So I had this crazy dream last night...

[bridgeburner]

Been meaning to start such a thread for a few weeks but didn't think about it again until this morning's dream. Come show us the winding ways of your subconscious!!


Maybe I'll think up some general questions about dream tendencies and put them here later.

 

[bridgeburner]

This is the early morning dream that prompted me to start the thread today:


Variations on the classic Actor's Nightmare --- this is where you show up for a performance and have no idea what your role is, what the play is or what your lines are and you're often naked.

I don't know how common this is, but I have memories in my dreams. In this particular one I was aware of the dream's history --- I'd been to rehearsals. We'd opened the show. I'd performed well but was aware of having difficulty remembering some of my lines perfectly.

As I'm making my first entrance my mind goes blank --- I can't remember my opening line. I take an extra moment to find my spot thinking that it will come to me. I hit the spot, turn my face to the light and have to wing it. I know the jist of what's supposed to happen --- it's a monologue --- and so I'm ad-libbing my way through it and getting good audience response. The other actors onstage are frozen in tableau but at some point one of them is supposed to break in and then we sing and I exit. Only I can't remember the cue to give and I've departed from the scene and I forget about the song. So I finish my monologue and walk off.

I'm backstage and waiting for my next cue to go on but everything is rushed and I forget that this is a quick turnaround --- I don't really have time to have come all the way back to the dressing room. So I've missed my cue.

And then I'm naked and I'm rushing to get dressed and fall in line for the last entrance and song. I'm trying to dress quickly --- pulling on a man's dress shirt, vest, tie and jacket all at once over my head, but my arm is stuck and I can't get it on and I'm still not wearing any pants and I know I'm letting everyone down.

Nobody is yelling at me, but there's this kind of exasperation --- these are all people that I know and have done shows with and they're all very professional and I'm thinking "No one will ever work with me again!" and then I woke up.

Oddly, as high-anxiety as this all seems I didn't suffer the adrenaline rush that comes from a real nightmare. It was stressful, but somehow not life-threatening.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

.... this is where you show up for a performance ... and you're ... naked.

Interpretation: You want to star in "Equus" with Daniel Radcliffe.




:blink:

 

[bridgeburner]

Interpretation: You want to star in "Equus" with Daniel Radcliffe.

:blink:

Ha! I did some minor nudity on stage back in the day but that show would've been way past my limits even when I was open to the idea of being publicly naked. Of course, I say this having stripped down to a bra and pants on stage a little over three years ago and thinking nothing of it....until I realized that my brother was in the audience and I might not have warned him that I wasn't going to keep taking off clothes.

 

[graceanne]

I dreamed that me, my aunt, and her three daughter in laws were sitting around talking about dieting, and we decided to start a telephone chain concerning our dieting. We'd each call the one other person to ask how they were doing.

The weird thing? My aunt only has TWO daughter in laws.

 

[bridgeburner]

I dreamed that me, my aunt, and her three daughter in laws were sitting around talking about dieting, and we decided to start a telephone chain concerning our dieting. We'd each call the one other person to ask how they were doing.

The weird thing? My aunt only has TWO daughter in laws.

I think I've had dreams where total strangers are supposed to be family members.

Oddly, it just occurred to me that I don't think I've EVER had a dream with my mother in it. Rarely has my father shown up and I once used my maternal grandmother's name as a talisman to wake myself from a nightmare.

I think the family member I've seen most in my dreams is my brother and even he hasn't shown up more than maybe 3 times in my whole life.

But I do dream about people who are supposed to be family members. I don't have much interaction with them in my dreams, though.

 

[graceanne]

I think I've had dreams where total strangers are supposed to be family members.

I've dreamed of people who are strangers being family before - but normally either I'm dreaming about family or I'm dreaming about strangers who I think are family - never both.

Oddly, it just occurred to me that I don't think I've EVER had a dream with my mother in it. Rarely has my father shown up and I once used my maternal grandmother's name as a talisman to wake myself from a nightmare.

I dream about my mom. Normally nightmares. I dream she's a monster, of I'm in a huge fight with her, or that I'm driving her car.

I think the family member I've seen most in my dreams is my brother and even he hasn't shown up more than maybe 3 times in my whole life.

But I do dream about people who are supposed to be family members. I don't have much interaction with them in my dreams, though.

I've always had vivid dreams about anyone and everybody. lol

 

[Sayyid]

I don't really remember my dream but it had something to do with university, and Sweden.

 

[bridgeburner]

I don't remember all my dreams, but I remember them pretty often and some of them I've remembered for years.

One of my earliest dream-memories was when I was 4. It was especially memorable because it was the last time I ever wet the bed.

I was Tarzan and swinging through the jungle being pursued by something/one and suddenly I had to pee so I got down off my vine and squatted over a cleft in some rocks and let go.

And woke up. Ooops!

I remember a few dreams from the age of 3-6 pretty vividly -- mostly because they were fairly high-anxiety.

 

[bridgeburner]

I've dreamed of people who are strangers being family before - but normally either I'm dreaming about family or I'm dreaming about strangers who I think are family - never both.

Yeah, I never mix in strangers with actual family.

I dream about my mom. Normally nightmares. I dream she's a monster, of I'm in a huge fight with her, or that I'm driving her car.

I don't have nightmares about my dad --- well not in the scary/danger way. Mostly they're just sad --- but these are pretty close to reality so I'm always aware of what those are about.

I've always had vivid dreams about anyone and everybody. lol

Do you ever have celebrities show up in your dreams? Every once in awhile I'll encounter some hot famous man, but I can't for the life of me recall who any of them are at the moment. Clearly not that important. ;->

 

[Cattypuss]

I once had a nightmare in which the Taj Mahal had been bought by Disney and was going to be tunred into a theme park.

 

[missy_me]

.....

 

[the captians wench]

I have many dreams where I'm naked. It's not really that big a deal for me most of the time. I hate wearing clothes, so it seems natural that I don't wear them often in dreams.

But, there are times when I do realize my nakedness and try to hide it. Usually directed at one person. From what I've read, I believe this is translated to I'm hiding something from that person. Which usually is true (dream translation afterall really is more about what sounds right to you than what "standard" is). It's not always a bad thing, and I don't always get the reaction from the person viewing me that I'm expecting.

But then, I've always been very intouch with my innerself. I've had dreams with "people" that I recognise as different aspects of my psycie from the time I was 8 years old. My mom thinks it's part of my "old spirit" personality.

 

[graceanne]

Do you ever have celebrities show up in your dreams? Every once in awhile I'll encounter some hot famous man, but I can't for the life of me recall who any of them are at the moment. Clearly not that important. ;->

Yep. lol It's always someone who isn't really a celebrity, but they are in my dream!

I have many dreams where I'm naked. It's not really that big a deal for me most of the time. I hate wearing clothes, so it seems natural that I don't wear them often in dreams.

The last time I had a naked dream, I literally looked down at myself and in the dream thought 'oh, it's one of those dreams'. Normally, I spend those dreams searching for clothes just to have them disappear, but this time I didn't bother.

I've never had that dream since. LOL

 

[rinka]

Yesterday morning I dreamt that I was on some huge family gathering in a little vacation village. Most of the relatives were strangers, some were odd people from my life, like my mom's childhood friend and an old neighbour. My son was there, he was around six years old, and I I was watching an unfamiliar blond little girl the same age.

The first night went by pretty ok, the party was tiresome but rather nice. The kids slept in my little cabin, I was just outside. The second night however, I wandered off. Had a really good time, then suddenly realized I had gone to another village and left the sleeping kids alone.

I rushed to get back, didn't know the way. The typically Swedish landscape arond the cabin was now transformed to tropical rainforestlike surroundings. I remember banana trees and hibiscus.

I went in to a house to ask for directions. Inside the door was a wheelchair ramp, the rooms were white and there were no furniture. A man talked a very strange language. I kept going and now there were fireballs coming down around me. Not sure if it was a weather fenomenon or fireworks or bombs. A hanging bridge I needed to cross to get to the right island was struck and burnt. Someone took me over in a little boat instead.

When I arrived at the cabin, the kids were awake and the blond little girl was yelling at me for leaving them alone. She said her parents would be really upset since they wouldn't let her choose her own husband. While she was talking she turned into a 20-year old girl. And behind me materialized her Indian parents, the mother in a sari.

...

This is very typical for my dreams, that people shift identities. Also the change of environment. There are often too many people. This is just a small part of it, of course I don't remember most of the details. When I have these kind of dreams I wake up exhausted.

 

[bridgeburner]

I'm teaching outdoors under a canopy. A man who looks like the principal but isn't comes by. He's sort of filling in for the principal who's taken a brief airplane trip out of the city. We speak briefly and then the principal's airplane -- small, red and beige crop-duster type -- is flying in overhead and aiming for the landing strip --- which is really just a very short pier into a lake.

The moment I think about how short the landing strip is the plane touches down, runs off the end of the pier and flips over in the lake.

The principal does not swim out. So the guy filling in for the principal dives in to try and get him out of the plane while I'm standing on the pier with a friend from college. Nobody is coming up for air. I keep thinking that it's daylight and even though the water is murky, the rescuer must be able to see which way is up, but he keeps not coming up. So I jump in --- this is amazing since I have a great fear about water that I can't see the bottom of --- and through some kind of crazy dream-physics manage to flip the plane over so that it's floating right-side-up in the water.

The cockpit is empty. I'm back on the pier talking with my friend about how horrible it is that both men are dead, when the principal comes climbing up the ladder on the side of the pier as if he's just come from a very busy meeting. He is oddly unconcerned about either the crash or the death of his would-be rescuer and I suspect that he may have killed the man.

I leave the pier and my friend behind and wander down the shore. There are bunches of keys scattered along the sand and a flattened dark green glass bottle --- it's melted that way, not shattered.

I get to a covered bridge and cross over. I see a bicycle, speak with some strangers -- two late-middle-aged white ladies.

I cross back over the bridge stopping at the end to make use of a public toilet --- I mean REALLY public. It's a hole in the floor of the bridge and a roll of toilet paper attached to the handrail. They have tried to pretty it up by putting a large planter-box right alongside so you can kind of pretend you aren't doing your business in front of the whole world.

Only there's no one around so it really doesn't matter. I climb down off the bridge, encounter two more late-middle-aged women only this time they're black, and I wander back along the shore toward the big grassy field where the teaching tents are set up.

Last thing I saw before I woke was keys in the sand again.

 

[bridgeburner]

This is very typical for my dreams, that people shift identities. Also the change of environment. There are often too many people. This is just a small part of it, of course I don't remember most of the details. When I have these kind of dreams I wake up exhausted.

I do a lot of environment changing as well --- traveling from one to another. Strangely enough I'm almost always walking. I don't get in a car or ride a bus or anything like that. I walk.

The abundance of people, are they usually just scenery or do you interact with them?

 

[rinka]

I do a lot of environment changing as well --- traveling from one to another. Strangely enough I'm almost always walking. I don't get in a car or ride a bus or anything like that. I walk.

The abundance of people, are they usually just scenery or do you interact with them?

Lots of interaction. And often people turn up that I haven't thought of in ages. That puzzles me, but I guess something during the day can unconsciously trigger a memory or thought that you never register.

Usually small insignificant everyday moments slip in, and I realize later in the day. Conversations I kind of think I had with a friend and then realize it was only in a dream. Sometimes I don't know if it happened.

I haven't thought about a specifically preferred way of transportation in my dreams. I ususlly don't remember how I got from one place to another, but there are often trains and buses and boats. I usually just remember talking to someone and then realize that happened on a train for example.

 

[graceanne]

Last night I dreamed I tried on this nightgown that was kinda see through, and when I looked in the mirror I was skinny! So I took a picture of myself, and posted it here on lit. (not ever gonna happen.) And when I checked back people were MAD at me. And every time I tried to get to the post that it was on to delete, the computer would freeze and I"d have to reboot.

 

[bridgeburner]

Lost most of this one because I didn't get up this morning when I first woke but fell back asleep for a couple hours.

Lots of comings and goings in a Victorian-style apartment building. All females living in the building but with lots of boyfriends etc. visiting. (This very clearly ties to some interactions yesterday with my real-life neighbors)

So it's nighttime in my dream and everyone has gone to bed but I'm awake and wander into the backyard to check out the grill that we've discovered was left behind by some former ******ts. Nobody's been cooking on it, but the amazing thing has folded out into a Badminton net and my neighbors appear to have been playing earlier.

After looking at the backyard and grill I decide to head back into the house but I'm either locked out or the door is stuck where I usually would enter so I have to wander around the back at the lowest level so that I can get around to a door that will work. Why I'm wandering around in my panties in the middle of the night like some horror-movie ditz I couldn't say.

As I round the back of the building there are some candles and flaming garlic and onions on the back patio that I'm trying to climb over and around. I'm wondering if maybe this isn't dangerous --- what if the fire spreads? And I hear the guy who lives in the downstairs apartment stirring. He's never struck me as especially creepy in the past (dream past, I have no idea who this person might be in real life) but I certainly don't want him to come out and catch me naked on the porch.

But he comes out anyway and I'm trying to cover my tits and he's getting all excited and has decided that I've come to entice him by the light of flaming vegetables. He grabs me with the intent of "making me his woman," but I get away with nothing worse than a few fingerprints and a sweaty feeling on my back. I'm vaguely squicked but this didn't feel horribly dangerous like a nightmare --- and before anyone wonders, no, it wasn't the least bit erotic to me.

And that's about all I remember of it. This dream is directly attributable to conversations with my new neighbors, the actual building I live in and its tenants, and a horrid Maureen McCormick movie that I saw last night called Texas Lightning.