Do you Dream Dreams?

[An Otaku]

Sorry in advance if that's the wrong thread tab.

So! I'm wondering if/what other people dream - because I don't. Not in the "I dream of becoming an animé protagonist" type of dreams, but actually mindstuff that you've seen while asleep.

I only ever sometimes see nightmarish stuff in drug-infused comas to sleep, but that's probably not normal. So... Do other people actually have dreams? What are they about?
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[Joan]

Literally every single one of my dreams for nearly as long as I can remember have been plots. I'm always half-lucid, there's always some sort of peril, and they make perfect sense to me but when I describe them to others they think I'm a bit of a loon :P They're also all nightmare material but, to me, they're never nightmares if that makes any sense.

IDK, I'm a weird dreamer :P only one kind of dream and no nightmares or recurring dreams at all

 

[Quiet One]

I remember only ever having three dreams, one kind of recurring. One was a strange nightmare I had after seeing the live action Scooby Doo movie. The movie wasn't scary, but some strange reason the Spooky Island mansion ride became an inspiration for a dream where my mom and I were in a van (which we've never owned) that broke down and we had to spend the night at some large, creepy run-down house (sound familiar?). I was chased by something like the laughing jesters that were on the swinging axes. Weird.

Another horror-esque dream was of a flower girl who ended up lost in a hedge maze. The maze, however, was full of carnivorous plants and some kind of unkillable caretaker in a suit. It ended with the girl running him over with a Mercedes, but him still being alive. The plants were wrapping around him and eating him alive but he never said a word. Then she escaped outside the front door.

The last dream is a recurring one where I'm flying. I had it when I was a kid, when I went to college, and then a few years ago. The college one was my favorite because I went to my school's science building trying to challenge a physicist to explain how I could fly.

I'm sort of glad I don't dream that often. When I do it gets weird.

 

[An Otaku]

So far, guess none of us have "normal dreams."

Which begs the question... what exactly is that? I'm sure they exist. Maybe... Still!
Give me more dreams! More stories!

 

[Shiri]

I toss and turn in my sleep so I dream quite often. Mine are usually fantastical in nature and sometimes fandom related.

The last one I was in was Doctor Who related, but more horror oriented. I love me some horror movies. x'D Bascially the Doctor became a mish-mash chimera of his past lives. It was freaky looking. And the monster had something to do with graveyards...I never got to see what it was. T^T

 

[Bambi!!]

I dream every night! Lately a lot have been nightmares, and I've found it depends on my general mood, but they're always super vivid and more like stories than dreams! (o´∀`o)

My biggest wish is being able to lucid dream. Who would ever want to be awake if they could control what they dream about?

 

[Vars]

I normally dreamt in 3rd person, like a movie. For most of my life, the dreams were not about me or people I knew irl, but I could point to a character and say that I was playing that character, that character was supposed to represent me, or something to that effect.

When I was a teen, I dreamed ALL THE TIME, they were generally pretty amazing/interesting dreams. I enjoyed keeping a dream journal. A lot of them could be turned into stories, movies, or RPs later.

Once I hit my 20s, I dreamed much less often. Maybe once a month or so. However, I started dreaming about myself rather than random characters about this time. When I was 22, I had a major surgery which involved lots of really powerful painkillers. On those painkillers I had several nightmares, the worst of which ended up being in the top 3 ever simply because it was dreamed in first person so I didn't know it was a dream at the time (prior to this point, I had NEVER dreamt in first person). After I had this first first person nightmare, my dreams were forever changed.

By the time I hit 25, all my dreams (when they occurred, which was not often anymore), included me, either as I was irl or as I saw myself at the time. 99% of the time they were in first person.

I am told that it is normal for people to dream in first person, but for me, most of my life was spent dreaming in 3rd.

I'm 29 now. I dream maybe once every few months, but I will forget the dream almost immediately upon waking up. That wasn't the case when I was younger.

 

[Aelita]

I've had two frequently recurring dreams in my adult-ish life.

One was when I was 17-18. I was living in my parent's basement so there were lots of spiders and other basement-y bugs around. I have this thing about not killing bugs so I'd catch them under cups and carry them upstairs to let them outside. In the dream I'd be catching spiders under cups and more and more bugs would start appearing, crawling out of the walls. I'd try to catch them all but I'd keep knocking over the cups I already set down and would have to start over. Eventually there'd be hundreds, thousands of bugs in my room and just when I gave up on catching them I'd wake up.

The other one started when I was 20 after I broke up with my last serious girlfriend. She was really controlling and obsessive. Pretty textbook abuse stuff that I won't get into. So after I severed ties I started having these dreams where I lived in various apartments with different groups of friends and somehow she'd always show up and try to take me away with her. I never had it in me to say no so in these dreams my friends would usually intervene on my behalf instead. I still get upset when I see people who look like her or things that I associate with her but in a way these dreams were cathartic because I always got saved in the end.

I've also been remembering fewer dreams as I get older. I'm 23 now and I hardly have them anymore. I should start writing down the dreams I can remember. They're really helpful in getting me to think about my feelings and experiences from different angles.

 

[Dipper]

My dreams are generally surreal adventures through the deepest recesses of my psyche.

Nah, they're just surreal. Or weird. Some dreams are unsettling and nightmarish dreams that I don't interpret as nightmares at all, and I remember all of them vividly.

The most 'normal' dream I've ever had was about bubbles that shouted BANG when they popped. Yep.

 

[Greenie]

I used to dream a lot as a kid. Just normal weird stuff that you don't remember when you wake up.

As a teen they were more fantastical, and even more so in my early twenties when I started watching anime and playing games.

Late twenties until now I have strange dreams. Many nightmares that involve being chased, attacked, or worse. Sometimes they're to do with car crashes. My funnier ones usually involve friends and forums, or things I watch and read.

 

[An Otaku]

There are some stories here I want to Like but they also include bits about deaths and nightmares, so... Um. Everyone gets cookies!

Now...

Feed me more of your dreams!!

 

[KJDarKnight]

I dream about the apocalypse a lot.... in different way.... aliens, floods, zombies.... you are it! Always very vivid in color.

I dream about other disasters, including dinosaurs escaping from underground facilities beneath a zoo..

I dream about having exotic pets that's save my life or I save them.

My nightmares scarily enough, reflect reality. Like I dreamed one time that I'd forgotten to lock the front door and a guy came into the house with this huge knife and was trying to kill me. I had to hide under my bed because there was nowhere to run and I didn't have a cell phone at the time.
I woke up panicking, checked the front door. It was unlocked. Looked out the front window (through a Crack in the blinds) and there was a guy holding a knife standing in the road looking at my house.
I flipped lights on and he went away.....


I have crazy dreams almost always....

 

[Kagayours]

Everyone has dreams, every time they go into REM sleep. You just don't always remember them when you wake up. [/someone has probably already mentioned this, but oh well]

 

[An Otaku]

Nah. You're the first, Kaga.

Technically that's correct. Dreams are a result of your consciousness not being deeply asleep, thereby your being semi-conscious is what allows you to see dreams in the first place. It's really just a product of bad sleep, which is why I might assume most dreams - as seems to be the pattern in this thread - a nightmares... That's the theory, anyway.

I guess my lack of dreams is a toss-up between my being a heavy sleeper, or I've no soul. 50/50

 

[Kagayours]

It's really just a product of bad sleep, which is why I might assume most dreams - as seems to be the pattern in this thread - a nightmares... That's the theory, anyway.

O_o Claiming that dreams are "just a product of bad sleep", doesn't even make sense if everyone has dreams every time they go into REM sleep, which you just said is correct.

Because if dreams are "just a product of bad sleep", but everyone has dreams when they enter REM sleep, then, that would mean that there's no such thing as good sleep. Because the deepest sleep that anyone can get -- that is, the type of sleep that causes dreams -- is, according to your explanation, bad sleep.

I think the more likely reason for everyone posting about nightmares, is because nightmares are probably more memorable than your average dream. A dream about being violently murdered is more memorable than a dream about going to school and watching slightly weird dream things happen in a series of semi-familiar environments, the latter of which will probably be auto-deleted by your brain before you even realize it's missing.

Also, I'm pretty sure dreams are easier to remember when you're suddenly woken straight out of REM sleep, as opposed to gradually coming out of sleep and waking up peacefully. And if you jolt awake in the middle of the night because you were having a nightmare, then, you're coming straight out of REM sleep. Not only that, but the thing you were experiencing in your nightmare is something that you'll probably be thinking about for some time after you wake up -- therefore helping it stick in your memory.

I guess my lack of dreams is a toss-up between my being a heavy sleeper, or I've no soul. 50/50

...But my point was that, you aren't experiencing a lack of dreams. Because you are experiencing dreams, every time you sleep. You're just not remembering dreams.

If anything, being a heavy sleeper just means you should experience more dreams than, say, an insomniac, because you're spending more time in REM sleep. Again, though, you just aren't remembering most of them when you wake up.

Except for nightmares, probably for the reasons I mentioned.

 

[An Otaku]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Seeing/remembering the dreams, instead of technically having them as we all seem to do. Bad phrasing on my end.

(￣～￣;)

 

[KJDarKnight]

You have no soul. Yep. That's it

 

[Quetzal]

I had a dream of something heavy and dark pushing me down in my bed. I don't mean a person. It was more like gravity was pushing me down. Then it let off. Suddenly I was yanked from my bed by the feet and dragged into the closet. It was so bad I had to be woken because I was stammering and moving in my bed. When I settled back down I remember hearing a ticking noise in one corner of my room.

I had a second awful dream the same week. I can't remember it now. I heard the same ticking after that one.

I had a thought. But I shoved it aside at the time. If such things exist, it's best not acknowledge they exist or that you fear them.

 

[PoetLore]

I dream every night, and generally I remember them. Some of them are casual every day things, like doing laundry or baking cookies (BORING I know).

When I was in college (In my 40's) I had these recurring dreams where I was being killed by a group of people who kept asking me "Where is HE?" I had no idea what they were talking about but they would kill me anyway, even though they would not tell me who HE was. One time they sliced my head off with a saber and my head rolled to the other side of the room and said, "Well that was highly uncalled for!"

When I was a teenager, I used to ahve this dream where I was in total darkness. Then one step would light up just in front of me and I would step onto it and another would appear. When i stepped onto that one the one behind would disappear. So I was moving forward, I think, but had no reference for how far i'd gone. Then this huge purple dragon would start to chase me. I would start running up these steps one at a time and then suddenly there would be no more steps and I would jump off. Usually that's where I would wake up, while I was falling watching the dragon open its mouth to char broil me. But then one time I didn't wake up and the dragon instead of killing me, swooped under and caught me. I never dreamed it again after that. Kind of miss that one to be honest.

 

[Sidhe]

I have really vivid dreams thanks to one of the meds I take and tbh I kind of hate it. It would be cool if my dreams tended towards the positive, but they don't. I usually have unsettling or unpleasant dreams, and when I have nightmares, it's the worst. :E