Dreams that stick with you

[Necronic]

I realize that telling someone the specifics about a dream can be stupid, because they don't translate into words well, but I have been having some incredibly powerful dreams recently and I just have to get it out, and I was curious if other people have powerful dreams that affect their waking life.

Dreams have always been a major part of my life. Almost every night I have dreams that are strong enough to mess me up when I wake up. Usually I get over it in 30 minutes. The movie Science of Sleep hit me in a difficult way because I understood what the dude in that movie was going through, if only to a degree. Sometimes I forget which is the reality, but usually not for long. Inception kicked my butt too by the way.

Almost all of my dreams could be considered nightmares by most people, but I’m used to them so those are just normal to me. To be honest I kind of revel in their messed up nature. I do have worse ones, dreams that really are god awful terrifying. I haven’t had one in a while, but they usually have some guro-esque quality to them, where I am entranced and yet sickened at the same time. The bad part is that when I wake up from them I force myself to go back to sleep.

The worst, however, are the ones most people would think of as normal/good dreams. I had one two nights ago. It wasn’t entirely normal, since there was a serial killer murdering my friends, but…to me that’s normal. The normal normal part was a romantic aspect of it, where I was protecting a woman I apparently loved dearly from this murderer. I think we got him.

She was at one point my ex, which bothers me because that’s the second time this week I have dreamed about her, and I have never dreamed about her before (including the 3 years we were together). However, for the parts of the dream I really remember she had a different look. Basically all my ex’s rolled into one. There was one scene in particular where we laid together on a bed, and a warmth rolled all over me.

What kills me is that when I woke up I felt a sense of loss like I haven’t felt in a long time. The only other times I have had it are, you guessed it, from dreams. One was from a dream where I had a sister (I don’t have a sister). This was 15 years ago and I can still remember her face, and it still makes me sad.

To be honest I am looking for that girl in my dream right now. I know she exists in some form or another, and I have to get that feeling back.

Dreams are maddening for that. They show you a piece of reality that you don’t have, and in some cases a reality you can’t have. It’s almost like your mind is taunting you, calling you out for your failures or mocking your inability to have what you want.

I also had my first dream in a long time where I died. I was getting on some plane leaving a country that had raised it’s threat level for some reason. There was a mild nervousness to the crowd, but the stewardesses were doing a good job calming us down. They were taking our drink orders as we taxi’d into position to take off. Then, for some reason this airplane had a big front window we could all see out of, we see a massive explosion maybe a ½ to ¾ mile down the airport. The pilot floored it, flying towards it to try and bank and get away from it, everyone was screaming but I could only sit and watch as the explosion bloomed, and I knew that the shockwave was going to hit us and kill us. I felt it, then I woke up. Felt freaking great, but it was weird because I knew what my mind went through when I was going to die.

So, question is, what dreams have you had that really stick in your gullet, in a good way or a bad way?

[Denbrought]

I remember my dreams rarely (this has gotten better this past year, averaging more than a dream a week), and I haven't had a nightmare since I can remember. I've gotten into the habit of writing them down when I can, and remember enough stuff.

I take dreams as more of a free movie/conversation-with-myself, so even if I die or crappy things happen, it's still a kewl 'n good dream, bad dreams for me are ones where I'm bored about what happened in them when I wake up.

No dream has really stuck with me for more than a week or so, as far as entertaining my thoughts with what happened in them. Haven't had any revelations in them, I leave that for all the daydreaming I do while awake.

[Wasabi Poptart]

I have had several dreams that have stuck with me over the years. All of them were terrifying even though I knew they were not real. I seem to remember positing about one of them previously. I went to a doctor about my sinuses and he started drilling them out with an auger bit without using anesthesia.
I had another dream about going to the dentist. He said he had a new anesthesia to try on me and proceeded to put a gigantic needle through my skull.

When my husband was deployed a few years ago, I reconnected with an old friend, a guy, who I hadn't spoken to in a while. He and I used to play WoW together and before that we RP-ed online together. I had a dream about him. In the dream it was wonderful, warm, bathed in golden light and wrapped in silk sheets, beautiful. When I woke up, I still had that snuggly, please-don't-let-me-wake-up-yet, feeling. Then I felt terrible guilt for having such a dream about this guy when my husband was basically a world away. I felt horrible. Beyond horrible. If it had been about a stranger or a celebrity, it wouldn't have bothered me in the least. This was someone I knew and had been very close to at one point in my life. I stopped talking to my friend after that because the dream shook me up so badly. I'm sure it had less to do with my friend himself and more to do with wanting to have what he represented back in my life (security, companionship, physical interaction, etc.), but even rationalizing it didn't help me feel less guilty or nauseous.

[Cajungal]

I had a nightmare a while back that I was in a dark house that was nothing but bedrooms from my memory--my parents, my old one, the one in my apartment, my grandma's guest room, etc...

So I'm in a bed trying to sleep, and a light start shining through the crack at the bottom of the door. I hear this angry, accusing voice on the other side. When I open the door, it's dark and no one is there. So I change bedrooms again and again but the same thing keeps happening. The voice gets angrier and angrier, and the light gets brighter. Finally, I fall asleep, and right before I wake up, I can see from a ceiling POV that two long, grotesque arms are hovering over me. Then I woke up.

Most of my dreams are either funny or very beautiful. I had one where I lived in a seaside kingdom that was made up of little plateaued islands connected by rickety bridges. When you crossed them, enormous waves would swell up and you'd get sprayed with cool water. There were whales below us swimming together and playing. I dream about whales a lot, and about water and other sea creatures.

[Chibibar]

I have one dream that is consider memorable or impacting.

I am on this island somewhere. It is a place I never been before (except in my dreams) I do get this dream once in a while and it is the same event. Last time I dream of this was about 10 years ago give or take. On this island there is a wooden bridge that goes to the other side where a wooden hut resides. Inside the hut is my dying father. I am suppose to cross this bridge and get to him, but the bridge is like 1000 feet tall. I look down and there are sharp rocks with dancing "feet" think of those shoe inserts but shape of a foot (toes and all) with different bright colors dancing around. To this day I have no idea what it means, but each time I have the dream, I couldn't cross the bridge (it was like 300 feet long or something and look like it is falling apart) every time I try to cross it, the bridge broke and I fall toward the jagged rocks and those feet and wake up.

I think I always feel guilty that I was too young to save my father from leukemia with bone marrow transplant.

[Frank]

My most common dreams usually involve my friends and family and coworkers telling me what a piece of shit I am. Seriously, at least once a week. What does this say about a person?

[Necronic]

My brother has a recurring character that shows up in his nightmares. He calls it the Spider King. It is all powerful and it exists only to hate. It can travel through time and can reach anywhere. The only thing protecting you is that while it hates with a total obsession, it hates everything equally so you just have to stay out of his attention range.

[Gusto]

I tend to have three styles of dreams:

1) Dreams wherein I am incredibly violent, despite mentally wanting to stop or restrain myself.

2) Dreams wherein I am socially awkward. Last night I had a dream where I went to a formal party and was chatting amicably with three girls that I knew or have had crushes on in the past. After a minute or so, I notice that I'm just wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and everyone else is wearing formal wear in earthy brown tones. I am sticking out like a sore thumb but everyone's trying to make me feel welcome anyway, and I am incredibly ashamed.

3) Dreams that are so hyper-realistic and normal that I can only conclude my mind is trying to confuse itself. I've literally had a dream in which I was sleeping and woke up from a dream, at which point I woke up in real life.

[Shakey]

The only dreams I remember are ones where I'm doing fairly normal interactions with people. I never remember my nightmares or really strange dreams. Although I do have dreams where for some reason I'm trying to scream, but no matter how hard I try nothing comes out. Then I wake up and I'm actually screaming. I never remember whats going on to make me want to scream though. Happens at least once a month or so.

[Necronic]

I don't have these dreams so much anymore, but holy cow were they annoying. It would almost always be when I was napping. God I miss napping.

So here's the dream. I wake up, I look at the clock and go outside, I sit and smoke a ciggarette. Everything gets fuzzy. I wake up, I look at the clock and go outside, I sit and smoke a ciggarette. Everything gets fuzzy. I wake up.......

I have had these go on for more cycles than I could keep track of.

[GasBandit]

I used to have a recurring dream that involved walking to the grocery store to buy antiperspirant. It stopped after college.

Up until a few years ago I used to have a recurring dream about having pennies lodged between all my teeth (one per).

But my most commonly recurring dream is... dreaming about whatever current MMO or RTS I'm playing a lot at the time. When I played EQ, I constantly had dreams about grinding exp. Pulling, tanking, spanking. Same in WoW. But in DAOC and now in Warhammer Online, I had recurring dreams of long, drawn out siege battles involving trebuchets, boiling oil, fire, screaming, the clash of steal and the crumbling of stone. Sometimes I wake up from these exhausted.

The REALLY interesting ones are when the book I'm reading mixes with the game I'm playing... Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium + Warhammer Online = a very entertaining dream.

[LittleSin]

I have a lot of dreams that stick with me. Some of them have become short stories. There's one, though, that has endured for nearly 18 years. I've only had this dream once but it still freaks me out when I think of it....and others find it funny.

I'm walking through the woods beind the house we lived in at the time. I wasn't allowed to be there. Teenagers go out there to smoke and drink, then they smash the beer bottles so its dangerous. I know I'm not allowed to be there but the wood seemed...different. They were more welcoming this time...and bigger. The sun is shining through the trees making ther leaves turn golden....soon i can't seen my house but this doesn't bother me. I see a large pine cone and I pick it up. I continue walking while holding it...I guess I dropped it at some point because I soon can't feel it in my palm anymore.

I come across a rushing river. For some reason this scares me and I know I shouldn't go any further...looking back the woods have changed. They've become dark and grotesque. I stand there, not sure what to do, and I start scratching the back of my left hand.

I keep scratching and it starts to hurt. I look down to find the skin on the back of my hand peeling away like paint peels off an old house. I can't stop scratching, even though it hurts...there's something in under that skin and blood. It's texture is rough and ridged beneathe my nails. I stare as the pine cone I had picked up is revealed, except it black and bloody and...and....it's taking root in my hand.

I woke up screaming so loud that my Dad very nearly shat himself.

[Rob King]

Some dreams that have stuck with me:

A dream from Junior High about my mother dying. Seriously, it was a very intense, real-feeling dream. When I woke up, my mother was at work (she is a nurse, so she was doing a night shift) so all through breakfast I swear to God I thought my mother was dead.

A dream from late in High School where I raped a good friend of mine. I had always thought she was cute, but had never felt any sort of strong feelings for her. I felt so sick about that dream that for a month or two afterward I found it difficult to look her straight in the eye.

More recently I've been having a disproportionate number of dreams about getting back with my ex. For the first two weeks we were broken up, because every morning I'd wake up and it's like I had to deal with being dumped all over again. In the last week I've had that dream twice, but it's less of a shock to wake up and realize that things are over now.

[drifter]

I occasionally have these terrifyingly vivid dreams where my teeth crumble apart my mouth. The funny thing is I never used to have these dreams until I read a book where one of the main characters has these terrifyingly vivid dreams about his teeth crumbling apart in his mouth.

Good book, though.

[Terrik]

Ive had those teeth crumbling dreams too. I always wake sure my mouth isnt bloody and empty.

Well, time to brush my teeth again.

[drifter]

Oh, that reminds me; that dream really hit home when one day my molar started crumbling apart in my mouth! Apparently I had broken apart a chunk of tooth where I had a rather large filling. You can imagine the creeping horror that I felt when I noticed, oh hey, my tooth seems to be breaking apart. Well, let's just check in the mirror and AAGH MY GOD MY NIGHTMARE HAS COME TRUUUUE! That was not a good day

[PCT]

This varies a bit, but it's been off and on like this for awhile. I'm sitting naked in front of the fridge, on the floor. grabbing stuff from the fridge, eating too much, and it's all junk food. I'm just cramming it in, not really even trying to chew, just swallow, and then my teeth fall out, on by one, and out of the tooth holes in my gums pours handfuls of shiny wet black spiders that sting my skin, and there are thousands and hundreds of thousands of spiders and sting welts, so my skin starts to turn black, like ash, really dry out and crack, like burnt chicken skin from the BBQ, and I start peeling of strips of skin-flakes, and underneath the skin the spider stings have turned my flesh into something like sticky, pink melted marshmellows, but it's my body. So there I am, blackened skin flaking and falling off, pulling myself apart, vomiting spiders, and my son enters the room, and starts screaming. Then I wake up.

[escushion]

I've had worse nightmares, but I remember my most annoying dream being that I woke up in the dream, got ready for school, did all my classes, came home, got off the bus, thought "Finally, school's done!"...

And then my alarm goes off. Time to wake up and go to school. "But I just fucking did that!" I should've feigned ill.

[Steven Soderburgin]

once when i was 15 i dreamed that I was being chased by batman

which was awesome because batman's rogue's gallery fucking owns.

[ThatNickGuy]

When I was a kid, the house I lived in had this long flight of stairs into the basement. And it scared the crap out of me when the lights were off and I couldn't see the very bottom. I used to have nightmares of being dragged down there by unseen things. Or joining into the dream already down there, knowing there was something down there with me. I'd try to rush out and it'd drag me back down. Never saw it, either. Of course, once we moved, the dreams stopped. I still have that little bit of fear of something sneaking up out of nowhere on me, though.

One reoccuring dream I've had for years - and really, this should surprise no one - is that I can fly. It's funny how it gradually became flying. At first, I could only jump, then jump and maybe kinda hover for a few seconds, then flying really slow, then flying a little faster, etc. And one, I even remember doing a patrol around the city. I saw a car being chased by some cops, so I swooped down and held the car to the ground, the cars screeching. I ripped off the driver door, went to pull the guy out...he put a gun to my forehead, pulled the trigger...and the bullet bounced off. It was so. fucking. awesome.

I haven't had a Superman dream in a long time, that I can remember, though.

[Tinwhistler]

You know, how most dreams seem surreal, but there are some dreams that are so real they just shake you? I had one of those once when I was 8 years old. It wasn't scary, or weird, or anything. I just dreamed that I was a girl named Gloria. I was sitting under a tree, talking with some other friends, and having a picnic. Simple. But it was so real feeling that it stuck with me for years, and I really identified with that girl that I was in the dream.

It caused me a lot of gender identity issues (which I mostly kept to myself) all the way until my 20's. I often felt like I really should be a girl, even though I was primarily attracted to women sexually, and did a lot of soul searching and thought around those concepts.

Sometime in my mid-20's, I gradually left those thoughts behind, and looking back, it really shocks me how one dream as a kid could have such a lasting effect on my psyche.

[Terrik]

There was this one other..."dream" I guess. I was in my bedroom and I dreamed that a shadowy figure was watching me in my room. It was faceless and completely dark and then it started to walk towards me with outstretched hands towards my bed and I let out a scream and tried to punch it to find nothing there. The thing is I "woke" up sitting up leaning forward as if I had tried to punch something. It's still hard for me to figure out if I was actually sleeping or what but it was pretty surreal.

Also, it scared the crap out of me.

[Cheesy1]

Usually I can tell early on that I'm in a dream, and I start to manipulate it to my will. I also have recurring "Dream Cities." These places don't exist in reality, but in my dreams they always seem laid out the same and I know where everything is because I've dreamt of them so many times. But when I wake up, I can't remember much about them at all.

My one recurring nightmare I know for sure of is that I'm back in college, it's the day of a huge final, and I know jack shit because I haven't been in class all semester. I hate that dream.

[Silver Jelly]

I love my dreams (and dreams in general) because most often than not they can be interpreted as messages from the brain. They create a symbolic story to express our current (or not so current) fears or wishes, or to re-elaborate and assume something that is happening or has happenned to us. Sometimes, I don't understand what my dreams mean, but I can usually imagine with what parts of my daily life and thoughts they relate...
But I have another kind of dream that is related to my thoughts in a much stronger way. They all have something in common: They represent the ending of a lengthy mental process of mine, they generally bring me to react to something and, in the dream, they recreate tactile feeling, wich my other dreams don't have.

Some years ago, I really liked a very good friend. I had been flirting with her for a long time, but didn't tell her anything directly because I was afraid of rejection... even if I was almost fully convinced that she liked me too. One night, I dreamt that some friends, this girl and me were walking to a parking (a real one that for some reason stuck with me since childhood and has been a realitvely recurring place in my dreams). The friends went inside, to get their cars. This wasn't a normal Parking, though: Inside, it was some kind of maze of ramps, so my friends would have to spend a long time inside, looking for their cars and getting them out of there.
This girl I liked and me stayed outside, where there suddenly was a nice porch. She sat on a rocking chair, I said some trivial sentence and she looked at me and asked me when was I going to tell her.
I tried to look as if I didn't know what she was talking about. "Tell you?"
"Yes. Do you think I'm stupid? I know everything. So, when are you going to tell me?"
And then, knowing that she knew and she wanted me to make it "official", I didn't talk, but I leaned forward and kissed her. I felt the kiss, and woke up still feeling her lips on mine.
And that set in motion the cahin of events in wich I told her and she said she didn't like me at all...

There was this other time, also some years ago, in wich I considered myself to be bisexual. I liked men and women more or less the same (I still liked women a little more, but not by much) for some time, some years even.
But one night I had a dream in wich I was sentenced to prison. An incredibly large cement prison, with a massive arena in the middle and several rooms and cells connected to it. I was taken to a group of people, all men, dressed up in grey rags. We all had to go to this arena... to fight the dominant male of the prison, a very muscular dude that was the leader of the other group, wich included all the women. Nobody wanted to fight him, so it was me who had to do it. right before the fight, muscle guy's girl, wich happenned to be my childhood crush (as an adult) explained me that we fought for dominance of the prison grounds and that if I won my group would be the important one... and me, as the fighter (and leader) would have access to the women.
So I won, and my childhood crush and I were left alone in one of the rooms. We had sex, but it wasn't a pleaseant experience: It hurt a lot, it was an intense phisical thing that hurt terribly but had to be done. After a lengthy time feeling this pain from fucking this very very hot girl that was also my childwhood crush, I woke up feeling real pain, and I stayed laying in bed, still feeling this pain, when I realised I wasn't bisexual anymore. And that's me right now: at best, I'm bicurious.

This kind of dream with a phisical sensation that survives for a while when I wake up is generally the turning point in a mental process that I had in my head for a long time and on wich I had been working mostly subconsciously for a long time. It's weird, but I find it to be very interesting.

I have many more dream stuff to tell, but I'm tired of battling with my terrible english, so I'll just leave it here.

[bhamv3]

What kills me is that when I woke up I felt a sense of loss like I haven’t felt in a long time.

I totally, totally, totally get this feeling. I once had a dream involving a girl, a girl I'd never seen before, and I cannot recall what she looks like now. But I woke up hating myself for waking up.

This was, like, fifteen years ago. I don't remember what the dream was about, or what the girl was doing, but I remember that feeling when I woke up.

[Gusto]

My dreams are rooted too heavily in my shameful reality.

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

My dreams are rooted too heavily in my shameful reality.

Mine too. It's why they must remain a secret, for all time.

[Officer_Charon]

I get work-related dreams all the time, as well as dreams where I'm back in boot camp, except I've already been through, so I know what to do, and I'm working as a guide for the rest of the platoon, but I can't keep up physically.

[David]

I just wrote about this in Halchat, I had a dream last night where I discovered one of my RL friends was a forumite/lurker and I was worried she'd see something I had written about her in the rant thread. The idea honestly creeped me out.

[Matt²]

Had one last night that I was in a haunted house (again!.. what is it with me and haunted places?!) .. the ghost was invisible, but everyone was avoiding a specific room where the ghost was. Of course, I went in and started telling the ghost to get out.. at that moment, I was hearing the ghost start to speak one of those phrases that sends people fleeing out of rooms.. when I woke up.. and heard an audible "NO" in my right ear. Awake. Yipes!

[Silver Jelly]

I don't remember the details, because I had to wake up in the middle of the night to close the window (it was raining) and that was the moment I could have told you how everything went... But apparently i had a dream tonight in wich Kelsey Grammer (and getting his autograph) represented girls and being loved by them.
I met him at a library, in wich he was waiting before doing some live show, nd worked hard to convince him to sign an autograph for my brother, who has a collection of them, and one for me, as a big fan. (I've also been compared to Frasier, and my brother to Niles. And my father to Martin) I finally got him to sign a very lengthy one for my brother, that occupied two pages of my appointment book (is that how it's called?).
Then, I got two other pages ready for MY autograph. He picked up the pen again, and was about to sign when he apparently forgot, stood up and left.
He then began his show, a stand up comedy thing in wich he played a character similar to Frasier (I remeber he had brought with him some sound graphs that were meant to represent the different kinds of opera according to his character). I decided I was going to sit through it, painfully though because seeing him saddened me and got me kind of angry because he simply ignored me at the last moment. But I was going to watch all his show hoping to be able to approach him when he finished it and, beginning from scratch, trying to get him to sign me an autograph.

Guess wich one of the Jelly brothers has been in a romantic relationship for some time and wich one has had a promising pre-romantic relationship with a girl that suddenly ignored him just to slowly begin again to give signs of her existance. And wich one hasn't been able to let go and feels, even if he knows it isn't true, like this is like a second beginning for their possible relationship?

[mr_thehun]

In first year of University, I had a series of dreams that when I went to sleep I fell through a secret door into another world. All I remember from the dreams is this girl that I met there who always greeted me like we had known each other forever but I always forgot her at the beginning of my dream. We would go on crazy adventures that ultimately led us to stopping the apocolypse. It was fun and the life I had always wished I could lead (instead of being a desk jockey)

Everytime I woke up I thought about her until the next time I saw her in my sleep. Is it sad that I think I loved the idea of her more than anything I have ever experienced in real life? The emotions were so intense that I even thought about her when I was dating. I would hear her voice occasionally during the day when I would pass by people and I would look around to try and see her and then one day it all stopped. Although I still (six years later) remember what she looked and sounded like.

I think that this is the reason why I ultimately started studying Psychology. I was fairly certain I was going insane.

I have also had plenty of dreams about my teeth crumbling to pieces. I think that XKCD has a comic about it.

[Silver Jelly]

I have a short story about this kind of dream girl. She lived in a bidet, though.

[Necronic]

Another of my brother's messed up dreams. He's sitting strapped into a chair that is bolted to the ground. One of his arms is tied down. The other is holding a brown paper sack closed. It is filled with black widows.

[fade]

I have vivid dreams all the time. The ones I remember seem to have a well-contained plot that somehow wraps up before I wake. I have a lot of zombie and flying dreams, which are probably both related to stress. Zombies represent the stress, and the flying represents a freedom from it. The flying dreams are almost exclusively at night, and by now, I know there's a specific set of actions I have to do to become airborne. I almost always seem to be discovering I can fly for the first time every time it happens. I usually take off from somewhere I know, but when I get airborne, I see things on the ground that I didn't see before, like the woods behind my house aflame. When I was a kid, I used to think I was astral walking, because I could make out the tops of buildings in detail I didn't think I could possibly know. And the weird stuff was spirit world stuff that you could only see like that.