Thursday, April 10, 2008

bad dreams


I sleep well. I fall asleep easily and don't wake up until morning. But somewhere in the middle of almost every night, I'm visited by nightmares. There's nothing particularly original about them. There's the fire dream, the falling dream, the dream where I've committed some terrible crime, the dream where I can't breathe. Often they'll rewind and start over and the second time, it's just as terrifying and sometimes more so, since I know exactly what's about to happen and I can't make it stop. Last night, I dreamed of dancing and the flash of long knives. In the dream, I was screaming, but when I woke up, except for a dull thumping coming from the courtyard, the night was absolutely silent.

What are your dreams like?

33 comments:

the dragonfly said...

I've been having nightmares lately...for three or four months, actually. The same one every night, with slight variations. I actually try to avoid going to bed at night. Every night.

*sigh*

Caro said...

Mostly I don't remember them but I when I do they are usually easily explainable. Like the one I had the other morning after S left early to be away on business overnight. Basically in the dream I went into labour and had the baby before he could get back.

Bea said...

I had a nightmare last night that I was kissing one of my students. Not even an attractive one. It was horrible.

Tash said...

I had a dream I was lying on the floor next to my stapled up, dripping dog, trying to sleep. Then I woke up and found my head on the dogbed, lying on the floor . . . one of these days I'll sleep long enough to dream something.

beagle said...

Most times, I can't remember any details, I just wake up in a state of unease that's really hard to shake.

Aunt Becky said...

I have random nightmares that I'm being chased by the mafia. Oh! And I've been having those dreams that you're crying in your dream and you wake up and you've soaked the pillow with tears.

DD said...

Lately, it's been about dead babies, sadly. Last night there was a twist: the baby was alive but severely deformed.

If I don't dream about that, I have the swimming/falling/running kind of dreams. With the swimming one since I get it so often, I can usually consciously control it, which is nice b/c then I'm swimming under water and able to breathe.

Rachel said...

My dreams are usually very vivid. People I haven't thought of in years usually pop into them. Whenever my house is involved, it never looks like our house or any house I have every been too.

I have lots of stressful dreams, not nightmares but dreams that make me anxious.

Antropóloga said...

I have stressful dreams a lot. And I cry in them. But I mostly don't remember them in the morning, thank goodness.

E. Phantzi said...

funny - I just posted about a couple recent dreams. I usually have vivid dreams that I remember in detail, but rarely nightmares. Just completely bizarro stuff. E.g., I had a baby, but it was a printer cartridge.

Amanda said...

I have frequent nightmares, too. The most common theme in all of my nightmares is that I'll lose my children who remain on Earth.

For example, in a dream just this week, I combined a TV show I'd just watched (Earth without People, or something like that, on the Discovery channel), a post I'd written about not being a pet lover, and getting arrested for a "terrible" crime (something that does not occur in real life, just to be clear).

I dreamed I abandoned some cats (which I would never do) inside the workings of the Hoover Dam (an influence from that TV show), which apparently was a Federal crime because the police instantly surrounded me with weapons drawn (since abandoning cats on Federal property is so much worse than abuse, rape, and murder).

Instead of being shocked that my subconsious self abandons cats, visits Dams, and gets arrested, I was CONSUMED with the fact that I was losing my children. I woke up so troubled that I didn't sleep the rest of the night and spent many hours the rest of the next day sort of reminding myself that it had all been just a dream.

Aurelia said...

I dream lately about the naked in public dream, and even about the didn't study for an exam and now I have to write it.

Very strange, but most of my worst nightmares right now happen just as I wake up, like dreaming about tripping and dropping a baby over a ledge. Or screwing something else baby-related up.

Then again, that's sort of like an exam I'm not prepared for, isn't it?

c. said...

My dreams are just boring. I'm looking for a bit of excitement when I sleep but nothing yet.

Love mannequins like the ones you have pictured. I have one of my own at home that I bought when a major department store in Canada closed. Most people think having it is weird. Anyway, love that pic.

LawMommy said...

I often dream that I am at work and have failed to do something vitally important that has ruined my client's life/ cost them a huge amount of money. I usually wake up from these terrified that I have really made the mistake I was dreaming about.

I also tend to have weird nightmares about dentists, or having so many teeth in my mouth that I cannot close it, or having teeth growing down through the roof of my mouth. (Maybe I should look up "teeth" in a dream analysis book...)

I also get the "naked in public" dream occasionally.

Gretchen

Magpie said...

I rarely remember my dreams. Or I remember them for 30 seconds, and then POOF, they're gone.

Long ago, I used to have a recurrent dream of ice-skating, on a rink. But the ice was crossed with 6" wide strips of concrete - imbedded in the ice so there was a flat surface, but you were skating along on ice and then stopped short by the concrete strip. One could have a field day with that dream. I've not had it in many many years.

Furrow said...

Lately, I don't remember them. Or if I do, they're dull. I used to have vivid dreams. My recurring nightmares were of tornadoes. I was always responsible for getting a large group of people to safety. How egotistical is that?

Since your nightmares repeat themselves throughout the night, have you considered trying lucid dreaming? When you fall asleep again after waking from one, tell yourself you will remain conscious and in control when you re-enter it. Yeah, easier said than done, but you can find guidance on how to train yourself.

Amelie said...

When I work too late, I dream about it -- proteins and posters and all that. Unfortunately, I've worked too long basically every day in the last 2 weeks. I hope that and the protein nightmares are over for a while now, though.

Anonymous said...

I usually dream about the day or things that I'm stressed about.

Anonymous said...

Long, complicated, and narrative.

I don't always remember them the morning after, but when I do, there's always been a lot going on. Sometimes it's like I have a whole other life in my dreams. There are recurring houses and neighborhoods, rolling hills and seascapes, and elaborate bridges over rocky wastelands. I sometimes find myself abandoned on ledges of mountains too steep to climb up or down. Once I "woke up" on top of a billboard at night high above a city I've never seen before. I'll often have a dream set in a house (or place), which I will recognize in the dream as being from a previous dream ("Oh, right, this is the house with the warren of secret rooms in the basement with the sewing paraphernalia and the boiler room with the scary tunnel...")

More than you wanted to know, perhaps, but there you have it.

Unknown said...

I regularly have nightmares. They usually involve a dark, undefined, menacing figure either breaking in or otherwise meaning to do me harm. I always have a moment of trying to scream, without being able to. At least, I used to not be able to. I remember the first time I realized while dreaming that I can actually scream-- out loud, in real life. Now I frequently wake up my poor husband with my screaming. When my mother is bothering me or causing me angst, I always dream about spiders.

Unknown said...

I often have dreams about being chased. I usually hide and I know that it's the stupidest hiding place in the world and that in a few minutes I will be found, but I can't find anywhere else to hide. That, or our house gets broken into.

Anonymous said...

Like furrow I used to have dreams about weather events and getting people to safety. Other dreams involved spectacular airplane crashes. But lately I've either been dreaming about running out of time or being late for something or dreaming that I'm missing vital pieces of information or papers (passport, class schedule or a school locker combination (even though I've been out of school for a long, long time)).

Awake said...

My dreams that I remember tend to be elaborate, drawn out, with lots of turns and twists. Usually connecting various people/places/things I'm anxious about at that moment. I bore my husband with the details most mornings.

Thank you for your recent sweet comment on my blog, Niobe. You're a doll.

Anonymous said...

Im not a great sleeper and I can get up in the morning and tell S about 4 different dreams I have had. Some are dreams, some nightmares and some are just so strange its not funny. I have been thinking of adding a 'lastnights dream' section to my blog. My dreams are so out there that Im sure it would give everyone a good giggle. In the last month I have been a Fireman (lady) in one of my dreams. A FBI agent (I dream about working for the police and FBI alot and I always have a gun and when I wake im so excited) and just this week I had a dream I was a cowgirl and had to save my pub from the bad cowboys!!! WFT???? I dont even drink! lol

Hugs
xxx

Guera! said...

My dreams are very vivid usually and I remember them when I wake up but not always by the end of the day. The other night I dreamt I was on a plane that was barreling down the runway to take off and I started screaming at the pilot to stop the plane and let me off and he did.

RBandRC said...

BIZARRE. I find that lately my sleeping state and my awake state seem to be overlapping at times. As a result, I can't always remember if something has happened in a dream or in real life. It is quite annoying actually.

Maggie said...

Yikes - nightmares are the worst.

I don't usually have nightmares, but I have very, very vivid dreams. And they end up actually happening about 95% of the time...even I have to admit, it's a heck of a track record.

I don't always remember the details, but because what I dream about seems to come true so often, I started keeping a pen and paper by my bed to write things down. While I don't ever remember doing it, I frequently wake up with little notes written down.

Emily said...

My dreams are incredibly clear. Uncomfortably so when they are bad dreams.

Julia said...

I have not had any dreams that I remember in what feels like months. And then last night I had a nightmarish-type dream that was connected enough to real life to be very convincing. My sister was thrilled to hear the words her wedding and nightmare in the same sentence this morning.
Before this, last time I had a run of these very unpleasant dreams/nightmares was in the aftermath last year.
I am just worried this one will be the first of many, and the subject matter may change.

Christine said...

my dreams are very, very vivid every night. that means that when the nightmares come they are beyond terrifying.

i'm sorry that you suffer from them nightly. i used, too, but somehow they dissipated and i am (usually) ok.

Lollipop Goldstein said...

I had a terrible dream last night with Nazis invading the US. It seems silly when I write it like that, but I woke up completely upset.

Kami said...

Lately I have been dreaming about my teen-hood. Going to a job I didn't like, not being able to find my locker, odd situations with my siblings and parents. That and dreams about my dead grandparents are probably 80% of my dreams.

Antigone said...

My entire life I've had the same nightmare: being shot in the stomach. I've experienced the pain and the burning of the wound so often that I think I know exactly how it would feel. Crazy?