"Have You Ever Had A Dream, Neo, That You Were So Sure Was Real?"

[Emilymcplugger]

So last night I had a dream that I needed to write a 10,000 word essay on addiction overnight (I thought the deadline was the end of term) where I’d only written one paragraph.

For the next hour of me waking I kept coming back to that in my head, how I would approach it, what addictions would I cover, the humorous format I’d use to get my thoughts and ideas across and whether it was doable (it was, but I was worried about time to add illustrations). I just couldn’t shake that it wasn’t real, even though I knew it wasn’t.

Which brings me to the point. Ever have a dream that felt so real it impacted you for a considerable time afterwards.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

I've had dreams like that. The dream feels so real that I when I wake up, I can't believe I'm in bed and that I dreamt the whole thing up. It is kind of unsettling, especially if you can remember the more vivid things that happened while you were asleep.

 

[onehitwanda]

"And lo, the eleventh commandment hath been bestowed upon thee: Thou shalt not name thy offspring Emily, forsooth, as it hath been foretold that the bearer of such name shall bring naught but woe and calamity upon thy household."

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I've had dreams like that. The dream feels so real that I when I wake up, I can't believe I'm in bed and that I dreamt the whole thing up. It is kind of unsettling, especially if you can remember the more vivid things that happened while you were asleep.

Yep. My brain kept coming back to the essay and how I’d manage the addiction essay. I came up with approaching it in a fun way in a jeopardy-style quiz show which would cover

Masturbation
Alcohol
Cigarettes
And illegal drugs

Before concluding with a broader look at addiction which would also cover collections and even hoarding.

I’d better get back to it. I’ve only got about six fictional hours left.

 

[djrip]

Like the 'i didn't realize I was enrolled in this class and now it's time for the final exam. And I'm naked.' dreams I used to have in college.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

 

[SimonDoom]

I can't think of dreams that affected me that way long after waking, but I've had dreams that obsess me over the course of the night, where I toss and turn and I can't quite tell the difference between sleep and wakefulness.

Two types of dreams in particular are the 1) my teeth are falling out dream and 2) it's late in the semester and I haven't gone to class yet dream. I haven't been in school for over three decades and I still have that latter dream. I did well in school, but I was a bit of a procrastinator, and that dream still haunts me to this day. Probably because I'm still a procrastinator.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Once, while I was a teenager... I've dreamt that I talked with Christ. The dream was very intense and the feeling of exaltation and inner peace was so strong that I was convinced that I had all the answers for days.
All of that is particularly funny as I was doubtful about religion even then, and now of course, I am a fully fledged agnostic and sceptic. Dreams can truly be powerful.

 

[MrPixel]

Yeah, frequently. They vary between self-levitation (never manage to clear power lines, tho'), naked in a serious office setting, and an apocalypse where my wife and I both survive separately, but our rendezvous is foiled. My problem is the unpleasant ones wake me up, I turn over to go back to sleep, only to have the dream continue. At that point I wake up again and retreat to the office to sit here and surf, if only to reset my mind.

Interestingly, my dreams do not intersect with writing. Well, maybe once. A scene from my current serial story played out as feeling real. I enjoyed the time with the characters, but it was just that once. Not sexual, either, just fun banter in "our bar" among lovers. Wish it would happen again.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I can't think of dreams that affected me that way long after waking, but I've had dreams that obsess me over the course of the night, where I toss and turn and I can't quite tell the difference between sleep and wakefulness.

Two types of dreams in particular are the 1) my teeth are falling out dream and 2) it's late in the semester and I haven't gone to class yet dream. I haven't been in school for over three decades and I still have that latter dream. I did well in school, but I was a bit of a procrastinator, and that dream still haunts me to this day. Probably because I'm still a procrastinator.

The teeth-falling-out dream is fairly common. Freud, I think, thought they were about castration anxieties, but I think they are simply about dental issues. (Sigmund was often just winging it with his ideas, but he'd never admit it.) Do women have such dreams too?

Issues about school and work are common, because they reflect our daytime reality. One common one I have had is that my high school messed up something and thus my college degree is temporarily invalid. At age fifty or whatever, I have to go back to high school (usually the one I actually went to) to make up for the missing work. There are true-life stories of older people going to high school, but the dream is quite annoying anyway.

 

[SimonDoom]

The teeth-failing-out dream is fairly common. Freud, I think, thought they were about castration anxieties, but I think they are simply about dental issues. (Sigmund was often just winging it with his ideas, but he'd never admit it.) Do women have such dreams too?

Issues about school and work are common, because they reflect our daytime reality. One common one I have had is that my high school messed up something and thus my college degree is temporarily invalid. At age fifty or whatever, I have to go back to high school (usually the one I actually went to) to make up for the missing work. There are true-life stories of older people going to high school, but the dream is quite annoying anyway.

The funny thing about the teeth dream is that I've always had good teeth. I've never had a cavity filling in my life, and I'm in my late 50s.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Like the 'i didn't realize I was enrolled in this class and now it's time for the final exam. And I'm naked.' dreams I used to have in college.

I'm never naked, but maybe in my underwear. Of course, no one notices except me.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The funny thing about the teeth dream is that I've always had good teeth. I've never had a cavity filling in my life, and I'm in my late 50s.

I've had terrible luck with my teeth, partially self-inflicted and partially genetic perhaps. So I do know what it's like when a crown suddenly falls off, or even a three-piece "bridge" as they are called.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yep. My brain kept coming back to the essay and how I’d manage the addiction essay. I came up with approaching it in a fun way in a jeopardy-style quiz show which would cover

Masturbation
Alcohol
Cigarettes
And illegal drugs

Before concluding with a broader look at addiction which would also cover collections and even hoarding.

I’d better get back to it. I’ve only got about six fictional hours left.

Masturbation is probably the most difficult of those four to shake. But really, it's less harmful than the other three, right? "Hey, hey they say I better get a chaperone, because I can't stop messin' with the danger zone. Hey, hey I won't worry, and I won't fret. Ain't no law against it yet."

Most of my "sexual" dreams were about my ex-wife taking me back. Usually I'd be right of the edge of being seduced by her, and then I'd wake up. In recent years (yes, it does take a while), I've finally accepted the reality of it and the dreams have stopped.

 

[MrPixel]

...dreams were about my ex-wife taking me back.

I went through a bout of a similar thing early last year, despite it being that my first and I split 45 years ago. Yeah, it was really that bad, and took like six years of therapy to mitigate the damage.

Dreams are considered by some authorities to be a sort of "garbage collection", rounding up loose threads of memories and emotions, bringing them to resolution. I guess can attest to that, as I haven't had that particular theme replay since. My attitude now about my ex is not forgiveness for what she did and how she did it, but having a better understanding of her psyche at the time.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I went through a bout of a similar thing early last year, despite it being that my first and I split 45 years ago. Yeah, it was really that bad, and took like six years of therapy to mitigate the damage.

Dreams are considered by some authorities to be a sort of "garbage collection", rounding up loose threads of memories and emotions, bringing them to resolution. I guess can attest to that, as I haven't had that particular theme replay since. My attitude now about my ex is not forgiveness for what she did and how she did it, but having a better understanding of her psyche at the time.

It’s good that you’ve learnt that over time. There was a bit in a recent Ted Lasso episode that echoed that sentiment where a character describes something happening for them, rather than to them.

It’s good to see you look at this in a healthy and mature fashion.

As for mine, just pent-up anxiety over finishing HOT AND FUZZY on time. Sometimes in a dream, a cigar is just a cigar.

 

[gunhilltrain]

By the way, Cyndi Lauper is very witty; I think I'd get along with her. (Not sure what she'd think of me.) Plus, she's from Brooklyn and Queens. "Oh yeah, Ozone Park; I've been there."

I've had a few dreams where now gone relatives appear. That can be spooky because I know they died already. Are they zombies?

 

[alohadave]

2) it's late in the semester and I haven't gone to class yet dream. I haven't been in school for over three decades and I still have that latter dream. I did well in school, but I was a bit of a procrastinator, and that dream still haunts me to this day. Probably because I'm still a procrastinator.

I have dreams sometimes where I've gone back to college and I mean to do my math homework, but never actually do it, and in fact I've forgotten that I even took a math class.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

All the time.

One of the most vivid ones resulted in writing immediately after waking. Only thing I ever wrote that I never edited after finishing. I wrote without thought and the lyrics of a song I was hearing in the dream came out on the paper (and I searched, it's not a real song). In the dream I'd been writing the words on the walls over and over and it was like I wrote it from muscle memory when I woke up.


One of the most disturbing was a recurring dream about me doing brain surgery on myself under a bright light in the middle of absolute blackness. There were two of me and I could see both perspectives and a third "observer" perspective it fucked with my head a lot. I think I had it at least monthly from the time I was 5 until I was 19. Always woke up with my head aching and this hollow feeling in my teeth. (I don't know how else to describe it. My teeth were fine but for about an hour after I woke up they felt like they weren't rooted into my jaw and I was afraid to talk out of fear of my teeth all falling out.)

The song one is really freaky. I do dream in films or TV episodes and in those cases I do take notes because sone of those are f’kin awesome.

As for the brain surgeon one F’KIN ELL! That sounds terrifying, scarier than the faceless guy sitting astride me wanting to kill me.

 

[MrPixel]

I have dreams sometimes where I've gone back to college and I mean to do my math homework, but never actually do it, and in fact I've forgotten that I even took a math class.

If you're talking about me and calculus, I do believe those qualify as nightmares. Never did 'get' calculus.

 

[Codoc24]

I have lucid dreams all the time. To the point where sometimes I have trouble knowing if it was something that really happened or if it was just a dream. In a way, they are kinda neat cause I can somewhat control what is happening, but then again they are a little disturbing because sometimes I do mistake them for reality a day or two or three later.

 

[SamScribble]

I have a form of epilepsy that sometimes manifests as dreams that are very difficult to separate from reality.

 

[MrPixel]

...dreams were about my ex-wife taking me back.

I went through a bout of a similar thing early last year, ...

Gawd. Not again. Was just awakened by another one of these. Not unpleasant - just the shock of running into my image of her in a neutral setting and striking up a "How are you?" conversation. Considering our final conversation in 1982 ended with my telling her, "Don't you ever call me again," it was a bit startling.

Could be more "garbage collection". Yesterday was a multi-bad-news day, and my unconscious must be trying to sort things out.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I had a dream I was roaming Hollywood with two very unfamiliar, flirtatious young men. At some point we ended up at their house somewhere in the Hills, at which point Brittney Spears made an arrival and started doing all kinds of insane things. Eventually she tried doing some kind of bizarre yoga move and rolled down a concrete hill and was terribly injured.

I woke up in a stressful panic after trying to call EMS for her, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get the names of the cross streets correct and the dispatcher kept becoming highly annoyed and hung up on me several times. I never have dreams like this, let alone about celebrities and certainly not one I don’t pay a lick of attention to.

What the actual fuck.

 

[SimonDoom]

There are some excellent story opportunities concerning lucid dreaming. What if you had a device that enabled you to enter a dream world, as though it were real, and do whatever you wanted to do? It's not real, so there are no consequences. You might want to satisfy certain kinky desires that you haven't fulfilled in real life.