Last night Victor was telling me that he needed to start exercising because lately he couldn’t fly in his sleep and I immediately assumed he was having a stroke but then he explained that he’s always been able to leap incredible heights in his dream, almost like flying, until recently when he started getting out of shape.
This sounds ridiculous to me, both because my dream body and real body aren’t really related, and also because I’ve never been able to fly or jump or do super-human things in my sleep. In fact, in almost all of my dreams I am sunk into the ground of the dream so deeply that I can barely walk. My feet literally are sucked into the dreamscape as I move. A few years ago I learned that I can walk almost normal in dreams if I use everything around me to physically pull myself along. It’s a hard slog and I am forever caught in quicksand but this is normal for me. And normal for Victor is flying.
Which seems…sort of not fair.
I’m sure it goes back to our personalities. He knows he can accomplish anything. I cower and become paralyzed at the slightest things. I wonder if everyone else is like this.
“So how do you attack the monsters in your dream?” Victor asks me.
“How do I what now?” I reply.
I have never attacked a monster in my dream. I rarely even see them. At my most successful I manage to hide until my dream changes. I can’t even imagine fighting.
“I’m a goddam Bruce-Lee-level monster slayer in my dreams,” Victor says.
I don’t know how to fix this. Or if I should. I can’t fight. I can barely even walk.
You know what I can do in my dreams? I take pictures.
I take the most extraordinary pictures in my dreams. I know enough to realize that this world is strange and beautiful and I am constantly pulling out my phone to document it. And then I wake up and realize that the pictures don’t exist and that I am wasting my time even in my sleep.
What a ridiculous and pointless talent.
This post doesn’t have an end or a point but I wonder if we’re alone. Do you fly in your sleep? Are you stuck in your dreams? Is this just the way we are made, even unconsciously unable to escape the person we see in ourselves?
I have had repeated dreams throughout my life. In one, I can fly, but only if I flap my arms really hard to get going. For some reason, I’m always trying to fly inside my childhood home, and I keep bouncing off the den ceiling. It takes a lot of effort, and I’m never really successful. I think I’m trying to escape from someone in these dreams. In another dream, I am trying to run and I keep falling. I’m scrambling on my knees, trying desperately to get up, because something is chasing me, but I can’t keep my feet underneath me. I also dream that I’m in a school and can’t find my locker, can’t remember my combination, and/or can’t find my classroom.
Seems like I’m constantly falling in love in my dreams. Usually with my husband, but sometimes it’s a celebrity, exes, or someone I’ve never met. I’ve occasionally flown, but I always need to work at it; I have to pump my arms like a birds wings to get up over power lines and that’s about as high as I can go.
I fall and shock myself awake. I run. I hide. I WISH I became a dream ninja.
No, in my dreams, I am usually half dressed and have to go to that meeting anyway, hoping people don’t notice my absence of pants
I have flown in my dreams oh, I’ve also died in my dreams. I more frequently see people I love die horrible deaths in my dreams while being unable to be Bruce Lee level monster Slayer. I’m thankful that our dreams are not our reality. I wish that my Dreamscapes were hauntingly beautiful and I want to take pictures of them. I’m so glad you get that respite in your sleep, even if you are stuck while doing so.
If I ever it fly in dreams it’s always been barely above the ground. I have found myself hauling along on all fours quite a bit, but never full on quicksand. I can control some things. I went through years of school anxiety dreams until the last year or so, when I finally told myself in a dream – you’re done with school . Who cares? Never another dream about it. My favorite way to kills monsters was steamrolling vampires (although I am pretty sure they were just flattened and pissed off). And the coolest was when I could feel the soft fur of an animal and a friend leaning against my arm. I never have anything but black skies in dreams too. All weird and frequently wonderful.
In my dreams I just run away from the monsters until my legs are just bloody little stumps…it’s not pretty, but it’s effective 😉
I used to get stuck in my dreams. I had a recurring one where I was in a field, everything was tinged slightly red, and I was running in slow-motion away from something I couldn’t see that was coming along behind me. I finally told my Mom about it, and she said it sounded like I was remembering my birth. Never had that dream again.
I don’t usually fly, but my abilities are pretty much true to life. HOWEVER, if I am faced with an attacker (monster or otherwise) I find that I’m incapable of hitting hard enough to do any damage. It’s like I’m punching or kicking through a huge wall of jello.
So I can move around just fine, but if I do need to protect myself, I’m incapable.
The upside, though…I can usually change my dreams if I need to. 🤷🏻♀️
I hover board? Seriously, that’s mostly how I can tell I’m dreaming is I’ll have a long distance to travel and I’ll put one foot on top of the other and levitate along. Also I cannot read or type in my dreams.
I’m always trying to run, but my legs weigh 1000 pounds, and I am basically the slowest person on the planet (besides you apparently!) I wake up resolved to practice my running skills…
I have constant nightmares. Im neither stuck or flying, just running or hiding or watching
LIke Victor I can leap heights that ultimately terrify me as I dislike heights. But I can do them. But then there are days where I am stuck to the ground like I’ve been staked down. All depends on what I think about before I go to bed.
Ugh! I am a runner outside of my dreams, but in my dreams I can barely walk. I get it! Maybe a perspective change will change dreams…they are the way the brain processes and consolidates infornation.
I haven’t been able to fly in my dreams since I was a teenager, which is a very long time ago. I miss it.
My most poignant dream I was losing my balance on a mountain path. I fell. I was holding on for dear life terrified of falling to my death. But realizing I can’t control it I let go. I flew away. It was beautiful but I have often been able to fly in my dreams at least the ones that I can remember.
i fly in dreams all of the time. for a very very long time i had screaming nightmares every night. i taught myself how to lucid dream and change things. and i learned to fly : )
can you draw some of the images you take pictures of? that way it wouldn’t be a “pointless talent” if you can make art out of it…
I don’t exactly fly. It’s more like swimming through the air, which I’ve always thought was weird. And sometimes I can’t… swim-fly, that is. Also, I run away screaming from monsters, but usually engage with non-monsters. Sometimes I dream about the characters I write about, and that’s always cool. It’s like they’re talking to me and giving me new stories to write about. Lately, they haven’t been chatting much. This makes me sad.
When I was about 11 yrs old, some other kid told me about his dreams, and they were in color! I was a very good dreamer, but I wasn’t dreaming in color, so I set about trying to do so. Took me about two weeks to get right, but it was worth it, as I was a lot more interesting than the kid and would not be outdone.
Sometimes I can float; just a few feet, or up into the sky. I like the experience. I wish I had the dream more often, or it was a real life ability for me.!
I’ve always been able to do cool stuff in my dreams, and often I’m lucid, which is cooler. However, often when I try to do something (like have sex with some hot TV star) he turns into a raccoon or something. I have also tried to bring things back with me, think other people will also remember being in the dream – even though I know it’s a dream and none of that works. I’m not great with monsters but my best skill is how to definitively know I’m dreaming if I ever question it.
Oooh. Good good good. I used to fly in my sleep. No monsters. Used to do great yoga in my sleep, so real that I was always horrified that I couldn’t do the same thing in my waking state. I do have a lot of people I’ve not seen or consciously thought of in decades playing big parts. My stress dreams used to be Nazis chasing somebody I’m helping. Lots of Nazis. Then, in grad school, the Nazis turned into my worst professor, and since I had to face her on a daily basis, I knew I was in trouble. My fever dream was always finding myself on a hillside covered in rattle snakes. I was never terrified in those dreams, just startled and a bit worried. Let’s face it, a hillside covered in rattlesnakes would definitely BE terrifying. I could tell what my brain was focusing on: snakes on a hillside = high fever. Imploding teeth = money worries. Nazis = stress.
Not sure what the dreams featuring various HGTV stars mean….
Ever since I can remember I’ve always had epic movie dreams, but not the good kind. They’re filled with aliens, zombies, ghosts and other horrible things. I have so much anxiety in my awake world you would think I could get a break when I sleep but, no. I guess not. I’ve accepted it as normal so it is what it is 🤷♀️
I can’t fly, but I can jump and move around hovering above the ground like a foot until I feel like landing. What happens to me is that if I ever have to fight something, I can never actually hit hard enough to hurt anything. Like a punch loses all it’s momentum at the last second and it’s a tap. I generally know I’m dreaming, though and I don’t have nightmares. If I start to have one, I realize it has to be a dream and stop it.
My dreams are often the most INTENSE horror movie/slasher flicks/detective mysteries. I’m usually evading the WORST sorts of people, saving friends, solving the mystery, trying to slow my progress on the way to the ground as the roller coaster flies off its tracks.
So it’s something wrong with me, where the stories are SO SCARY, but I’m far more clever, sneaky, and fast in my dreams.
Dreams are so weird. I have never flown, I can read, and I don’t see people’s faces. I do have a dream superpower though, if my dream gets too scary I just change the channel. I don’t fully wake up, I just realized it’s a dream and switch dreams.
When I was a kid, I flew. I had a dog that flew with me sometimes. I dug holes to tell. I was constantly running from something. I still run from things now. I look for hiding places. I wonder where the hell my weapon is located. I was a soldier, if I’m going to fight, I need an m16 damn it! I relive my mother dying of cancer, but this time through tons of natural disasters.
I believe our lives mostly shape our dreams. In strange, horrifying, and beautiful ways that we can’t understand.
If you aren’t running from monsters in your dreams, I think that’s beautiful. You aren’t running from anything, because there isn’t anything to run or hide from.
I think that you taking pictures in your dreams speaks to your creativity and how you observe the world and then interpret it, so wonderfully, for all of us. I don’t fly or take pictures, I generally wander around and try to figure out what’s going on…which very much speaks to my life.
I seem to always be running or hiding from someone who is trying to kill me. When I need to call someone in my dreams I always hit the wrong number and have to start over. Probably is like me as I am always afraid of something.
Before I got good treatment for my mental health, I dreamed variations on the same theme: something terrible was about to happen to me, and I could escape it by screaming, but I couldn’t make a sound. Spouse would be woken up by me (as he put it) “ululating”. I was convinced I’d finally screamed and saved myself, and he said all I succeeded in doing was scaring the shit out of him.
Same. 🤔
Before I got good treatment for my mental health, I dreamed variations on the same theme: something terrible was about to happen to me, and I could escape it by screaming, but I couldn’t make a sound. Spouse would be woken up by me (as he put it) “ululating”. I was convinced I’d finally screamed and saved myself, and he said all I succeeded in doing was scaring the shit out of him.
I’ve never flown in my dreams, but I always have very detailed dreams. A lot of them take place in high school for me but it doesn’t look like my high school (however, in every dream, I immediately ‘recognize’ it as my high school).
Dreams are bizarre. I don’t remember ever really thinking about how I move.. Pretty sure I don’t fly or sink into the floor.. I don’t fight monsters or take pictures either. I spend inordinate amounts of time dealing with the kind of problems no one thinks of in advance. People, rooms, food, logistics, transport, things that “should” be straight forward, only they never are. Pretty much like real life, just stranger..
My dream super power is being late in my dream if I’m oversleeping…
I do all kinds of things in my dreams. If I’m having a bad dream, I can usually stop and say, this is just a dream. Let’s make it better – I had a lot of scary horrible dreams as a kid. But last night I dreamed I my hair was beautiful pink flowers. No stems, just flowers, and it was long long long. I woke up feeling sad that I did not have pink flower hair and I can’t even find a picture of pink flower hair. It sucks.
I’m pea green with envy that my husband tells me he flies all the time in his dreams. He’s always doing cool things in his mind while he’s asleep. Mine are either nightmares (trauma/feelings of failure. The usual) when I do remember them. You’re right. It’s not fair!
I often find myself in a water filled world. I’m in the halls of former schools I attended having conversations with people (who have no place being there) while treading water & I never get tired.
Either that or I’m with a childhood friend (not seen in years) & find a creepy ass house in woods near where I live (well, used to but now do not really exist anymore) but the person who answers the door freaks me out so I turn & run away. My friend yells at me to come back & join them but I keep running while I hear something or someone chasing me. Not a fun dream. The flying car filled with snakes sucks too.
Only good thing is I’ve always been able to think during my dreams & normally can tell myself that it is a weird dream, to get a grip & change the dream. Which I do.
I’m friggin stuck in my dreams! If I try to hit someone it’s like my arms are tied down. I can’t even dial a phone, I keep pressing the wrong numbers and have to start over.
I’d argue that taking beautiful pictures is an amazing, life-saving talent. 😉
When I was a kid, I flew. I had a dog that flew with me sometimes. I dug holes to tell. I was constantly running from something. I still run from things now. I look for hiding places. I wonder where the hell my weapon is located. I was a soldier, if I’m going to fight, I need an m16 damn it! I relive my mother dying of cancer, but this time through tons of natural disasters.
I believe our lives mostly shape our dreams. In strange, horrifying, and beautiful ways that we can’t understand.
If you aren’t running from monsters in your dreams, I think that’s beautiful. You aren’t running from anything because there isn’t anything to run from. Victor feels heavier from not exercising, so he’s literally being weighed down in his dreams. This is all coming from a non-certified dream reader. You are my first client.
I guess if you consider falling from great heights a sort of flying, then yes, yes I fly in my dreams. Straight down. I’m scared witless during these, uhmmm flying episodes, and usually pee the bed. Thankfully I rarely fly. And NEVER have I felt like a badass ready to take on whatever mother-fucking monster is waiting for me at the bottom of the dark hole I fly into. I try to hide before the fall…I mean flying, but I’m so damn uncoordinated I slip and fly right into it.
If you don’t have monsters in your dreams, you don’t need to fly I don’t think. I don’t really travel in dreams, I just show up where I’m meant to. Sometimes I have magic powers though. I stopped a war once.
I’ve had flying dreams, although not since I was a kid. I would flap my arms very hard and just as the bad guys were about to catch me, I’d leap into the air and get away. I haven’t had any of those since probably high school, though. The dreams I remember now are strangely cinematic. I’m very rarely actively involved in them, I feel more like a director or the audience depending on the dream, watching the action happen.
I don’t have dreams like that. I either have work-related nightmares or I dream that an iguana needs hip surgery.
My dreams are either about fighting or screwing. I once had a dream where I was fighting to the death with someone and I stopped and said “this can’t possibly be my dream, or we’d be screwing right now” and the person makes a horrified face and says “ew” and I woke up laughing my ass off. I get some really cool dreams though, I write those down and turn them into stories, or at least try to. I’m going to the therapist today to discuss some nightmares I’ve been having lately.
I’ve done a lot of dreamwork. I’ve always been an occasional flier; I’ve learned to be lucid in my dreams, seek out inspiration and meaning, and deal with deep issues in my mind. I’ve had a lot of fun, and some seriously life-altering revelations. It’s definitely a skill you can pursue if you’re interested. Look at books by Robert Moss, Patricia Garfield, Steven LaBerge.
All of the dreams I remember are nightmares involving either car accidents, fire, or both. So. Yeah. That’s a thing.
I usually dream about things that I need to do at work or fight with my mom about her health condition in my dreams and if I realize I’m having a dream that usually just means I have to go to the bathroom but my body doesn’t register it like that
Fortunately, I seldom remember my dreams as they are often nasty – me wandering into places where there has been horrible slaughter and I’m left to try and clean up the mess and save any surviving creatures.
There was a time where I was constantly being chased by evil forces and my power at that point was to turn anything into a gun and shoot at those chasing me. Violent times. In my very best dreams I’m riding a horse and no one is trying to kill me.
When I’m anxious and under stress I dream I’m in the passenger or back seat of a moving car with no driver. Rarely I dream I’m flying, but when I have it takes all the effort to stay up.
I very rarely speak up for myself irl, but in my dreams, I often tell off people who have wronged me. It feels so good to get it all off my chest, and, I think, makes me a little braver irl. Along these lines, I still occasionally have waitressing nightmares (I haven’t waitresses in 16 years) in which I tell shitty customers just how shitty they are, which I never could do at the time! I also love when I am able to become aware that I’m dreaming & actively make changes to it.
I’m jealous of Victor’s dreams. I have more the “monsters chasing me” sorts of things. Though most of my dreams are just weird and hard to explain. I guess kind of like me.
I gave this some thought and I think the picture-taking makes sense to me as a nonfiction writer. We document our lives! I think taking pictures in your dreams is sort of another way to document things. Pretty cool, although it’s tough to beat Victor’s ability to slay monsters and fly and whatnot, which is 100% unfair!
I almost never remember my dreams at all, so I’m not sure what that says about me.
Some time ago I learned to recognize that I’m dreaming whilst doing so. If I don’t like the dream I think of something else and it goes in a new direction.
I’ve never flown in a dream…I’m usually being chased and falling into big holes in the ground. Sometimes I wake myself up yelling for help. I wish I could kick ass in my dreams!
I’ve never paid attention to how I move in my dreams. I have a hard time remembering them, but I’ll wake up thinking “that was weird”. Now I want to work on remembering them.
If falling counts, I fly in my dreams. The one thing I wish I could change is that I can’t ever make myself heard in my dreams, I literally have no voice. I can’t talk, or scream, or say I love you. I’m doing more writing in real life, hoping that finding my voice here carries over into my dream world 🙂
I’m a very lucid dreamer. And I used to have this re-occurring dream about flying, but not that kind of flying. In the dream I am on a plane and its about to crash, and in every dream I experience the actual crash (some are quite involved and scary!) but survive. Once, I even turned to the person seated next to me and said, “Don’t worry – I always survive these things, you should be ok sitting next to me”. Another time I got bored and said o to hell with this and changed the dream so we just landed safely.
I breathe underwater in my dreams.
I could never fight the monsters in my dreams for the longest time! It was actually a thing — if I tried, I would just be completely ineffectual. At some point, after a fair amount of therapy, I had a dream where a monster was attacking a small child and I just went to town on it with a 2×4, which was an oddly big moment for me.
I’ve had dreams where it seems like there’s extra gravity or something and I can’t walk, and also some flying dreams, but every time I fly there’s some problem, like I can’t get up high enough or there are power lines in the way. The last time I dreamed that I was flying I thought I had finally done it, but then realized the sky was fake and I was still inside some kind of huge plastic bubble.
My dreams are always so different that there isn’t a recurring theme. Often, if I think about it, I can tell that a dream was clearly my subconscious trying to work through a particular issue or emotion. Sometimes in the dream I realize I’m dreaming. Other times, I don’t realize it until I wake up…or several minutes after I wake up. I had a dream the other night that I accepted a new job, and I remember thinking that oh well I don’t have to worry about these work projects that I’ve been stressing about. It took me a minute or so to realize that I didn’t actually get a new job. I didn’t even apply for a new one! But clearly I’m feeling some ambivalence about my current job, so I’ve taken that as a sign to maybe think about this more in the waking world. Of course, I also have dreams that are just bizarre or scary, so I don’t think every dream has some secret meaning behind it.
An ex-boyfriend of mine used to have nothing but flying dreams. Like every dream was just him flying and there was nothing and no one else there. I thought it was really weird since my dreams are absolutely nothing like that, but maybe I’m the weirdo? LOL.
I am a dragon slayer in my dreams, a monster hunter, the greatest, the fiercest, the cleverest. The Best. people come and ask, will you help us? Will you save us? And I go, I always go, I go in the cursed temple and the haunted house, to the lair of evil, I go. I fight and I struggle and I am burned and bloody and I win. And I drag myself out of the charred remains but it is too late, the village is gone, the people are slain, the land is burned bare.
I am a dragon slayer. I have never lost. But I have never won.
I love this! I can’t fly but sometimes I can hover or skateboard and those are such magical dreams. Most often, my dreams are taken up by mundane yet anxiety producing situations that make me very stressed and wound up. I would like to experience plain old dreamless sleep! Minds are so weird! My husband is a runner and often dreams of flying. So maybe exercise does have an effect.
I haven’t been dream-flying in a very long time. And it sucks, because it means my mind is too heavy. I’m often lost in some sort of maze in my dreams; navigating a small but complex store with a huge stroller, getting through weird airport terminals etc. Once I tried to stop running and turned around to go back, but there was just this huge maelstrom. My subconscious is a weird place, but it’s usually directly related to my general (awake) state of mind
The only time I “flew” in a dream was, I was in a rising hot air balloon. The balloon stopped rising and I kept floating up without it. It scared me and I yelled out “NO!” and woke up.
Flying dreams are my absolute favorite!!!! they don’t happen often, but when they do, i make the most of it. i dream in color. My flying is fairly effortless. i cannot remember any monsters, other than the occasional asshole that i am trying to beat up, so they will get the hell away from me. most of my dreams include my friends – but they don’t look like they do in real life. i just know that is who they are. I rarely dreamt of my (almost) wasband. the only time i have trouble moving, is when i am looking for a bathroom in my dream – and once i find one, i wake up fast, because my body is telling me i REALLY need to pee! My 2nd favorite dreams are when i am visited by my deceased grandparents. i learned to not question when they appear. i used to realize they were dead & they would kind of go away, but now i just let that wash over me. Once, my grandpa picked me up like a football & began to run away with me really fast. i don’t know what that was about, but it felt great to be with him again. Both my brother & myself taught ourselves (in differing ways), how to wake ourselves up from a nightmare. He would snap his fingers. I would just suddenly stand back out of the fray & tell myself to wake up. i will send a wish out into the universe, for all of you to experience a flying dream, if you have not. so amazing!
I love this! I can’t fly but sometimes I can hover or skateboarded and those are such magical dreams. Most often, my dreams are taken up by mundane yet anxiety producing situations that make me very stressed and wound up. I would like to experience plain old dreamless sleep! Minds are so weird! My husband is a runner and often dreams of flying. So maybe exercise does have an effect.
I can fly in my dreams sometimes, but it’s always more about relaxing and allowing myself to float off the ground than flapping. It feels wonderful. On the flip side, I’ve also been running from something scary but feel like I’m moving through water or trying to punch something scary, but (again) it’s like punching through water. These definitely reflect how I’m feeling about my capabilities at the time.
I love this! I can’t fly but sometimes I can hover or skateboarded and those are such magical dreams. Most often, my dreams are taken up by mundane yet anxiety producing situations that make me very stressed and wound up. I would like to experience plain old dreamless sleep! Minds are so weird! My husband is a runner and often dreams of flying. So maybe exercise does have an effect.
What in the actual fuck?!?! I think I might be getting really screwed in the dream department! My recurring ones involve fireballs zooming down to earth, or being chased by something, making it to my door, but fumbling with my keys and being unable to open the door, or, lately, being in a very large public place, like an airport or mall, and being totally lost. Usually in the being lost dreams, this means being separated from my children, who do not seem to be in danger, but I am terrified of never finding them. You know, fun stuff like that. Oh! Throughout my childhood, I had recurring dreams that I was being put into this white, metal, circular hole; think very small doomsday bunker. Someone up top would quickly usher me into this very small space. There was a very small ladder going down into it which I had to climb down on. The person on the top of the bunker then would close the giant, domed metal roof to my “bunker” and then would seal me in. Alone. I don’t think I have ever had a happy dream??
i cant fly, i just am normal walking around .. no monsters in my sleep. I do loose my car in parking lots and neighborhoods alot in my sleep. In real life i have no sense of direction and I do forget where i park all.the.time. I have even lost my car in airport parking (what a nightmare in real life). But my dreams are fairly happy otherwise.
I never fly, but I do tread air. You know. Like you tread water, only it’s the air. And I can also maneuver around using sort of a breaststroke in the air, only it’s not pretty. It’s more like a dog paddle.
I’m also frequently trying to teach others how to tread air, but I first have to prove I can do it, and that’s a huge amount of energy, treading air all night.
Anyway, next time you dream and want to fly, try to recall water safety, and work on treading air first. If you meet me I’m my gramma’s kitchen, I’ll teach you. Because I dream of her house a lot.
oh – does anyone else dream something & then it happens to you later in real life – like de’ ja vu??? that has gone on for me throughout my life. sometimes the time frame between dream & actually happening can be years. freaky cool!
I have flown, but often I’m shopping in my dreams. A really common theme is that I go into a grocery store and head straight for the bakery dept. but sit and stare at the assortment of pastries, unable to decide. Donut? Muffin? Cinnamon roll? Oh shit wait, there’s lemon cake!
And then I wake up before I ever get to select and eat it. Sad.
I tend to dream often of being in strange situations where I know everything is totally wrong and I need to escape, but everyone else around me is acting like everything is totally normal. For instance last night I dreamed that I was in some training facility with tons of other women and every task we were forced to do included hurting someone else in some way, but everyone else did all the tasks like they were the most normal things in the world. In my totally-not-professional opinion my dreams are probably based in my anxiety, since feeling like everything is wrong while everyone else goes about normally is exactly how my anxiety works.
My dreams are weird. Like dystopian future, but with a weird twist, like being imprisoned in an abandoned Macy’s by some evil freaks and having to play some horrible game to get food and contact with my daughter, who is being held hostage by said evil freaks. Then, suddenly, absurdly, there’s a dude with a watermelon rind on his head, cut up to resemble a Roman helmet.
These are just the ones I remember. I think my subconscious mind would make some psychiatrist somewhere giddy with excitement, because they know they’d get published by writing about it. lol I wish I had colorful, beautiful things I wanted to photograph in my dreams.
I have flown in my dreams before, though not for a while. It was kind of a slow breast stroke manoeuvre where I swam through the air, rather than a speedy superman style.
I have that dream where I have to pee and I look for a toilet but every one I find is filthy or in use or doesn’t have a door. Or I finally find one and use it and then I have to pee again immediately. I wake up and, guess what? I have to pee. By that time I RUN for the bathroom.
I have two basic anxiety dreams. In the lesser one, I go to work in a short dress and realize once I’ve gotten there that I haven’t shaved my legs in 6 weeks. In the other one, I have to pack an entire house-worth of junk into a VW Beetle. This stems from my college days of trying to get everything out of my dorm room before they fined me for not moving out in time.
I push off the ground and glide for awhile, until I need to push again. It’s an efficient way to get away from the bad guys. I’m also on the hunt for a clean bathroom EVERY NIGHT. And lately, Lin-Manuel Miranda has been showing up to tell me he has a crush on me, which is super flattering.
I have recurring dreams that I’m in school and have blown off a class so I know I’m going to fail it. Sometimes I intend to drop the class but wait too long and miss the deadline. I also get lost in school/campus/giant mall/hospital buildings. I can’t find my locker or the room I’m supposed to go to, can’t remember my combination. Just generally feel lost and unprepared. So stressful..
I often fly in my dreams, swooping and soaring to great heights, or just barely skimming the surface of the land. Many of my dreams focus on transportation…riding trains or being in airplanes or on boats. I also fight a lot in my dreams – protecting others or facing my demons. My dreams are very active….which is not in parallel to my real life where I am disabled and spend much time in my recliner. I find that very interesting.
I love flying in my dreams, it’s so awesomesauce amazing… until the logic side of my brainmeats starts babbling about getting over tree limbs and telephone/electric wires etc. Then it becomes harder and harder to keep flying. I learned at an early age to control my dreams. That monster who would chase me and I’d be frozen? It ticked me off! It was my dream, not his, so I turned the tables on him. I think because I didn’t have control of the abuse in my house, and from being such an avid reader, I figured out how to have power in my dreams. The biggest empowerment was the night I conquered my fear of my mother and stood up to her, it changed so much in my real life.
The dreams I hate, are the ones where I feel uneasy and want out and fight to be awake, only to realize I’m still asleep, which freaks me out and I have to go through each sleep stage in order to become fully awake. Thank goodness I haven’t had many of those.
I’ve never flown in my dreams, and have always been jealous of people who do! Instead I’m stuck on endless stairwells, driving my car from the backseat, or being chased by people who want to kill me.
there’s nothing wrong with you. everyone’s dreams are different. sounds like yours relate to your state of mind (anxiety, etc.) – and that changes! but what about your dreams after the brain treatments? do you recall being stuck after them? I have a feeling that when you were feeling better/lighter in the outside world, you were lighter in your dreams, too. you can be a hero while stuck to the ground, too. you can hold people who might be floating away; you can be the anchor for important things that shouldn’t be moved. I think being on the ground could be useful at some point so I’d probably want you on my team. In my dreams, I’m always leading some kind of rescue mission and I always need someone at home base. You’d be my home base! Best wishes – S
I have never flown in a dream but I did once battle Ninjas in Hell while my personality was split into two different beings – one who was afraid and one who was not and was dragging the other one along behind me. I used to dream of certain houses over and over and they were haunted but I knew where the ghosts were because I remembered them from previous dreams. I dream about cemeteries a lot. I also have these really long, epic length dreams that I am both participating in and observing at the same time – sometimes I narrate the dream to myself as I am participating. I’m kind of weird.
I often lucid dream. I don’t think I get true REM sleep often. I used to know in flying dreams I was waking up when I couldn’t fly anymore. Now I can tell myself how to keep flying or how to land safe if I jump off a cliff. I also taste a lot of food in my dreams. The other night I had a lovely spicy shrimp cocktail skewer. I’ve had cotton candy. A few nights ago I had a delicious Italian dinner with my husband that was $9.95 each for an appetizer of soup or salad, an entree & dessert, lol. But I do get bad recurring dreams that disturb me. The oldest are volcanoes or fire I can’t escape. Then zombies (I fear anything that can swarm.) And after I had to take care of my mom when she had terminal cancer, she DESPISES me in any dream with her. I think because she was upset that I had to help with bathroom/shower kind of stuff and she hated that.
This is not related to your dream post, but I wanted to let you know that there’s a movie about taxidermists called Stuffed. It’s playing at the Film Forum in New York right now, and it’s delightful. Doubt it’s headed for wide distribution, but if you can get your hands on it, I know you would love it.
I can’t fly, but I have a sort of seven league boots situation where when I run I can travel about 15 feet with each step. I can also breathe underwater, walk inside walls (there are passageways inside all walls), enter the afterlife to talk to dead relatives and friends, and turn into a wolf.
I have two recurring issues in dreams…I also am stuck and can’t walk or run, I’m kind in crouch trying to move forward but using my arms to hold me up. The other is that i’m in a car I either can’t get to stop, or every time I try to go it rolls backwards (and of course I’m on the edge of a cliff or a lake). I think both mean I’m struggling to with something. I wish I could fly. That sounds so much nicer!
My dreams are typically full of zombies, lava, and crocodiles. No flying. Just terror.
To Anonymous who dreams of forgetting to drop a class- omg yes! I have had many similar dreams, like I forgot I had enrolled in certain classes, and know I have already failed, but show up to class anyway, at the very end of the semester. Everyone is like, “who the hell are you?” I was a lifeguard from age 16- 23, in real life. I still have dreams that some idiot put me on the schedule, but all of my certifications expired years ago, I am too fat to wear my guard suit, and I am now in my mid-40’s and everyone else is a teenager. I am scheduled to teach swim lessons, which I do, but, then I panic that I will be required to be on lifeguard duty, and worry that if someone starts to drown, I won’t be able to save them. So, yeah, I totally get the “unprepared” dreams!
I don’t have recurring dreams like most people described here. Most of my dreams I forget the next day or in a week. If I had vivid, recurring dreams such as you and Victor, I would be psychoanalyzing myself more than I am already do, which is saying something because I do this A LOT!
I can’t fly, but I can jump long distances and stay up there practically forever. Also, I can hover near the ceiling. Funny thing is, no one notices. Just like when I’m naked.
Already doing*
The only time I fly in my dreams is when I’m in an out-of-control elevator, which is my go-to stress dream. Not a fun way to dream-die! Other than that, I don’t ever fly, but I do have dreams that are more like movies, usually horror movies, that I’m watching. Fascinating stuff, and often pretty scary.
My last remembered dream, my computer got ransomware on it. In dream logic, I was going to pay the exhorbitant amount. In dream logic, the guy had to come to my house to get the money and release my computer. When he got there, I decided he was not going to get my money as it was more than an entire new system would cost and I didn’t have anything on mine currently that couldn’t be replaced. Then my husband and I proceeded to beat the crap out of the guy, tie him up, and call the police to come and get him.
I love my flying dreams. I flit around the tree tops and I can jump way up high in the sky. But I sure dont feel like I can do anything in real life. I dont know why I fly. I just do, and it’s a lot of fun.
I usually don’t remember my dreams, the ones I do remember are usually work related (run a company they said….. it’ll be fun they said……LIARS!)
My husband has very vivid dreams that he can drop in and out of. He even Kung Fu fights in his dreams (or that’s the way it looks from my side of the bed). I have recorded it on my phone to show him because he didn’t believe me. Lately, however, not so much which is easier on my shins.
When I was younger, I slogged through all of my dreams. I was often crawling and it felt like I was held to the ground by some incredible force. Within the dream, I could not open my eyes or even raise my head. And then one day, something happened in my dream (I wish I could remember what it was), and I was compelled to stand up, raise my head, and open my eyes to defend myself with words/attitude/conviction (no Bruce Lee moves). I’ve been able to move freely through my dreams ever since.
I can fly in my dreams, but only under duress (read: people are chasing me). I wish I could ninja fight in my dreams…mostly I have worked up to giving the nightmares a stern talking to….which doesn’t keep them from trying to come into my reality when I wake up. And yes, I do occasionally sleep with the lights on.
I think this is almost my favorite post of all time!
A supervisor once told me that all the characters in our dreams are us. So Victor ninja kicks his own monster butt. And you , Jenny, are both indescribably, hauntingly unrenderable on film … er … ingly beautiful and capable of perceiving and appreciating such beauty, even if you’re stuck and even if you can only ever tell of, not show the beauty you see. It’s really handy that you’re a writer.
I dream regularly of showing up to work completely topless- which, whether they are interested in my fanciful and over the top triple D bosoms or not, must be a sight that almost literally slaps all the other worker dream me’s right in the face. Pow.
I also show up to work without shoes, but in real life I’m 5’2” so pants always cover my feet, and in the dreams I sneak through my day with tiny sliding steps so no one sees that I’m barefoot.
I have to take a college final for a class I forgot I registered for
I have to write a ridiculously long (like 5 pages) English paper or my MD will be inactivated.
My teeth all fall out
I cut my hair and then everything goes wrong (Sampson dream)
I fly, and it’s great til I look down and see that I flew up to the edge of the atmosphere without realizing, and I lose my ever-loving mind and dream-scream until my husband wakes me up- in life I’m just hyperventilating.
I’ve fallen in dreams and woken myself up by jerking when I land.
The two worst dreams I’ve EVER had are similar- in one, my now 13 year old daughter, who was about 5 at the time, is dangling off the edge of the ice into freezing cold water. I’m holding her hand with every once of strength I ever have or ever will have- shit, I give back my marathon to re-coup that energy, I sign away the rest of my life and free will to cash that in for strength NOW, and my God, my sweet sweet baby slips out of my hands and I lunge but miss and watch in horror as she sinks into the dark green lake with her eyes open and arms outstretched to me, and I woke up before I could decide to jump in. I woke up actually screaming from that one. No mere dream-screams. It was 8 years ago and ONLY A DREAM and I still cry when I describe it. Usually I get up and hug her tight when I remember this dream, but she’s in the orthodontist’s chair right now, so I think that would be seen as weird. And she’s asked me to work on reducing my public weirdness in her presence.
The second most awful dream is very similar, and after recounting the first, I’m going to go take a nap and hopefully dream of eating vanilla cake
In my dreams I get vague impressionist-type versions of people but none too clear and. No one’s mouth moves but I know what they are saying. There are often a lot of strangers in my dreams and confusion about things, and rarely do I wake up and realize it was super happy and want to go back to sleep to revisit it like when I was younger. Bummer.
I had recurring dreams of a curly haired brunette woman who was always out to get me when I was little. There was one that I had a few times that I would fly away from her as she chased me in a monster truck. I had the “stuck” dreams whenever I dreamed of the creepy preacher from Poltergeist, and usually halfway woke myself up into sleep paralysis when I could scream enough in my dream, but I eventually realized I could try to stay calm during those and go back to sleep. I can control or continue my dreams now if I want to, but they’re still either odd fantastical epic sagas or stranger than an M Night Shyamalan movie.
I have never flown in my dreams (and in real life, I HATE flying), although I have fallen off cliffs, bridges, high walls, etc. I am always rooted to the earth, though, and usually have to move through air that LOOKS fine but is as thick as whipped potatoes; I often have dreams where I need to run but am unable to move my legs properly, as though I have forgotten how or am simply unable to operate my limbs. In my dreams, I have been shot in the head more than once. This may be my brain acknowledging both my crippling anxiety/depression/shitty self-esteem mixed with my rheumatoid arthritis and chronic migraine. And yet many of my dreams are hysterically comical, and most are as convoluted and intricately “staged” as a British murder mystery.
Got to admit, I’m jealous of many of the commenters. I know I dream, but I rarely recall them past the first few moments of waking up. The only ones I ever remember are the really vivid, scary, and/or weird ones. Off the top of my head, I can think of 4 dreams that have stuck with me and one of them is only because I was moving in real life like in my dream and I was sharing a bed with a friend and worried I had woken her up!
I tend to have action movie dreams with skulking, sneaking, investigating all over the world. Or I’m in the house we had when I was in high school and I’m arguing with my sisters. And, sometimes I get to paraglide over hills and valleys and lakes. Not often anymore, since I’ve been sick with an autoimmune disorder, but when it happens it’s amazing.
This is just making me realize that I haven’t been dreaming much lately. Maybe my sleep isn’t cycling correctly and that’s why I’m always tired. Anyway, I use to have very stressful dreams and then I finally developed the ability to recognize I was dreaming and stop them or change them. It was such a relief.
I teach literature to amazing classes in my dreams. OR I’m lost and there are hundreds of doors and I can’t ever find my way out.
Jenny, mine were similar for years, either driven in a vehicle by someone or walking alone in a boggy creek filled with snakes. Couldn’t walk but had to slog through. Never flew once. Then I discovered (30 years ago) an article on lucid dreaming, which eventually changed everything. The more I did the little mental exercises before sleep, the better my dreams became. Within a few years, the slogging, snakes, and creek were gone, and I started flying, but behind the wheel of a vehicle. Now I’m never surprised when I go airborn while driving in a dream. And someday, I hope to fly unassisted.
I watch my dreams like movies… maybe that’s why I don’t like to go to the theatre🤔
I’m always heartbreakingly alone and useless. Sometimes it’s the end of the world. I love photography, and in my dreams there’s usually something wrong with my camera, so i see amazing things and I can’t document them. Jenny, you’ve taken some amazing pictures over the years…. Do you think you could make us a picture book sometime? You’ve got some artsy shit going. 😉
I have only flew once in a dream and technically it was the bathtub that was flying I was just a passenger. My dreams are either super weird or nightmares. I don’t fight in my dreams I run away. One dream I was being chased by monsters and I ran for so long and than in the end it turns out the monsters were just trying to ask me directions -_-
Usually with any dream that has monsters or enemies I run away and try to find ways to escape. Mostly my dreams are just very odd, my nightmares tend to bother me a lot more since I will wake up from them terrified and spend hours calming myself down and usually end up in a bit of a bad mood the rest of the day.
Taking pictures sounds like a beautiful dream! I hovered once in my dream and I didn’t like it. The idea of flying (and inevitably falling) scares me.
Wow. I love reading about everyone else’s dream experiences. Whenever I need to run away in a dream, I find that I cannot move my legs normally. They become heavy as though I am wading through quicksand or molasses. I do fly in my dreams but it’s not controlled at all—it’s more flaying about out of control à la The Greatest American Hero. What on earth does that say about me, I wonder?
I rarely dream. Last night in my dream some jerk ran me off the road and the oil in our mustang started to run out but then when we checked it, it looked like cellulite….. odd.
I rarely recall my dreams, and when I do, they fall into one of two archetypes:
1) being chased by an unknown, unseen person who is trying to hurt me – beat me, rob me, rape me, kill me. Sometimes I get away, sometimes I just wake up. Rarely do I turn and fight and when I do, I usually wake up in terror with a feeling that I’m seconds from death.
2) prescient dreams about someone I know – close friends, family members, colleagues I haven’t seen in a while. They might be ill or even dying in my dream, or we may just be hanging out, but inevitably when I reach out to them afterward it turns out that there was a good reason to do so.
I’ve never flown, or slain a monster. Sigh.
I started having lucid dreams in childhood. I’m always aware I’m dreaming, so I usually let whatever happens, happen. Flying is included. 😊 I’ve heard lucid dreaming is a learnable skill… So maybe you could, too?
Of the thousands of dreams I’ve had, only one or two have involved large leaps, and those were unusual and stood out for me, but that was in high school, I think. And I’ve never fought “monsters” in my dreams, though I’ve argued with people. I think I may have defended myself against wolves a few times, too.
And while I’ve not taken pictures, I have occasionally read and/or written things in my dreams, which I’m told you’re not supposed to be able to do, but I mean, what are they, The Dream Police? (Great, now that song is stuck in my head.)
(P.S. My most frequent dream is that I’m in the passenger seat of a driverless car with no brakes and there’s a tornado chasing me. So that’s fun.)
Like the commenter above, I got a handle on some of my weirder dream elements through lucid dreaming. There used to be some doozies (cartoon giants were a recurring theme). Lately, about the worst my dreams do is have me show up places dressed for some event that is very clearly not taking place.
This is intriguing. I’ve never flown in my dreams, either, and the monsters typically win in my dreams. I tend to be helpless (falling? drowning? late? lost?) which parallels my mindset about myself. I clearly have some work to do.
I HATE flying in my dreams. I keep rising like a hot air balloon, which I would hate to ride during my waking life.
It seems the more stressed I am the more vivid my dreams are. I don’t keep a journal, but I wish I would have written down what I woke to this morning; now there are only echoes of me plotting to steal two metal marshmallow sticks and an orange from Target which was actually the old department store Hills. I decided to only steal the orange… I don’t get it, but, in real life, I bought oranges yesterday.
I hope I’m not going on some journey to becoming a fruit thief! Worse would be a fruit thief who flies.
I’ve flown before but not since i was young. Recurring dreams alot, since I was a kid. One about a shark in a pool. I finally attacked the shark and no more of that dream. Relief.
Mine are ALWAYS about transportation of some sort … planes, trains, automobiles, skateboards, bikes, whatever. Maybe I feel stuck?
Only two times in my life have I been aware that I was dreaming while I was asleep. Despite that, for most of my life, if I didn’t like what was occurring in a dream, I have the ability to force myself awake. Once I was having a dream where I was trying to run somewhere and one leg would move normally, but the other felt like it was taking all of my strength to lift it and pull it forward. Eventually, I’d had enough and I forced myself awake. When I woke up, I found that the leg which had given me problems in my dream was actually pulled up so much that my knee and chin were almost touching. Since then, I’ve made sure that my legs are relatively straight when I go to bed and my mobility problems in dreams virtually stopped. One of the biggest problems I have when I’m dreaming now is when I’m driving, pressing the brake pedal will only slow down my car, but never bring it to a complete stop. Dreams are weird and fascinating. I wish there was a device that could record them so you could watch them back later.
I cannot fly or fight in my dreams. The closest I get is swinging with all my might and just before I connect all the strength and momentum is gone and it’s like I have tried to beat them with a very small feather.
I never fly in my dreams, unless you count the recurring ones where I’m in a crashing airplane. I do fight, but I fight people, not monsters. Then again, the only monsters in my life have been people.
I love that you take pictures, Jenny. It doesn’t seem like a waste of time to me – more like proof that you really see the world around you in all its beauty and wonder, even in your dreams.
My dreams change. I haven’t flown in a long time. Mostly I am trying to get somewhere or find things. But I get stuck; either I can’t move or things get in my path. I have to really fight to move forward. I don’t think I eve get where I want to go or find what I am looking for. I have issues.
When I fly in my dreams it’s less flapping my arms and more like jumping straight up and suddenly finding myself hovering near the ceiling. I’ve also had dreams where I’m running in slow motion and feel so tired I can hardly lift my legs. My dreams are in color and sometimes I’m speaking another language. My favorite dream of all time is of a poker game I’m playing with my therapist, except I don’t have cards in my hand, I have broccoli. Uncooked, of course.
Last night I dreamed I was living back at my childhood home and Cindy Lauper had moved in next door to me. She was trying to set me up with her dog walker – she had three dog walkers for a slew of huge dogs but in the dream I knew I was married but I wasn’t in the dream but I still had the kids. Weird.
Most of my dreams involve some form of monsters; zombies, vampires, occasional Sith, but like Victor I’ve never had a problem fighting them. I do have the stuck in quicksand style dreams too but that’s usually only during a show week, I’m a designer/stage manager in theater, so I chalk those up to the stress of tech.
I used to fly/levitate/float/leap in my sleep all time. Haven’t for at least a year or so now. Maybe I need to exercise too.
Hey, I used to have the jumping really high so it is almost like flying dreams! I never attacked monsters, though, why would you do that? Some of them are really nice!
I don’t remember my dreams much anymore, so I don’t know if I still jump over buildings with a single bound.
I haven’t had a flying dream in a while, but when I do, it is like I’m the Greatest American Hero. No control, always trying to dodge power lines, and I am almost always trying to get somewhere quickly because it is very important, but I am constantly flailing. The other one I often have is where my teeth are falling out. I try not to touch them, or dislodge them in any way, but they still fall out and I spit them into my hand (something weird to be said there, I am sure). I am pretty sure they are about how I feel no control over my life and always feel like a failure. Just my f’d up brain giving me more crap while I sleep.
I do fly in my dreams, but it’s rare. Sometimes I spend my dream trying to avoid driving my car into a large body of water, or I’m frantically swimming away from huge sea creatures. Usually my dreams are a surrealist’s wet dream. Melting faces, water colored rainbow skies filled with whales, and bulbous-headed creatures. I’m weird.
My dreams are so random, but I did have a dream once that cured me of the recurring nightmare I’d had since a child: being covered in spiders. So the dream involved me being chased by the actor Steve Zahn who was trying to kill me. As I was climbing some scaffolding trying to escape, I inadvertently grabbed a spiderweb, which somehow turned into a thin web string attached to the palm of my hand with a large spider at the other end of the web string. When I opened my hand to grab the scaffolding to climb (away from the pursuing psycho Steve Zahn), the spider would climb up the string toward my hand; when I closed my hand, the spider crawled down the string away from me. This rendered me paralyzed with fear…until Jessica Simpson arrived on the scene, took one look at me, and shouted, “Don’t be such a candy-ass” as she grabbed the spider and flung it away. I was both able to escape Steve Zahn and go on to never be afraid of spiders in my dream or (for the most part) in real life.
I realize this doesn’t answer your question, but thought it may be helpful. Perhaps you need Jessica Simpson to tell Victor he can still fly or that you can stand up and move in your dreams?
I fly, but have to have a child’s pool floatie around me. Usually one with a giraffe head, or donkey. Keeps me steady. Flew around New York for years, landing on different floors of the empire state building. Each floor was a different night, and different times of my life. Freaky. Once made it to the top and heard ‘God’ speak. Was very loud and very bright! I finally figured what the dreams meant, and never had them again. Still grab a floatie and fly though…
I can shoot photon blasts from my hands, have incredible stamina, and am fearless. I can take anyone and any monster down.
I am super weird in that I don’t actually dream often. When I do, I have been known to do things I can’t in real life (like ski when I was 5 when I had never even been near skis). Usually if I dream it’s a nightmare and I’m being chased or hunted (my older brother (as a kid), spiders (always), things I’m putting off dealing with (as an adult)). I can fight back, but I’m no action star. I’m more likely to escape via waking myself up than slay anything. So I’m more like Houdini. (That is me trying to be positive here.)
I have a few dream locations that I’ve dreamed about for over 40 years. They’ve changed over time, and their purpose has changed, as well.
I rarely dream about fictional monsters. My monsters are all too human and real. THOSE dreams stayed the same for decades. In the last couple of years, though, a key component has changed. I am now able to scream and shout the truth to everyone in the dream. No more being forced to be silent, to cover up, to hide. Being able to speak out is a monumental step forward.
As for flying, I have done it some. Mostly, I run so fast and so freely that it’s almost like flying.
I’ve also been different ages, ethnicities, species, and genders in my dreams.
I have several recurring theme in my dreams. One: floating. I don’t do much for as float sometimes just of the surface, sometimes, quite high. Two: having a body/limbs that don’t work. I’m week or just broken and have difficulty getting my body to support me. Sometimes I can float instead but mostly when I’m broken I just have to try to crawl and no one ever notices or helps. Three: I can’t taste. If I try to eat, I can barely register the feel of the food or taste it. If I try to drink especially when I’m ravenously thirsty I can’t taste the water and it felt like air. It’s like that scene in Constantine when the priest is in the liquor store busting open bottles and nothing comes out when he tries to drink but when he drops them, wine pours out. I know I’m putting water into my mouth but my thirst is never relieved.
I hold hands in bed with someone who loves me romantically. Sometimes that feels as impossible as flying does.
I think maybe realizing the world is strange and beautiful is more of a superpower than flying in your dreams.
I am constantly chasing after people in my dreams. Wondering where someone is or trying to find them. It’s usually my dad or my sister. I always seem just out of reach of getting their attention and I have to run after them. It’s exhausting. Or I dream about being back in college which is basically like a nightmare lol.
Ha, I just wrote about not wanting to achieve my dreams because seriously, the only time I fly is when it’s off a cliff, and while I can walk, there’s inevitably some reason I need to punch someone but my arms are moving in super slo-mo and not in the good Matrix kind of way. And then I dream that I wake up which is TOTALLY not fair because my mind is all WHEW THANK GOODNESS IT WAS ONLY A DREAM and then I try to speak and realize WTAF I AM STILL ASLEEP.
I would rather be taking pictures, I think.
Except for this one time I dreamed I actually fell INTO a book and there were talking sharks and eels and shit and it was cool as fuck until one of the sharks tried to eat me. Even still. CoolAF.
I either get stuck and can only move in tiring slow motion, or I get obstacles. The obstacles are ridiculous: tiny bridges, small tunnels, ropes to climb, cars to drive from the rear seats when I can’t reach steering or pedals, stone steps and ladders that I can’t reach. ad nauseum. Oh, and horses that turn into bikes then cars then back to horses, none of which I can control. I am very conventional.
I don’t remember many dreams, but every dream I do have is realistic. I’m not super human. Not super inept or capable. Nothing is overly crazy or unnatural. I’ve had sad dreams and happy dreams but they’re always on the realistic plane.
Fasinating. If I’m flying its usually a lucid dream. Usually my nightmares are no one is listening to me. I’ll be screaming at them to move and they just ignore me and get hit by truck etc. I find if I write in notebook right after I wake, I can track and change the story easier…..you might try that
So, what Jenny asked us was how our dreams work. For me the most vivid dreams I have are remembering the events that have happened to me. I know that If it is a bad dream or a nightmare, if you will, that generally speaking sometime during that night I will have the falling dream. Suddenly, without warning I will be falling, free falling without a parachute or anything else. and just before I hit the ground, whatever the ground is, it changes, I have the falling feeling in my stomach and I wake myself up. Sometimes, I am screaming sometimes I am not, but the cool thing about dreams is that sometimes you get to have memories of the good things and sometimes you can even make these good things even better. Thanks for letting me share.
I cannot fly but that’s probably a good thing because I am rarely in control of speed or direction in my dreams. In a car I car barely steer while hurtling along at full speed with no brakes. If I am walking then for some reason my eyes will be stuck looking straight up so I can’t really see where I am going. As much as I love sleep I really hate dreaming.
I do not fly in my dreams, nor can I jump and slay dragons. But they are so vivid and so real seeming that when I wake up I’m either so thankful that those events weren’t really happening or I’m sad and want to know what happens next. Sometimes the memories of the dreams are so strong that, as I travel, I look for the place that I saw!
My entire family has always been able to fly in their dreams, but all I’ve ever done is fall, which is usually terrifying and not fun at all. I used to have a recurring nightmare that I was levitating, so that was also Not Fun. Dreams are weird, and so are we?
I can fly in dreams but its always with the issue of POWER LINES, POWER LINES EVERYWHERE and my entire ‘flight’ consists of trying to fly away without getting tangled/decapitated by the Thousands of power lines that criscross the skies in my dreams. I also can’t run, i kinda float..but off to the side…can’t ever seem to go in a straight line. Its like being attached to a thin spider web from the heavens…that i drift along on about a ft from the ground- never quite getting to where i actually want to be.
I ruptured a disc in my neck while asleep. Not sure if I was having a crazy dream or not, the excruciating pain woke me! Part of me wants to know, but another part of me is kinda glad I don’t!😁
Boy, and I thought MY dreams were weird. No, I don’t fly, I don’t fight monsters, I don’t take pictures, and I don’t get stuck unable to move. I am not always even myself. I dream about being other people and have since I was young. I dream a lot about finding a place to live or a place to use the bathroom. I choose a lot of dorm rooms, it seems. I haven’t lived in a dorm in nearly 40 years, but I am still trying to find a good dorm room in my dreams.
I have the WEIRDEST dreams ever. Seriously. My husband says I should write a book! I do dream I can fly, I just sort of “lift up” with my mind and away I go! I can also breathe under water in my dreams, and FEEL pain. They are SUPER vivid and always revolve around some kind of panic. Either I’m supposed to be going on a trip, but I keep getting distracted while I’m packing and get nothing ready. I also have weird driving dreams where I am on a crazy road/highway and go flying off of it (in the car), but somehow land without dying. And I dream about storms/tidal waves/tornadoes that are headed my way and I’m trying to protect everyone. They’re almost NEVER good, fun, relaxing dreams. Always crazy and stressful!
I sometimes have flying dreams, but the ones I love are my motorcycle dreams where I’m riding a badass motorcycle everywhere. I feel so free, with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. When I wake up, I’m disappointed to remember I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle.
I must be a little like Victor. One of my most memorable dreams involves me flying at low level around a circus with my friends who could not fly. They marvelled at my skills. It was a great dream because I could baffle clowns as well.
I do have dreams where I fly, but it’s because I’m always trying really hard to get away from some unknown evil that is right on my tail. They’re frantic dreams, and when I wake up, I’m always exhausted.
Darn you, Victor, and your monster fighting skills!
Here lately, the only dreams I remember involve me going back to school. I don’t know what my brain is telling me, but that’s what I’ve been dreaming about lately. 🙂
I used to have that quicksand feeling when I was trying to run away from scary stuff in my dreams, until a friend told me that if I would lean forward in my dream, I’d be able to run really ast. I’ve never had that quicksand dream again. Try it?
There’s a common dream trope where you find yourself naked in public and it makes you panic and/or look for somewhere to hide. In MY recurring version, I was at school, work, wherever, totally fine being naked, but everyone around me was uncomfortable with that HAHAHAHAHA. Did a little self-analysis to figure out what that might mean. I realized that in my waking hours, I would totally over-share personal information with people I didn’t know well (or who just didn’t care)… too many words, constantly flowing out of me. I purposely worked at reining that in a bit and the dreams stopped.
I have had a few dreams where I am running. Like literally flying on my feet without anything holding me down or weighing me down. I’m free and I’m moving without being tired. I wake up feeling super excited and energetic. I’ve only had a dream like that a couple times and then it makes me sad because it will never happen. Remember when you were a kid on your bike and you felt like you were flying? You moved without effort. You soared along the road. Sigh. The older I get the more that sounds amazing. To move without pain. To feel that freedom of soaring either on your feet or on wheels. But just moving along effortlessly.
you need to read the Robert Moss book Conscious Dreaming. It would kind of explain the picture taking. In waking life, that is exactly what you do, capture images to share. What a wonderful gift you have and share with us.
I have repeated dreams of visiting the same exact house or town, over and over again, and only when I wake do I realize those are my dream houses and dream home towns, and I’m disappointed I can’t just go visit them in the waking world. I visit them in my drreams almost every night.
I can fly sometimes in my dreams, but it’s always really frustrating because I can’t fully control it and go wherever I want to go. But I can do things in my dreams that I can’t do in reality anymore, like walking long distances and dancing. Such that it’s often pretty disappointing to wake up.
But is Victor a restless sleeper? Because there’s a biological reason most of us can’t run or fight in our dreams. Your brain releases specific neurotransmitters when you sleep that paralyze your muscles during REM to prevent you from acting out your dreams in real life. (These neurotransmitters are also what cause sleep paralysis.) The heavy, locked feeling of your muscles can translate into feeling like you can’t move in your dreams. If Victor is able to fight monsters in his dreams, is he thrashing all night in his sleep?
My dreams often contain my mom and she doesn’t realize she’s dead, or in my dreams she hasn’t died. I also dream a lot about being in an elevator that starts plummeting down down down and never stops. Also about being chased but not being able to run very fast. And about getting a call from my university saying sorry, my degree has been taken away from me because I failed to meet all the curriculum requirements. So no, you’re not alone. 🙂
Flying: As a kid, I had a recurring dream that I could fly, but only over the few steps at the entrance door of the house where we lived.
Which seemed like a waste somehow – having this ability, but only in such a small dose.
Taking pictures: Some years ago I dreamt I was in paradise, and the colours were much more vivid than they are in reality.
I can fly in a lot of dreams but never very high, and I mostly use it to jaywalk safely. It’s really a wasted talent.
PS to 170: And the flying was a lot like swimming in the air.
I have had dreams of flying. My favorite one was where I ate magical flying gumballs from a coffee table bowl and flew around in a zoot suit while lots of other guys in zoot suits flew around trying to catch me.
My dreams are a combination of just about everyone’s above. I fall in love/lust, I fly (usually more like the gliding they do in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), I slog through a quicksand-like landscape, I have to scale impossibly steep inclines, I am in public semi-nude (see: last night), or I am taking a test/doing work that I am unprepared for. Sometimes my dreams are a thrill, other times my dreams are anxiety-ridden depression-fuel. No consistency.
I rarely wake with any knowledge or remembrance of dreams even happening. Not sure if I am just that dead in my sleep or if I just never reach actual REM. Many mornings, my eyelids are extremely heavy and its like I never actually slept…so maybe REM isnt a thing for me…except as my first concert…🤔
I fly, but outside the house i have to sort of kick off really forcefully and then sorry of do a vigorous breaststroke upwards until I’m high enough, then i can fly for a while until I start to drift downwards. Then I have to struggle to gain altitude again.
This kind mirrors my struggle with major depressive disorder, now I lay it out like that….
I sometimes write brilliant things in my sleep–and then wake having forgotten the brilliant thing. Or draw brilliant things, but then I forget what I drew–I just remember vibrant colors.
I don’t think the picture-taking is a waste of time at all. I think it adds beauty and history and mystery to the world. <3
I was always really jealous of my friends who had flying dreams. I finally had one years ago, but I was being chased by demons!!! I was flying as fast as I could through these corridors, scared out of my mind. It made me so mad because everyone else’s flying dreams sounded so peaceful and beautiful and mine was just this terrifying experience I was happy to wake up from. I am still pretty mad.
I live a different life in my dreams. The city and countryside change but remain familiar. I am not myself so when others ask if I dream about them, I feel reluctant to tell them I don’t, as if it’s a betrayal of my feelings for them in the real world. Sometimes I can fly or do fantastic things, but only if I really need to. Most of the time I’m just driving around, trying to get from one place to another. Sometimes I get to walk, which is nice and relaxing.
I bend my right knee and grab my ankle with my right hand. I lift off gently and fly around looking at the patterns of the fields from above. I can go really high. Then when I’m done I release my ankle and slowly land on the ground.
When life is confusing, I get caught in bogs and construction sites and dead ends where I can’t navigate properly. And like you, I can’t run without feeling like I’m running in water. I know that I have to get things organized in real life when I start dreaming like that.
I generally move normally in my dreams… I used to have recurring nightmares where I was falling through nothingness, but I was always unable to do anything about it, unless I was able to grab onto something also falling or floating near me like a mattress (that was a common one), then I’d be able to balance there for a minute or so until I was falling again. Oddly enough, I’m not afraid of heights… I’ve always had a fascination with skydiving though… 🤔
I almost never remember my dreams, but I do know that I can sort of fly/hover– particularly when going down stairs. In my dreams I always go down stairs head first, like I’m on a sled, and just right myself and touch down when I get to the bottom. The one recurring theme is my potty dream: Whatever I’m doing in my dream, I’ll realize I need to use the bathroom and will go find one. It’s always out of service, either because the toilets have been removed and replaced with regular chairs or something or because they are disgusting and stopped up. That’s my key to wake up because I have to pee in real life.
I don’t usually have superhuman powers or unusual trouble moving in my dreams. They’re usually like the real world, just a lot weirder 😉
I can do incredible feats in my dreams. My dreams are always vivid and in color. Sometimes I am startled and then disappointed when I wake up because the world around me in no way matches my dream.
On the flip side I also have horrible ptsd related nightmares. Also vivid. Also in color. Then I’m fighting to wake up.
It’s a toss up each night.
I have ALL the dreams. The anxiety nightmares where the brakes give out on my car, I’m wandering around naked, lost on my way to take the final exam, or realizing I’ve moved into a new apartment without moving out of the old apartment (Double rent! That one might be unique to me and I have that bastard often,) and THEN I have the Victor dreams. I grow into the 50 Foot Woman and I get into a savage fist fight with Godzilla or I take off into the night on my broomstick. I can fly without the broomstick, though, but then it’s more like swimming or just falling with style.
Miserable nightmares are rare but I have those, too. Family in danger, I’m fighting formless blobs of Lovecraftian evil etc…etc…
Now that I think about it, a serene dream would be kinda nice.
I used to swim through the air (fly) in dreams several years ago. I felt a sense of ecstasy when I did and was somewhat lucid when they occurred. I stopped having them around 2012. I miss them. I don’t really ever have nightmares though, so I have that going for me. Most of my “stress” dreams involve endlessly searching for something I can never find.
OMG! Victor and my husband must compare notes sometime! His favorite weapon is a tennis racket which becomes a long-ass javlin. I am okay until he starts swing that thing while standing on the bed. On the other hand, I am more of a participant in problem solving dreams that seem totally real (as in a parallel universe).
I have PTSD. Nightmares are a constant. I’m screwed if anything that happens in my dreams ever becomes reality. I did have a flying dream once, and, oh, what I would give to have it again.
I feel left out, I very rarely remember my dreams. After reading about your and Victors I wish I could. Maybe some day.
The dreams I remembered were almost always pretty straightforward for most of my life – falling in an elevator was a popular one. Being out of control, people not seeing me or hearing me, not really difficult to interpret. But after I graduated college with my nursing degree I had my very first flying dream. It was amazing. Sadly ten years later I became disabled and haven’t flown in my dreams since then. I am now in endless mazes trying to find things, trying to take care of my mom, always lost and searching.
…. that is the saddest thing about dreams I’ve ever heard!
My dreams aren’t that consistent, except that they always take place in my miserable childhood home no matter the context. When I had a job, I would just go back to work when I fell asleep and it was the damn worst.
Now that I’m unemployed, I’ve just been having weird nightmares about crows getting their wings ripped off in my childhood backyard.
Sometimes I can fly.
Usually I’m just sorting through an overwhelming number of boxes. Looking for things or trying to create some order.
I fly and it’s glorious. And I battle monsters too. But every time there comes a point I realize it’s happening then I can’t do it anymore. The rest of the dream is spent desperately trying to get the ability back. I try to run instead but can’t remember how. The other night the monsters were horrible and vicious and it was an awesome battle, but then a human came to the house in a threatening way and it turned into a nightmare hubby had to wake me up from. Moral of the story, monsters are just doing their job, humans are scary.
I often dream about fish. But not a serene fish tank or swimming in the ocean. I am responsible for these fish, and they keep jumping out of the tank, or getting eaten by some terrifying thing. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t keep my fish alive.
Where’s my Teeth-Falling-Out dream bros at? Ha Ha. Sometimes they fall out whole, but sometimes they crumble in my mouth and I have to spit the little pieces out. 🙁
I love hearing about other people’s dreams. It’s always so fascinating. I could rattle on for hours about my weird and terrible dreams. I have a lot of them.
I used to sort of fly–when it happened, I was always wearing a long flannel nightgown and it would fill with hot air, allowing me to float away. I loved those dreams, but haven’t had one in decades. Now I occasionally have anxiety dreams where either I’m naked or my teeth are falling out. Flying was better.
I float and drown a lot in dreams. Not at the same time, though, but sometimes I float off a cliff and suddenly I’m falling, and it’s water, and I’m drowning.
I also get to float through walls
I don’t fly in my dreams. Many times I have dead people show up. No zombies. They’re just in my dream as if they never died.
In my dreams I am constantly hunted down and chased. I run, I hide, I pray I’m never caught because I have never been able to fight back. Sometimes I wake up screaming. We need someone to come analyze all this and tell us how it relates to our personal flavor of crazy.
This speaks to me on a level I can’t explain! Getting lost and losing things and always so much mud, cement, quicksand, snow, ice, falling rocks, treacherous roads. And ALWAYS losing my camera gear or having it stolen due to my lack of diligence. In the dream last night I forgot the bag of meat and had to go back to find it, thus got lost and my companions had already boarded the bus with my camera gear in the town I grew up in. Always in that town.
I can sometimes fly. Some of my dreams are more of a nightmare, and I have trouble flying and trying to get away from the monsters. Sometimes I soar above houses and buildings.
Wow! What great posts. Thank you all. And thanks again Jenny for inspiring some of the best dialogues….💖
I am always lost in my dreams, most of the time I’m so frustrated & embarrassed with myself because I should KNOW how to get out of the maze or get where I’m supposed to be on time but I just.can’t.do.it.
I use to have terrifying nightmares almost nightly that people were hunting me and I would wake up just before they caught me. I read an article about changing your dreams and I taught myself to fly away, Superman-style. I only have those dreams 2-3 times a year now, but I still can fly away.
I can fly when I’m lucid. I also don’t take any shit from dream monsters. I have a dream journal from when I was about 6 and most of it is me getting scared by monsters and then stabbing them through the heart. Interesting correlation Victor has between being out of shape and not flying. I suppose it’s a good motivation to exercise, especially if it works.
I have had to train myself to fight the monsters, but it is something that I can do now. When I daydream, I always give myself super powers, turning into animals, scaling buildings, etc, but when I dream at night…well probably 75% of those dreams involve a natural disaster occurring around me or something out to get me. But I am also a light sleeper and can remember dreams when I wake up, so rather than letting them fade, I focus in on them, no matter how terrible and I rewrite them as I fall back asleep. Being torn apart by wild dogs? Well back up 5 minutes and oh hey, now I can shift into a dragon and roast all parties to a crisp. People with guns chasing me? Good thing I parked my cloaked spaceship in this garage. But the cool thing that now I don’t even wake up. I pull out these superpowers, while I am still asleep. Once in a blue moon I have a nightmare that is worth the effort of waking up so that I can forget it, but most of the time I am my own protector now.
There are no pointless talents – you are awesome
if I remember anything about my dreams, it is usually that I am being hunted. I usually have company – no one I’ve ever met in real life, but company as we bob and weave and hide from the “bad guys.” For years, my dreams would end with a sunset and a silhouette walking into it. The person was always my mom. Never anyone else, and I would wake up sobbing.
My dreams are usually about seeing my dead relatives who are mysteriously still alive, but different and won’t say anything about the time period that they’ve been gone. shrug
I actually think your dreams and Victor’s sound perfectly appropriate for you. You’re creating and sharing beauty in dreams, much like you do in real life. Victor is moving and fighting – so he’s the one that performs the main actions for your family. It seems like a really good combination. So keep taking those beautiful pictures, and remind him to get some exercise so he can continue to soar!
When I was a child, I didn’t fly in my dreams, but I did run and float in the air between steps. Similar to running in water, but in my dreams I was on the sidewalk of my street. Now my dreams mostly take place in buildings among people who I know in the dream but aren’t people I know in real life. Nothing exciting happens, the common thread is that I am someplace I’ve never been among people I don’t know in real life
Well, last night I was being chased by angry Gorillas and Bears while lost in a massive airport parking garage – like the size of Mall Of America, complete with stores to shop in, except that were all Japanese anime fan stores… so, idk what that says about me… LOL
I don’t remember my dreams, haven’t since some time in high school (class of ’91). Sometimes I have a vague notion that I had one, but as soon as I try to focus on it, it goes away.
As someone who get motion sickness easy I suspect it is a good thing that I don’t have flying dreams. I love talking about dreams and their meaning. I’m with IcebearNinja about having dream locations that change a little bit or vary over the years. I also have been different ages, genders, etc in my dreams. Often I am just a spectator and not a participant in my dreams. Often my dreams have casts of thousands and very rarely people I know.
As a young child I had a series of dreams where I would suddenly be somewhere with this group of people, none I know in real life. We were all adults and we had some task we had to do. Sometimes we went in groups and sometimes individually. Then we had to meet back by the appointed time. They weren’t epic tasks, like once I had to move some books and another time I had to help a girl cross a street. One time all of us except one met back at the appointed place. The group was stressed about how we’d have to leave him there. I was hysterical about it but also resigned that this is what we had to do so we could go back to our own lives in our own time. I woke up feeling very conflicted about it. I even considered talking to my mom about it but knew she wouldn’t understand. It was weeks before I dreamed about that group of people again and we were just somewhere and nowhere all at the same time…. We were being discussed but we couldn’t really hear it, there was fear and uncertainty. Never dreamed about them again.
I have recurring zombie nightmares, and have had them for about 30 years. I suppose if there’s a good psrt to these dreams, I’m always fighting like hell with anything I can lay my hands on, and it’s focused fighting rather than panicked fighting.
But still. Freaking ZOMBIES.
I have recurring zombie nightmares, and have had them for about 30 years. I suppose if there’s a good psrt to these dreams, I’m always fighting like hell with anything I can lay my hands on, and it’s focused fighting rather than panicked fighting.
But still. Freaking ZOMBIES.
In most of my dreams, I run super super fast. But always on all fours, kind of pulling myself along as I run, giving me much more momentum. Never understand why everyone doesn’t run that way, it’s sooooo fast! When I try to fly, it never lasts, and I crash. Sucks. I’m also often in a movie. Never a real movie I’ve seen before, but just some movie, that “I know how it’s supposed to go”, but evidently I get the scenes wrong, because I’m always telling myself how the bad guy is supposed to die in this scene. But he doesn’t.
I used to have nightmares most nights where I was running and hiding from someone evil chasing me. Then I got a new job and a CPAP machine, and now I mostly dream about daily things, sometimes starring high school or college friends I haven’t seen in decades. No flying, just stuff like going to the mall or attending a party or having cake at work. Much calmer.
I know I must dream, everyone does, but I cannot remember ever dreaming. Maybe I have a brain defect. I do read a lot. Maybe I dream while I’m reading and that uses up all my dreamemory.
I once read that in sleep, all of our dreams become part of a greater consciousness, and that while most people stay in one space and dream about their own lives and problems, some people wander.
I’m a dream wanderer. I’ve dreamed of houses I’ve never been, lives I’ve never lived, sometimes fantastic and weird, sometimes mundane. Some of my most vivid dreams felt like past lives.
More recently I dreamed of being in the strangest neighborhood of stucco homes with terracotta tile roofs separated by tall hedges, and all the hedgerow paths were winding and complicated, almost like a maze in a Dr. Seuss book. I’m not even sure it was in America (where I live, and I’ve always lived, and I’ve never traveled abroad.)
But there wasn’t any real DRAMA in the dream, I just remember walking “home” through the winding paths, trying to reach the one of dozens of homes that was mine.
So… Whether my dreams are a part of someone else’s life I have no idea. I’ve no way to -prove- any of that. But it’s always been a little weird to me that when I dream, I’m usually not -me-, not the me I am in my daily life. I’m someone else.
I wonder why.
There was a game on Xbox years ago where you had a camera with special film and as you explored a haunted house, ghosts would try to attack you and you have to take pictures of them to trap their souls. I loved that game. Maybe that’s how you battle your monsters in your dreams.
I am constantly trying to make things right in any dreams. I spend my waking days organizing, getting shit done and have very little time for myself. It’s such a waste for me to spend my sleeping hours doing the same damn thing. I do not feel rested when I wake, because my brain spent the night having extremely busy dreams.
Just wanted to say that I too have fantastic dreamscapes, and wake to find my beautiful pictures are gone.
I have ADD. True to your logic here, my dreams are all over the place. I get the recurring dream where I’m late for the final exam but don’t know where the classroom is, and my old college campus has stretched and morphed so badly it’s unrecognizable. Then, like you, I have dreams where I’m either waist-deep in something thick, but I don’t know what; or my legs are free but insanely heavy and hard to move. Mostly though, they’re just a bizarre tangle of elements of recent events that my brain has decided to kitchen-sink at me, mixed with absolute whatthefuckery. Last night I dreamed that I was a contestant on Master Chef, and Gordon Ramsay had a prize room with a bunch of useless, unnecessary gadgets. I don’t know where any of it came from…
Maybe you should invite Victor to your dreams.
Hi Jenny. Or Mrs.Lawson. Idk, Queen of the Raccoons. I’m not sure what to call you. I wrote you an email and now I’m writing a comment; both of which I was a virgin to until now. (Wow, that’s exciting at age 32!) I would love to connect with you in a totally not creepy way because I think we are the same. Mentally ill, aware of that and fighting, successful and a little fucking strange. Anywho, you quoted me in your book and you didn’t even know it. If you never get to respond but see these, I think you are really fucking awesome and listen to this complete stranger’s words the next time depression lies to you and I will promise to do the same. (Because sometimes the only thing that makes sense are the things that don’t make sense).
Fascinating to read all the dream comments!
Seems I’m one of the few who doesn’t remember for the most part. I have the sense that I am in my head in my dreams as much as irl. I have dream arguments where 1) I can’t get someone to listen to me about something I think is terribly important, and 2) I relive a conversation where I think of something to say, actually get it out, and masterfully mic drop.
I think maybe I don’t even dream in pictures. I need to work on lucid dreaming which sounds like practicing mindfulness (which I’m getting pretty good at) in your dreams!
I dreams, I fly somewhat like the fellow in “The Greatest American Hero.”
I’ve always been able to fly! I rarely have bad dreams, and if there are monsters, I can generally fight them. I’ve never really thought about it, figured everybody had those kinds of dreams. Not I’m curious and I’m going to start asking around!
In my dreams I always seem to have forgotten to put my underwear on, I lose my keys, my purse, forget where I parked the car and I fall over or jump off something, maybe I think I can fly, which wakes me up, never having resolved anything at all.
I fly in my dreams, but it’s really like swimming through the air. There are never any monsters…thank God! I do have many cloak and dagger dreams like I’m trapped in a suspense or mystery film, but I think those are when I’m stressed because I wake up a bit tense. I’ve had a few romance dreams with odd candidates.
But my reoccurring nightmares are always school related (and I’m nearly 50 now!!!). There’s always a test that I didn’t study for in a class I forgot I even signed up for, so I don’t have the books or know when and where the exam will occur. A similar variation is one where I’m somehow reassigned to collegiate military officer training, but I don’t own the right version of uniform anymore and I’m running late for some place I’m supposed to be, etc.
My favorite dream memory was visiting my childhood home. The people were really sweet and invited in for a full tour. Then it turns technicolor and my old home and yard look like Willy Wonka’s factory. I woke up laughing from that one!!
As far back as I can remember, I fly in my dreams. But for the past year or two, although I still fly, I am often rollar skating. I am REALLY GOOD, even in tight spaces, just gliding along. But the most unusual thing about my dreams is that I have commercials in them! I am aware I am dreaming and that I have to pause to watch the commercial, then the dream continues on.
In childhood I dreamed that I could ‘float’ about 18 inches off the floor. Better than nothing, I guess. I used to pray for a little set of wings — certain that I would wake up some morning and find a little pair of wings sitting on the foot of my bed. I also dreamed I could breathe underwater by internally recycling my breath. Had some pretty cool dreams that way. But when I grew up I started having a recurring dream about trying to avoid an invisible evil thing, but I somehow always end up running into it anyway, then I start screaming out loud. Freaks people out when I do that.
The worst dreams , the Not obviously scary ones, are the ones where I’m in some kind of relationship and there’s all this warmth and trust and this feeling of being wanted ( like not just sexy time although that’s there too) but this reciprocal sense of wanting to be around each other. Sucks to wake up from because that is not my waking life. https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2019/10/18/bathroom-companion/
Seems to me that your super power of taking pictures in your dreams is your super power in real life. You are able to recreate moments in words and share them with others– it’s the writer in you!
You’re lucky, I always die in my dreams. Flying and taking pictures would be way cooler.
My dream flying is more like directional levitation, and my balance and height control are often very precarious. What I usually can’t do in dreams is dial a freaking telephone. I think somehow my brain is aware that it can’t move my fingers so it keeps me from dialing. Except last night. I found a toothpick somewhere and pushed the buttons with that to call my husband. Who had left me and moved back in with his dad and was dating some chick he met at work. So I very calmly decided to wait until my son finish college in a couple of year, and then I was going to kill myself so I wouldn’t be alone and rejected. I assume the work chick is because he’s been working crazy long hours lately, and I’m probably feeling guilty about not having a crazy, stressful, hectic life like he does.
My legs don’t work right in my dreams, either. They’re always so heavy that I can barely lift them & walking/running is a monumental task. Also I frequently have a dream that I have a test in a class that I haven’t been to all semester (and i’ve been out of college for like 12 years. Why am I still having these dreams?) And to top it off, last night I had a nightmare where some sort of spiders were crawling on my butt. wtf?!
Wow you should do more dream posts – s floodgatt had opened.
Has opened. I hate spellcheck!!
Floodgate. Damn
Floodgate. Damn.
I feel stuck in my dreams too. Sometimes way more than others. I assume, like you, it’s because I have anxiety about all things in life. I know that my dreams constantly reflect what is going on in real life. I had a panic attack at work one day, I hadn’t had one in a while, and I couldn’t figure out why I had gotten so upset. Until I had a nightmare days later that proved that my panic attack was triggered by something more than just a simple thing. I always believe that dreams are trying to tell us things that we otherwise can’t figure out. Even if they frighten us maybe there is something more to it.
I’m not very good at remembering my dreams, but I have had weird dream stuff going on. I had VERY poor eyesight, couldn’t see anything without my glasses on. My dreams were always blurry, I guess because I wasn’t wearing my glasses when I was sleeping. BUT…I had lasik surgery about 19 years ago and from that time on, my dreams have been clear.
In almost every single one of my dreams I’m partially naked — I’ll not have pants/underwear on, or not have a shirt/bra on, or I’ll have a headscarf on and no clothes on my body at all — and no one notices but me. In some of those dreams I don’t care either, it’s like it’s normal. In others I’m frantically trying to find something to cover up with, sometimes changing outfits again and again trying to find the right thing to cover myself while undressing in front of people who don’t notice or even look at me. I think the meaning of those is pretty obvious since for my entire life I’ve been self-conscious about how I look and paranoid about whether or not people are looking at me.
I’ve noticed that I don’t walk in my dreams, I float right above the ground like a ghost who thinks it’s still alive. I never look at my feet in the dreams to confirm this, but in them I never think about walking or taking steps, and my vision is way too steady — not like the subtle bobbing up and down we do while walking. Since I have mobility issues IRL this part of dreaming is nice.
I still have recurring dreams about being in school and not being able to remember my locker combination or which class I’m supposed to be in, 20 years after graduating.
I have a lot of dreams about running and hiding from someone/something that’s trying to kill me, but most of the time I never see who/what the person/thing is — in the dream I know, but not when I wake up.
The rest of my dreams are just flat-out weird: Weird Al Yankovic as a mob boss trying to kill me, a glitter store where a 2-ounce baggie of teal glitter cost $400, Catherine Zeta-Jones trying to steal my baby which was actually a doll, a class reunion where my former classmates and I went to a restaurant that served human meat [only two of us declined to partake] and then all 90+ of us crammed into a minivan clown car-style to go watch a baseball game, etc.
[You can search my Twitter account for “dreamt” or “dream” if you want to read a few more, lol.]
Lol I just mostly have very mundane dreams that’s whatever I’m worried or thinking about. Usually it’s basically my brain just practicing which is fine but boring.
I levitate.
When flying, do you look behind you for the silver thread connecting you to your body? The trick I most often use is the one where if I can’t tell if I’m awake or dreaming, to try to flick a light switch on. If I can’t I’m dreaming. I think. The best sleep I’ve had in a while has been when I was doing the 16/8 intermittent fasting. Eating too late at night ruins sleep. So why aren’t I back on it?
I used to have a reoccurring dream where I was checking into this gorgeous hotel. The staff were so welcoming, taking my luggages while I crossed the lobby to the stairs, which rise one story and then branch to either side and go up another story. Everyone is very well dressed and there’s cut-crystal chandeliers and hand-loomed carpets. Money’s no object and fun is ahead. I haven’t had that dream in a while. Maybe I can coax it back.
Even in your dreams you are discovering and trying to capture beauty and share your vision. Such, as we know, is the generosity and kindness of your spirit. How could I love you more right now? Of course. In my own dreams, I am generally cowering or ineffectively running away, behaving in appropriately or actually dying. I admire you.
In my dreams I am always solving problems. Whether that’s waitressing or a family member’s death or (since pregnancy) action adventure chases and crime solving, that’s what I do in my dreams. All the normal physical rules apply.
Different locations, different stories, but nearly always I am in a relationship with someone that I love very much but they behave as though they are indifferent to me. It’s quite heart breaking really, and not like real life where my husband is a lovely, caring man.
There are also the dreams where I am looking for a bathroom but every one that I find is either filthy or unusable in some other way. These are the ones where I wake up needing to pee desperately. 😀
If we are are dreams, then nobody remembers me… Or I possibly don’t exist.
I know that pulling along feeling in dreams- only mine is flying, just. If I pull myself along I can float/fly just above bushes/trees….struggling to get higher as I know I’m not safe yet. Willing myself to defy gravity however I can. Feels like swimming in honey, but hey I’m still flying!
I’ve never been in control in a dream but my dreams are often like a movie or a novel and are amazing to experience. Often I want to write a novel based on the crazy dream
I’m an extreme introvert, social phobia, and other stuff— I have flown in my dreams so beautifully. I just think it and I drift easily over the treeline of neighborhoods I’ve never seen, usually at the blue hour, which is my favorite hour. I have really awful nightmares and have to outrun my faceless attacker. I can move easily in my dreams, never slogged down. I do sometimes suddenly fall in my flying dreams ( never hard landings or getting hurt) and it’s in front of people cleaning up toys with their kids before they go inside for the night and they always look at me like, what? huh? I always do that thing when you trip and you look around to see if anyone saw you trip and then walk away. Dreams are weird.
I have ALWAYS been able to fly in my dreams. It’s cool, I just point my arms upwards and I’m flying! I’m not sure I would survive without my dreams! My waking life is filled with anxiety, depression, fear, too much alcohol, etc etc. my FUCKING dreams are an amazing escape. I love sleeping and can do so for 10-14 hrs a day. I fly. And I MAJORLY dream in color! Like fucking whoa color. Like sometimes I feel the dream actually revolves around color. Like I had a dream I went to get ice cream with President Obama 😂. My God the colors of the ice cream and in the shop were incredible! My biggest fear in dreams and I think in life is water-deep, huge, dark , water! Those tend to be my nightmare or anxiety dreams! It’s so HUGE, vast, dark, powerful, and it scares me. Although in real life I LIVE on the ocean-space coast of Florida!? Been through many hurricanes and never evacuate? I love thunderstorms and lightning? Can anyone make sense of this 😂!
I’ve had flying dreams. I’ve also had dreams which inspired me to write them down so I could turn them into stories later, and I’d get a lot of detail written down–only to wake up and the whole thing goes poof. Even my record of the dream, was a dream.
When I was younger I could fly in my dreams, but I don’t dream that now. It was pretty stressful, though, because I was always escaping from someone or something. The worst bit was that I just managed to escape them by the tiniest amount so I knew if I lost altitude I’d be caught.
Now I mostly have weird dreams that I’m not part of, except as an observer. Both types are reflective of my life at the point where I have/had them. I spent a lot of time wanting to escape when I was younger, but also felt a lot of responsibility. Now I have lots of illness, so I feel like I’m not participating, just watching other people’s stories.
Yours seem reflective of your life too. You struggle to do life, but you manage to pull yourself along by sheer effort of will (v. positive – you’re very connected to earth, although your empathy can pull you down) and you try to document all the wonderful things you see and experience (also v. positive view of this strange, scary world), and you’re good at it, but you don’t value the skill.
What your dream is telling you – you’re a good, kind, determined person, who values people and the planet, but you need to value yourself more. (Nothing you didn’t know already).
I often fly in my dreams! I can swoop, and hover, and go fast when I want. All I do is spread my arms out and just push down, and I float upwards to any height.
Does anyone have this tho: I have (what I call) ‘serialized’ or ‘episodic’ dreams. The location is one I’ve dreamt of before, but the action is a continuation of a previous dream. Like, “Oh, I’m back again in the weird haunted mansion that’s being renovated. What will happen this time?”
That’s how I also do my dreams, just like Victor. I don’t fly but I do fight monsters in my dreams, not myself but I make up other creatures to defeat them. But usually I just dream of spiders and conjure up a dolphin to eat it up, and all is well after that.
My teeth fall out. It’s totally disgusting and terrifying at the same time. Or I’ve got to take a final exam in a class I’ve never attended. I’m 55 so I kinda get the teeth falling out thing, but college was light years ago, so who the hell knows what’s up with that.
I sometimes have to move my arms like I’m swimming freestyle to be able to walk/move in my dreams. It’s really hard though—moving air with my arms means I don’t move fast at all. Exhausting.
I am a retired professional dancer. In my dreams I am in class and either I cannot open my eyes or I am tightly blindfolded. I can see the a tiny bit of the floor, some movement of the other dancers feet, and I know what my body needs to do; but I can’t stop clawing at my eyes to get them open. I usually awaken when my husband shakes me awake because I’ve been punching and kicking him. 😉
I can fly in my dreams but I can’t always control the flying, sometimes I go up and can’t get back to the ground – which is a bit scary. sometimes I just fly with my feet just above the ground -kind of like a hoverboard but without the hoverboard.
Very interesting. I FALL in my dreams and do not wear shoes. I am always looking for my shoes and then I fall off a cliff or from some height and wake up. I wish I could fly. (BTW: I always keep a pair of shoes near where I sleep)
I don’t always dream that I’m dragging my heavy, heavy legs in an attempt to walk, but when I do, I always think, “this is just like that recurring dream I have.”
I am constantly being chased in my dreams and I am terrified. I don’t have the ability to fight. Sometimes I run through a landscape and other times I am running through a house that seems to have infinite levels. Usually things are decaying around me. I have never had a happy pretty dream. Nor have I ever felt strong. When I was a small child I had a recurring dream of having to cross a bridge with an alligator in the stream below. I am sure this says something about my mental health, and it’s not good.
I’ve only flown a few times, and only once I decided to start my own business. Usually I keep catching thermals in my dream and keep getting higher and higher and start getting a bit anxious about getting back down. This always causes me to start sounding like I’m hyperventilating in my sleep, so my husband inevitably wakes me up thinking I’m having a bad dream. I still wonder why he thinks that instead of the fact that it’s possible I’m having a good sex dream… 😂
Last night I met Johnny Paycheck and then he yelled at me for taking pictures and recording him. So there’s that.
I used to be able to fly in my dreams. I could take a giant step and soar over everyone and it was scary but fun. For the last 10-15 years or so, though, it’s been the slog thing. I can barely manage to move. I have to lift each leg with my hands in order to walk and it takes me forever to get anywhere, even though, in my dreams, I’m always either being chased or have to be someplace else far away, very very urgently. I’m also always losing people and trying to find them. Last night it was Frank Turner. I met him at a bar and we were chatting, but I had to leave to get this giant hat to wear to the parade (no idea) and when I got back, the bar had closed, everyone had left and he was off in the distance with other people. It’s always like that. The person I’m trying to find is visible, but they can’t see me or hear me calling and I can never reach them.
Hmm. I should probably discuss this with my therapist.
Sometimes I dream I’m flying or floating. Sometimes I dream “American Horror Story” dreams, and if I remember them when I wake up and I tell my husband he looks at me like I’m a total stranger and says “what the hell is wrong with you?” Sometimes I have stress dreams about jobs I have worked at. Sometimes I dream I’m stuck in an ever shrinking spiral of a route in a place I know well, but it’s a dream altered location from my waking life. Sometimes I dream a place that I’ve never been in real life, and then when I go to that place in the real world it’s the modern day equivalent to what I dreamed it was, but my dream was the way the place used to look decades or centuries ago, (it really makes me believe in past lives.) Sometimes during nightmares or lost/shrinking and spiraling location dreams, I can wake myself up. Sometimes I have the “I need to pee” dream and I can’t find a good place to pee, and then I wake up and have to go to the bathroom, (thank goodness I’ve never wet the bed.) Sometimes I have the stuck in quicksand feeling and slow motion feeling dreams. The worst is the sleep paralysis where you’re awake, but only your brain is, your body can’t move. So you lay there in the bed waiting for your body to wake up while your brain is screaming “wake up and move!!!” That’s the worst of all. Kendall Jenner was talking about that happening to her on airplanes while she was going between modeling jobs on tv, and I jumped off the couch and had such a moment of feeling like someone else knew the agony of that situation. Dreams/nightmares are where we work out our crazy lives and our issues, but I also think it’s like the movie “What Dreams May Come” where Heaven, Hell, Purgatory are of our own making, and we alone have the power to change them, but every once in awhile an angel comes along to help us through it. Much like life…
Try walking backwards. When I get stuck in a dream, I run backwards. It’s awkward but better than being stuck in place.
I rarely fly in dreams, but when I do if I touch the ground again I can’t fly any more.
Since my mother passed away in August of 2018, my dreams have changed considerably. It seems I am constantly looking for her, or my father, or both, and always in Philadelphia, which is where I am from. I do not live there any longer, my family and I moved to Florida (ugh-sorry Floridians but I just can’t find my love for this place) 7 years ago and I have wanted to move back to Philadelphia since my 2nd month here. Anyway, my dreams are always me, running down deserted streets all around Philly. Some I know from growing up there, some I seem to have made up, but it is always Philly. No super powers, but sometimes I feel that quicksand feeling, which is usually an indicator that I need to wake up and use the bathroom. Our minds can be really bizarre, huh?
Wonderfully dreamy flights of fancy?! Wow- he slays monsters in his dreamscapes heroically and whether or not he flies in his dreams is his barometer as to how he’s doing health wise/overall…. I would say he’s doing fantastically! Who could blame him though-lovely daughter and wifey-he has it pretty darn good I would say! 🙂
The closest I come to having great dreams is when I dream that I finally tell my alcoholic dad and addict sister how their addictions affected me and how those destroyed our relationships. I’ve had to severe ties with them over the years for my own well being and to not enable them. I’ve never been able to address them in present time so maybe it’s time that I do that. In those dreams I feel so empowered and proud of myself-no matter if they berated me in the dreams or ignored me. Perhaps my inner child is trying to tell me it’s finally ok regardless of how they react.
I’ve also had reoccurring dreams for a long time that involve some kind of evil spirit that hovers over me while I sleep in my bed-it’s ready to possess me or kill me. I have a feeling of ultimate terror. I always wake up screaming to get out of it. Not great when you’re a married lady! Also I wonder if anyone else has this-waking up constantly to check the effing time!!!!!!!! The other night I woke up just to tell my husband it was 3:45 am… just because?! Thanks dreaming self soooo much for trying to wreck my marriage! LOL.
I flew once in a dream. I was a bird flying over autumn woods and hills like in western New York state where I lived till I was twelve. While I flew I knew I was really a person and I was thinking how amazing it was and wouldn’t it be great if I could fly in real life.
My repeating dreams are scary. There are two versions but they both involve me going through houses. In one I am being chased by something horrible that I can’t see, it is only walking while I am running through empty rooms, and it keeps saying, “After…after… .” In the other, I am touring through a gorgeous mansion, but it becomes too big, too many rooms, hallways that I’m afraid to enter, a giant antique furniture warehouse of a space where I know I’ll get lost and something bad will happen, but through which I have to pass to get to the stairs to go down and get out, only I’m not sure which staircase is the safe one, the broad floral-carpeted mahogany-balustraded one or the back wall-enclosed wooden one. Aaaah I’m giving myself the willies just thinking about it!
…And I love going to open houses. To borrow a phrase, What is wrong with me?
Many of my dreams are text, and I read them
I have absolutely no clue how I move around in my dreams – I’ve never noticed. I have realized that I’m always looking for something/trying to accomplish something in my dreams and that I’m not in my “home world”; but, wherever I am seems familiar to my dream self. And I know that I revisit places in my dreams – for example, I regularly have dreams that take place in a shopping center/mall area with rainbow ceilings. I can also change the channel on my dreams, as someone else mentioned being able to do.
I used to fly and jump-fly in my dreams all the time. I haven’t had one like that for years (that I can recall upon waking, anyway). I do have dreams where I really, really, really want to scream or hit, and am completely and totally ineffectual. Makes me crazy. I am also unable to control dreams, they just happen to me. I can not conjure powers or change circumstances. Pisses me off that other people can.
So I’m weird. I get insanely vivid dreams, so real that sometimes it makes telling what I said or did in a dream apart from what I did when awake a bit difficult, and horrible nightmares when they come. I can remember multiple dreams that I have per night and I feel pain just as real and horribly as I do when I’m awake.
I cannot fight in my dreams. Sometimes I have a situation where I need to fight; I play a lot of “violent videogames” so some dreams are based on boss fights from those and Deergod am I terrible at it! My depth perception and dream-confidence go right out the window as soon as the fight starts. It is humorously bad.
I can however fly in my dreams! I have no issue with heights, but I am terrified of falling so I had to work at getting over that fear in my dreams, so I could fly. It doesn’t work every time; Some nights that fear wins and I just can’t bring myself to make the jump, but other times my fears don’t even occur to me and I can just soar up into the sky. I used FarCry3 to teach myself how to fly in dreams. It’s a first person videogame, so you play like you’re looking through the eyes of the main character who, at some point gets a wingsuit. That character, when he is starting his glide, does a motion with his arms, basically bringing them forwards in-front of you and then out to the sides like an airplane, and then you’re gliding through the air. So, I started doing that motion in my dreams when I wanted to fly and after a few tries and a lot of practice gliding in the game so I could drill that motion into my brain, IT WORKED!
Not to brag but I can also fly Minecraft creative-mode style too 😉
I’m not sure if anybody else experiences this or not, I mean, probably at least one person has to statistically, but I get a lot of dreams where I either have horrible vertigo, like I’ve been drugged with something and the whole world spins one way while I’m spinning a different way and I have a hard time staying conscious in my dreams. Or I pass out a lot. Just be going about my dream-business and suddenly collapse to the floor everything going dark, just to wake up still in my dream, face down on the ground. I always pick myself back up and keep going on with my dreams just for it to happen again.
I was recently diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and because of that, they found my body tends to overproduce Adrenaline, so I suspect that has to do with at least a little bit of my brain’s cracked out and borken night-time habits. 😛
I always know when I’m dreaming, so I can control them. But If I control my dreams too much it turns against me. Keeping a dream diary helped me to achieve this.
But if I’m having a good dream, I’ll just go with it.
But I have flied, fought against knights, controlled wind etc.
My “get away” dreams are awesome. Stressful but awesome. Once a go kart was involved. Fast and Furious movie’s helped my dreams.
I can’t swim and am afraid in water that’s chest deep. However, in my dreams I’m often swimming like a fish and loving it. Travel in most of my dreams is by water, swimming, just floating in the current, or by boat. Huh.
I have two types of recurring dreams. In the first, I have driven to the grocery store, or the mall or work and parked. Right before I get out of the car, I look down and realize I am partially or totally nude. But I think, “what the hell, I’m here now….” and I just go in anyway. People stare a lot. In the second, I’ve fallen deeply in love with a faceless man (but very obviously not my husband), however there is always something wrong in the relationship. Sometimes we are enemies in a war, often we speak different languages and can’t understand each other at all. I always wake up from those dreams feeling wonderful because I’m so totally in love.
I cannot move no matter what is threatening me or my loved ones. I can’t even scream. I hear people around me, but they don’t know what is about to happen and cannot help me because I can’t get their attention. Then my husband wakes me up, but I am still creeped out.
I used to dream that I was trying to run, but it was like running in waist-deep water, very slow and difficult. In reality I never ran and felt like I should be able to. Then I did a couch-to-5K and learned how to jog. In my dreams, I became an incredibly fast runner. It was fun to see the difference.
I’ve only flown in my dreams twice. The first time, I was in a movie theater and could only fly a few feet off the ground because a literal goddamn glass ceiling was stopping me. In the second dream, I was being chased by people who were trying to kill me and who also had the convenient gift of flight. However, I do fight back in my dreams — hard. I’ve murdered bad people in my dreams with no effort and no regrets. I’m not sure what this symbolizes, but I like to think that even though I can’t fly away from my problems, I will stand and fight.
Whenever I run in my dreams, I run in slow motion while whatever is chasing me runs at their normal speed. I never see what is chasing me though.
The reason I’m sharing my sleep apnea story here is mostly as a cautionary measure. I don’t know Victor, but dreams are more important than I ever realized, especially as we age. Our brains use them as a method to communicate bodily functions that aren’t working well.
The fact that a recurring dream CHANGED could be an indicator if it REMAINS CHANGED and/or worsens. (For example, as he’s flying, he starts falling. That will make sense when you read my tale.)
I rarely remembered dreams if I had them until the past couple of years. They started getting really bad especially around September 2018 and continued to+ worsen. I’d wake up in the middle of a heated argument, literally finishing a sentence, words tumbling out of my mouth as I came into full consciousness. Less frequent but more frightening were the ones where I woke up in the middle of a scream, disoriented and confused, unable to tell if I’d been actually screaming or if it had only been in my dream.
Because work was so incredibly stressful, I chalked it up to that, didn’t do much except add Cup o’ Calm tea to my evenings and hope I would actually sleep. It wasn’t until early September this year, when I went to my usual neuro check-in, and she decided to have me do a sleep study again (last one I did was in 2008), that we learned I have severe sleep apnea. Not the annoying kind where you snore really loudly and every now and then, maybe 3 times a night, startle your partner when you go silent and then gasp like your lungs have been jump-started by a gas leaf blower. No, I’ve got the kind that has been depriving me of sleep MY ENTIRE LIFE.
When I was a kid, I would sleepwalk. Nothing crazy, just every now and then I’d be found out in the living room in my favorite chair appearing as if I were awake, or I’d wake my sister up by sitting next to her on her bed (okay, that IS a little creepy, heh heh) and have inane conversations in the middle of the night that I never remembered. But I have never really dreamed…until now.
The neurologist who specializes in sleep disorders explained that my dreams that I had attributed to stress were my brain’s way of getting me to breathe. My study showed that I stopped breathing every 2 minutes, with the longest gap between breathes being 36 seconds and my oxygen saturation level dropped to 80%. The CPAP machine goes to 20 for pressure levels, and it spiked to 19. They almost took me to the ER next door.
Without the constant pain in my back that causes me to toss and turn, without my three cats (especially Matilda, my old lady cat), without the crazy dreams…I’d probably be in a lot worse shape, if not quite possibly dead. The neurologist didn’t even ask; he in fact said to me, ” I’m not giving you a choice; you absolutely have to be on the BiPap in order to stay alive. Yes, it is rare for people to die in their sleep from sleep apnea; it’s usually attributed to heart failure, but we’re learning more and more that it’s quite possible that these deaths had less to do with an unhealthy heart and more to do with respiratory failure. And no, it won’t matter if you dramatically drop that 80 lbs you say you should lose; you’ll still have this. You’ve had this your entire life.”
And that’s how I was properly terrified into wearing a A REALLY ANNOYING mask at night and buying flippin’ distilled water at the grocery store (solving a lifelong mystery as to What The Hell Is Distilled Water For).
I am constantly either driving or making lists of a extended trip where I will need to feed 12 or more people for multiple days. I’m making menus of meals and counting up how many eggs etc. I will need!
I fly in my dreams, hover, spin around in the air really quickly, do all sorts of flying tricks. Though occasionally there are hazards like electirc lines to avoid. And yeah, lots of monsters. I was terrified of them at first, but I killed my first one when I was about 9 years old and have basically been able to handle them since. It was a lobster, and it was eating my foot, as it had done repeatedly for months, giving me screaming nightmares. But then one day I noticed a baseball bat in the corner, and I smashed it to bits, and I never had the dream again.
Previous post about the lobster was from me. Sorry, didn’t mean to leave it as anonymous.
I always am stuck in one form or another. I can’t imagine flying or slaying monsters in my dreams. Too often I’m just looking for a functional bathroom in my dreams. Not fun.
From:Dreamstagram
Dear Ms. Lawful,
We regret to inform you that another user, Hunter [full name redacted], has requested deletion of an image you recently posted as a “complete ‘shop defaming my participation in the signing of the Declaration of Independence”. It has been removed at this time.
If you wish to contest the takedown, we have a Dream Resolution window open from 3AM to 5AM daily for your convenience. You may fly, swim or walk in with no appointment needed, as after all, we are in the dream world. Just be aware that pink alligators, if you are one, are not allowed on the premises without standard clown documentation.
Sincerely,
The Dreamstagram Team
I am also always stuck in my dreams, and they are always nightmares, but there are never monsters: just other people, and insurmountable tasks that make no sense but absolutely must be finished. I mostly dream toward the morning, and a lot of days I wind up feeling like I need to go back to sleep so I can finish the dream, do the thing, fix the problem. I wish I could stop.
I can speak perfect French in my dreams!
In my dreams, I get separated from the rest of my party and spend the whole f*cking dream trying to find them again. Every time. However, I have become very conscientious about planning for this eventuality in real life, so I guess it’s a win. But I wake up exhausted and frustrated most mornings unless I take Lunesta, which apparently keeps me from dreaming, or remembering them anyway.
I’ve never been able to remember my dreams. I take it on faith that other ppl do, and the dreams are an actual thing that happen. Though I sometimes I wonder if ppl talking about their dreams isn’t just an emperors new clothes type scenario and I’m just to lazy to make up a fake dream.
So many of my dreams are hybrids of everything mentioned here. My junior high and high school are often featured, as well as the house I grew up in. Many times I am trying to get somewhere but I’m moving so slow! It’s like running in water, even if I’m on a bike, roller skates or whatever. The strange thing is when there is something scary coming (monster, ghost…psycho), I hunt instead of hide…I can’t remember ever hiding, but I’m sure I would if it happened while I was awake! Oh, and I can never scream…no matter how hard I try.
I had neck/spine surgery in 2013 and ever since then I can’t fully move my body in my dreams. I am completely ‘stuck’ like you said. My body fails me at every turn and brings me so much anxiety that eventually I am able to rise above it all and fly. Like your Victor. But I resonate with being stuck with you. All the time stuck. Like in quicksand. Thank you for talking about it as always.
My dream-super power is apparently the ability to go about my life in public, at work, etc. completely topless (cuz I forget to put my bra & shirt on when I leave the house) and not have anybody care. I wake up in a panic thinking “oh shit, DID I ACTUALLY leave the house today half naked and not even realize it? Are my coworkers and neighbors just being really polite and not mentioning anything?”
Sadly, I can never find my way to places I need to be in my dreams. Can’t find my way to a class, an office, to meet someone, or home. In my worst dreams I can’t see. In my best dreams, I resolve to stay where I am and give up on looking. Paging Dr. Freud?
I’m running down a dungeon-like hallway, under ground,lit by torches on the walls. There is a giant chasing me. I can’t see him, but I can feel the ground shake with his footfalls, hear his breathing, etc. In screaming for help as I flee, “Help! Someone save me from this MONSTER!”
He stops suddenly with a shout, “Hey! That’s MISTER Monster to you!”
I wake up laughing.
Mysterious dreamscapes? Read Hank Green’s new book “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing”. You are going to love this book for so many different reasons. Give it its own shelf in your new bookstore.
I enjoyed thinking about locomotion in dreams, thanks for the interesting post! I mostly get around normally. For example, in last night’s dream I walked around a warehouse and also drove somewhere. On occasion I do have skills beyond my actual abilities; these typically involve fighting/rescuing somebody from Bad Guys. I don’t know that I’ve ever done something beyond human possibility like fly or breathe underwater?
Oh wow. Just. Wow. I don’t know that I have any skills, but I’m beginning to believe my kids have sleep telepathy? Despite their age differences??
Youngest kid is 5, has autism and doesn’t say much. He woke up Monday morning, jerked his blanket up to his neck and looked at his toes and screamed, “TOES, MY TOES!” Honestly, none of that phased me. He’s constantly astonished and excited about life.
Middle child is 10, approached me yesterday morning while I was making lunches to tell me she had a dream that she became ill and had to have her toes amputated. She said, “They wheeled me into the operating room which was actually YOUR room and when I was so scared to get put to sleep, and then when I woke up I saw they left my big toe so I screamed, THAT’S IT? THAT DIDN’T HURT AT ALL!!” and that’s what I (as her mother) woke up to. It’s crazy normal for my kids to talk and scream in their sleep. I feel bad for the neighbors… but then…
Oldest child is 12 and woke up this morning to tell me that he was at his grandparent’s house and ran up a brick retaining wall but tripped and ripped his toes off. Apparently the neighbor was an old and evil surgeon and she sewed his toes back on with a sewing needle and no pain medication.
What the fresh hell kinda Southern sibling voodoo is this??
Sometimes I can breathe underwater, and sometimes I cannot fall down stairs no matter how fast I go.
I’m one of the biggest introverts in the world, yet I can fly in my dreams. It’s almost like I am the opposite of who I really am in the real world. Gotta tell you though, I get pretty pissed when I wake up and find that I really can’t fly!
I used to fly in my childhood dreams, but it was always super slow, not very high above the ground, and using a swimming motion, as if the air was quicksand!
No more flying or swimming dreams. I wonder what THAT means…
I dream about the OTHER house I own, where there are strange hallways, extra rooms, and a distant basement room that has no back wall. Or that I’m in school again and can’t find my class. OR that I’m someone else. And those dreams are the creepiest.
I tend to levitate in my dreams….not flying…not walking…just floating along. Oh. And when I dream of my (deceased parents) they are healthy and well. That makes me happy
When I was around 5, I had a recurring dream that the Big Bad Wolf (in the style of the dragon from a live action Alice In Wonderland movie) would eat my family one by one as they were lured into the house’s basement. His giant head would come out of the crawlspace under the stairs and gobble them up. I would try to warn them, but it was always too late. Then the dream ended with me trying to brave the basement and defeat the wolf, only to be devoured. Then one night as I descended the stairs, after weeks of these dreams, a flying horse came and whisked me away from the wolf and we flew among the clouds until morning when I was safely delivered back to my home. I’ve had lots of dreams and nightmares since then, but nothing was better than that one.
The only consistent thing in my dreams is that if I’m trying to run from something, I can’t run. Like you, I just slog slowly, and if I’m lucky I can use my surroundings to pull myself along. But I can breathe underwater. Short breaths, but definitely still breathing (probably because I am still breathing in real life and my brain registers this and transfers it to the dream???). So, if something is chasing me, I’m pretty well screwed, but I can chill underwater for hours and breath just fine. I guess I break even.
I have a very active dream life. So much happens to me while I sleep that I’ve instructed my husband to not pull the plug in me if there is evidence that I’m dreaming in my comatose state. When I am dreaming about something terrifying I often turn it into a movie so that I am watching what is happen instead of it happening to me. I don’t fly but have experienced falling and coming close to dying. My dreams aren’t always terrifying. Sometimes I am visited by one of my dear departed pets and for that I am incredibly grateful
One constant is that everyone likes to tell other people about their dreams, and that the other people are bored out of their minds listening to them.
Just to be different, I am not going to tell about my dreams. They are boring, even to me.
I dreamed last night that I cut off a co-worker’s head with a pair of kitchen shears. My plan was to sew it back on later – WTF?? Woke up slightly disturbed.
Heck, I dream I’m running or trying to save someone in almost every dream.The best part? I’m not wetting my pants as I do it like in real life when I run. 🤷🏼♀️ 😜😜😂
I just keep dreaming about houses I live in, but where I don’t want to be.
I have a similar recurring dream/nightmare. I am running in some race, or doing the mile run in high school, equally terrifying in my book, yet I cannot seem to keep any momentum. The only way I can lurch forward is to fall to my knees and use my arms like a gorilla. Not that my arms are any stronger. It’s either that dream, or one where I drive a car into a body of water. So I totally get that “sunk into the ground” feeling.
I wish I had cool dreams where everything is surreal, and I could fly or even be pulled down in quicksand, but unfortunately my dreams are fairly boring. Even when weird things happen, I just kind of accept them as normal in the dream and function the dream’s logic. However, the one running theme I’ve had in my dreams over the course of my life is that I often have dreams where I’m searching for something or someone. I’m always running around trying to find this thing, but I rarely, if ever, find it. Kinda makes sense I guess.
I have dreams where I’m running away in terror from someone (or something). Usually in a parking garage.
I can compose music in my dreams. Good music. Music for bands. My musical training consists of seven years of playing the flute. I’ve never written a piece of music in my life, and wouldn’t know where to start. It’s really weird.
I can compose music in my dreams. Good music. Music for bands, not a single instrument. My musical training consists of seven years of playing the flute. I’ve never written a piece of music. Wouldn’t have any idea how to start. It’s really weird.
I have had a hard time dreaming lately because I just don’t sleep long enough to dream anymore (ever since I had my children, about five years ago now). That said – I am a strong, fearless person in my dreams. Something tries to hurt me/mine in my sleep, and I just kick ass… It’s violent and terrifying, but I don’t stop until the threat is gone. I’ve always just assumed this is because the things that scare me in reality are intangible and I am powerless against them. Fear of people… fear of going out…. fear of saying stupid things……. You can’t punch “saying stupid things” in the face, or pick up a sword and slay that awful feeling in my chest that happens at the thought of leaving the house every day.
I dream for what feels like the entire night, every night, but my dreams are incredibly mundane. I don’t fly, there are no monsters, ever, and everything that happens is entirely plausible. Even when I was a small child, the “monster” was a lion. I was, and remain, incapable of conjuring up something I haven’t seen. I think this means I’m boring. I’m positive it means I have absolutely zero imagination. 🙁
I fall down holes or in rivers or caves, etc. otherwise I dream about school, both high school and college. Replaying my past?
In 2010 I was in a coma for 12 days and now I don’t remember a single dream. Which sucks. I had pretty elaborate dreams that I would tell (bore) my husband with.
I’m able to do most things in my dreams. “Normal” kind of stuff. But when I’m having a nightmare or being chased in them, and I need to scream, I’m never able to. It’s one of my biggest fears in real life. I’ve never had to scream for my life but I’m so scared I won’t be able to if/when I need to.
I read the subject line of this to my 28 year-old daughter because it was so funny especially in comparison to my other email subject lines and her response was “I’d like to be fucked in my dreams!” I pointed out that I was pretty sure that’s not what you meant.
I do sometimes fly in my dreams and it’s really magical but my most common dreams are ones where I need to go to the bathroom and there is something preventing me like, the toilet is too high or out in the open or disgustingly dirty. When I pee anyway, (once in front of Britney Spears) I always feel really triumphant when I wake up!
Netflix has a documentary called The Mind Explained. I watched the one on Dreams last night. Most of what you’re saying totally aligns with science. It’s 20 minutes. I’d recommend it. Today I started watching another one on Anxiety.
I had one flying dream as a kid and it was awesome. But mostly I walk. And when the monsters (or most likely zombies) chase me and I suddenly can’t run, I’ve trained my brain to make me jump like I’m an astronaut.
Have you read Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox? It’s about a world where some people have the ability to capture dreams and bring them back to show others – there are massive theatres full of beds where people go to dream the Dreamhunter’s dream, like going to a concert. It is very weird and cool and I think you would like it.
I agree with the title. This dream I had was an odd reflection:
http://harvardmilk.com/2019/11/25/what-they-said-while-you-were-sleeping/
Everett excitedly tells me about his dreams where he misses a belt loop or the ice in his drink never melts. These are the dreams he deems exceptional enough to tell me about. It’s fucking adorable.
nice post