example I visit a shop that does not exist but my brain will create that it is a familiar place that I frequent regularly. Another is that events will occur in a house that looks like my mums house but it will actually be where my partner and his family live.

[firemonkey]

This would scare the crap out of me.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/b...incubus-attack

[choirgirl]

Hm, maybe I need B6. I used to have going back to school a lot, sometimes because I had been unsuccessful in life so had to go back to school as an adult. Had the tsunami one as a child quite a bit. Also had one for years where I had to drive a car but I couldn't control it or stop it (this one was linked to an unfortunate incident as a child.) Only really got over that one once I could actually drive a car.

[anxiouslondoner]

They vary quite a bit. The other night I dreamt I was being stalked by this tiny Spiderman dude who followed me around everywhere.
Quite often I'll become aware that I'm dreaming but I still don't have the power to change my dream into something more pleasant. The best that I can do is wake myself up, though it's difficult to describe how I actually do that. It's possible that the times I'm aware that I'm dreaming are when I'm about to wake up anyway. I quite often have the ability to float around and even pass through solid objects like a ghost, but if I try to go somewhere that I'm not that familiar with, my dream will kind of fall apart. A few days ago I dreamt I was at my childhood home, and I knew I was dreaming. I wanted to go somewhere but I just couldn't think what the little footpath at the end of that street looked like, so I couldn't visualize it, and I ended up in some crazy city which is nothing like the small town I come from.

Is it just me who gets a bit weirded out by the fact that we almost never remember falling asleep, yet we do it every day?

[Sisyphus]

^ Sounds like a nightmare before Christmas.

Fire is one for me. Last time I was being engulfed in lava, the time before that I was being hit with burning chunks of white phosphorus.

Another one is going out and then having my car stolen, leaving me stranded.

I do have some good and really complex dreams, I like those.

I do have some others that I like even better.

[neilm]

Tsunamis appearing on the horizon and slamming into the coastline are a common one with me. Usually Ime able to escape to High Ground with a small number of others whilst the majority of other folk are wiped out by the wave down below.

When I was younger,dreams of nuclear explosions/incoming ICBMs etc were common too. Usually in these I didnt escape and was incinerated in the blast!! I was a child at the height of the Cold War!! .

Also a common theme is walking through a large building, or large underground caven/complex type place, and having the feeling that I am getting closer and closer to some sort of monstrous, demonic entity the further into the building or deeper into the cavern I go!! Always have an overwhelming feeling of horror and dread with these.

Rather sad and melancholic dreams involving my long dead parents also feature from time to time .....

[biscuits]

I've had a few night terrors (I think that's what they're called) where I actually shoot out of my bed and run to the bathroom. Then I wake up properly, in the bathroom, sweating and my heart beating really fast! (The reason why I never sleep naked!) Last time it happened I only made it half way round my room.

My normal dreams are usually just about going on fun adventures and quests. Or they'll be about a film I've seen recently or about people I've been speaking to.

[Tonkin]

I guess Facebook can view all the tabs you've had open on your phone and see what else you've been looking at?

Creepy af..

[anxiouslondoner]

One particularly unpleasant theme that has cropped up in a few of my nightmares is having wires or cables coming out of my mouth or nose, and having to pull them out.
Last night as part of a long complicated dream I thought I had a long blue shoelace stuck up one nostril that I had to remove. And then someone said "oh that's normal, it happens all the time and you don't even notice", lol.

^ Facebook shouldn't have permission to read your tabs! Android or iOS should block it, unless they've found a workaround. I get completely irrelevant ads on Facebook, when I even see them. But I did say I was 106. I mark them all as irrelevant and then block the advertiser.

[girlinterrupted]

Variations on themes of being chased by someone/thing trying to hurt or kill me. Often it's very vague, just a sense of panic really, other times it's some loooong drawn out scenario that keeps getting worse whenever I think I've just about escaped.

That or ones based on real-life stuff, like reliving someone's death, or they're alive and I'm thrilled to see them then wake up to the crapness of reality.

All pretty standard fare really, although my recall has become much worse the older I get so maybe I'm actually having really fun creative ones but just forget those

Oh, a more recent addition (last year or so maybe?) has been dreaming of something that I then have to frantically message someone about, and the message part feeling so real on waking that I actually have to check my phone. Once I did actually send someone a smiley face somehow, but at least that was friendly and not nonsensical like some of the possibilities, and it was someone I could explain it to and laugh about it with.

[Tonkin]

Anyone get dreams about specific people?

I occasionally dream of this person I used to know, who I haven't seen for about 16 years.

It's nice but also a bit sad.

[Tonkin]

That's a good point.

I haven't really met anyone dream worthy for the past 10 years or so, so it would make sense that I would dream about people from before that time.

[Jen.]

Isn't that just a sign of thinking about the past a lot?

My dreams are never really interesting, but I can almost always work out what influenced them. Usually they're a combination of recent thoughts, things I've read about or watched, something in the news, a conversation I've had, etc. I suppose if a person spends a lot of time reminiscing or being anxious about the past then events and people from then will be fresh in their mind and so more likely to be dreamed about.

[Sunshine Recorder]

I often get dreams of being back at school, having loads of unfinished coursework.

[choirgirl]

I tend to get people from my adolescence/youth in mine. I think it's probably to do with the age of the brain and stuff at a younger age making a stronger impression. Or it might just be nothing much has happened to me since!