Weird dreams

Am I the only one who has weird dreams at night?
My brother, for example, always, always dreamt about totally normal, regular and possible things, like going over to his neighbor for a chat.

If I remember a nightly dream, it tends to be quite a weird one:

- about being a (male) surgeon who needs to climb a rock to get to the cafeteria and falls to his death (this was a recurring dream during elementary school)
- about being two (male) scientists, an araeologist and a microbiologist who dioscovered a sunken realm under a giant sand castle in the school yard (recurring dream during high school)
- about being a (male) barbarian who could fly with the help of a bedsheet (high school)
- about being a (male) murderer who, when fleeing before the police, discovered that he was dead already (Uni time dream)
- sometimes I dream movies, in color or black and white, but complete with title, credits etc. Sometimes even in several parts.
- sometimes I dream of a town with cobblestone streets. I invariably are there on vacation, and I always discover fine things to buy. This wasn't so weird if I actually knew the town, but I don't.


Last night I dreamt I was myself (happens rarely enough) and met Marvel Comics' Gambit on the bus. He was actually rather nice and charming, but I stole his cards because I was a secret agent. Later on I met with my secret agent colleagues, and one colleague berated me for telling the others about her planned beauty farm vacation...
Well, I'm not a secret agent , I never met this colleague before, and the last time I read a Marvel comic book was during my time at U...

So... if you have weird dreams... you you dare to share them here ?

I have plenty of weird dreams. Some of them are very hard to put in words. In one of them, I was a small cube hopping from fence-post to fence-post on a wire fence somewhere that looked like Mars; eventually something big and bluish that growled was about to eat me, but then I woke up.

Lets face it Jaz you want to be a male.

I also have weird dreams sometimes but they are really weird weird and makes no sense. Like one time I am going to the zoo, and there is a steep steep slope and the zoo is at the top, I keep walking and walking but never arrive at the zoo.

I understand your perplexity, Jaz. I often have long episodic dreams with the detail, plot and dialogue of movies which involve myself and/or people I know doing improbable things, and segue into weirder and weirder situations (though I don't think I've ever been a cube). And many times I'm the protagonist and I'm male because let's face it, that's what the protagonist often is.

I have had only 2 recurring dreams in my life--one is of a tornado, which I must outrun and save people from, and the other is being endlessly lost on the bus in Chicago (where I haven't lived for thirty some years now.)

Worst nightmare, ever, was during my second divorce, I dreamed of my soon-to-be-ex as a shuffling living corpse controlled by an evil vampiress--scared the living crap out of me at the time, especially when I died.

I've had some really crazy ass dreams. I'll try to recall some...

- My father and I were fighting for opposite sides during the American Civil War. Our regements (or whatever the army called them back then) had to fight a really brutal battle against each other. Every single man died except for me and my father. We had our guns pointed at each other, looked around at all of the bodies, shrugged and said, "fuck it." We dropped our weapons and went home.

- Remember the "old camp" castle in G2? I dreamt I was a guard trapped in there with a handful of other guards. A co-worker, at the time, was the leader of the remaining guards but he was freaking out and wanted to open the gate. I knew that was a bad idea so I stuck my sword through him. The rest of the guards then killed me.

- I have a lot of dreams about zombies but I can't remember any specifics right now.

- I'm standing at the edge of a yard staring across the street into the other yard. Staring back at me are two red headed girls, twins. Nothing is ever said, in fact, there is no sound. We don't move. We just stare at each other. I've had this dream many times since I was a child.

- An alien came to me and told me she was from "the sixth star to the east." She was blue but this was years before Mass Effect.

EDIT: A dream I get once in a while is: I do drugs and it seems so real that when I wake up I'm afraid to go to work because I might get a random urinalysis.

I once dreamed that I'm dreaming that I was falling from a mountain but I woke up before hitting the water however when I woke up I discovered that I'm still falling and hit the water and started drowning, then of course I woke up for real

And since I watched the movie Requiem for a Dream 2 weeks ago I've been dreaming that I'm running in a desert with the music from the movie playing in the background

@PJ: Your cube dream sounds like an old arcade oder newer handheld game .

@GG: I know that my animus *is* strong, so my male dream persona is not what I find perplexing. Some of the rare dreams where I was myself centered around falling through an exam (which didn't happen) or me killing one of my teachers with a crystal ashtray (which *might* have happened had there been a crystal ashtray at our high school ). But some things are so... way out, so far-fetched, so un-connected to my real life that I actually wonder what makes me dream of them.

@magerette: some of my high school dreams revolved around me (...a boy in short pants) fleeing some angry mob in a towering building. I usually was cornered in the building's basement or wash room, then I woke up. A friend of mine used to dream that she was on some criminal's trail when he turned around and hunted *her*.
Your worst nightmare sounds like an Ed Wood movie!

@Korplem: You probably played too much G2 . Apart from that, those are some weird dreams, man! Especially the drug one.

@Poly: A dream in a dream, that's so Philipp K. Dick.

Jaz said:

Last night I dreamt I was myself (happens rarely enough) and met Marvel Comics' Gambit on the bus. He was actually rather nice and charming, but I stole his cards because I was a secret agent. Later on I met with my secret agent colleagues, and one colleague berated me for telling the others about her planned beauty farm vacation...
Well, I'm not a secret agent , I never met this colleague before, and the last time I read a Marvel comic book was during my time at U...

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Well, I enjoy dreaming a lot, especially the weird kind .
Also, sometimes it may be quite a fun deciphering them in some way, even though it's usually wrong.
For example, one way your last night dream could be interpreted would be like this:
You feel the need to break out of the daily routine (vacation) to be able to utilize your potential more and grow further (farm). You don't like to take yourself seriously (comics), are scared of being unoriginal (on bus) but you're able to retain your individuality via your hidden powers (secret agent) which are good timing, strategizing or even bluffing (cards) .
Also, if you're dreaming about being on bus more often it may be just a reflection of you being a moderator of a public forum.
Of course, this is probably all BS but I just wanted to offer an example of explanation which may make the dream feel not that weird.

magerette said:

I have had only 2 recurring dreams in my life--one is of a tornado....

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I also had a period during which I quite often dreamt about tornados, which was quite weird since I live in Czech Republic. Also, during that time, for some unclear reason I was scared of loosing my family members more than before.
Since tornado is a phenomenon which is quite capable to steal one's beloved, it probably wasn't a coincidence. I've never dreamt of tornadoes since I realized this.


One of my favourite recent weird dream was when I was a character in a pilot episode of some new TV series. It involved a bus ride, big scary hotel, nuclear blast, crawling on the top wall and a four legged clapping monster which ended up being a man with two canes.
Interesting thing was that while I was genuinely scared throughout, I also realized that since it's being the pilot episode it needs a lot of hooks, interesting characters and suspense and I was actively trying to create those.
Finally, I came to the conclusion that we are all extraterestrials living on Earth and we're not aware of that. So, throughout the series we first have to realize this fact, then investigate the reason for that, why we've lost our memories and where we're from.
After that a man in the black cloak and black hat came in, threatened to kill us all, I jumped out of the window and the pilot episode ended.

My favourite dreams are probably the flying ones and sometimes I get a lucid dream which is the absolute best since I can do whatever I choose to. Usually it's flying or some nsfw stuff .

Sorry for getting carried away a bit, that mate rancho I had today was probably too strong, eh.

I don't remember most of my dreams. There's one dream i particularly remember as i'm in extreme fear in a 3D fractal-like world, generally dark colored, fragmented geometrical structures arbitrarily moving, morphing all around me. It's just too much, too weird for a 10 years kid to recognised the fractal art, so i waked up screaming and crying.

I often dream that I'm in a movie and have the opportunity to change the plot. Warning the good or the bad guys (depends on whom I favored during the movie) for danger, that sort of thing.

Another dream is that I only remember that I can fly. It's very disturbing, since I only remember it from being a 4y old and that my parents prevented it.

The gothic dream is also one of my favourites and is much like the movie dreams. You want to change the plot somehow because you know what will happen if not.

I have reoccuring nightmares... but I know they are fear based. Two relate to my cats.
The first one I hear the front door "beep beep beep" and I am in bed with my cats. My partner isn't home and I panic because someone is in the house. I hear a dog growl, it's a big dog and I hear a man say "get it" and I can hear the dog coming up the stairs. I grab the cats and put them in the shelf at the top of the cpuboard and get the door closed just as the dog starts attacking me. I'm on the ground and trying to curl up in a ball because I know I'm not going to be able to fight off a rotti. Then the man comes into the room with a baseball bat and just as I die he opens the cupboard and I die knowing my cats are going to die horribly.
Second reoccurring dream is again about the cats. I am late home from work and as I enter the front door I see the cats lying on the stairs. Someone has broken in and shot them. I grab a blanket and wrap the cats up. My girl is cold and I know I can't save her. I can feel my boys heart beating and I grab him and run outside with him. His breathing is laboured and I realise someone has taken my car and there is no one around. I run down the street, thinking I can make it to the vet and save at least one of my cats. As I get to the street the vet is on my boy stops breathing and by the time I get to the vet it's too late.
Third reoccurring dream is about my family. I am a police officer and arrive at an accident scene. The first cop on the scene warns me it's bad- it's always bad when a drunk truckie hits a small passenger car. I go over to the car and my mum, two sisters and my nephew are in the car, dead and mangled. I walk up to the truckie and say "you drunk?" and he says "yeah, so what" and I pull my gun out and shoot him in the head.
I do have a nice reoccuring dream of my dream house. I walk up the driveway at the star of the dream and then go through the different rooms.

Probably the weirdest dreams that I couldn't understand would be either the one where I am lying in bed dreaming I'm awake trying to get to sleep and a little mouse climbs out of the pocket of the jacket hanging over a chair. The mouse eats a thread, and eats and eats until it explodes. Then I wake up. Alternatively it may be the one where I am a penguin on little block of lice floating in the middle of nowhere.
I have also had a dream that I was the female Hulk and when a co-worker annoyed me I would vibrate like Pikachu, expand and turn green, smack her around with the computer keyboard and then staple her mouth closed..... but that may just be because she enjoys being a nasty piece of work....

@Bartacus I hav dreams I am in the movies- but I wish my imagination would make me Angelina Jolie or Monica Belluci instead of always being cast as Kathy Bates' sister.

Those are some heavy-weight dreams, Kayla. I hope you also have some good ones to offset the dreams of loss. At one time in my life I had similar ones, but apparently I've worked through all that just by becoming old and decrepit.

Th dreams from various people about houses and rooms are interesting. The CW on that is that the house represents your self, I think, and exploring the rooms is visiting various parts of your psyche. I really recommend a book by Carl Jung called Man and his Symbols for anyone that wants to know a little bit more about symbolism in dreams--plus it has really neat pictures.

Jaz wrote:

Your worst nightmare sounds like an Ed Wood movie!

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You should have seen the marriage! More like a Quentin Tarentino flick.

It is interesting to me as I look back, and now talking to my kids about their own crazy dreams how things change through the years. I no longer dream of my high school, for example, though I did for many years even after finishing undergrad years ...

I have so many that it's almost pathetic. Some of the more interesting ones are the lucid ones, in which you realize you are dreaming. In one such dream after coming to this realization, that I was dreaming, a voice said "Ok, so you are dreaming, here are your choices, wake up or continue dreaming." Right I though to myself and continued to dream, though no longer lucidly.

I was in what I knew was a heavenly realm, but it was not what we usually think of as heaven. A nurse was attending to a patient, a paraplegic. Another nurse motioned to me and the first nurse looked me over as if she where assessing me.
Then she shook her head, as if in rejection, and I fell through the planes. And incredibly rapid decent through various bands of color, each representing a different plane of existence, or vibration level, lets says thousands. Then I hit sand and was in a sort of hell. Nothing was around but this desolate sandy world, but I knew there were demonic forms somewhere.

I was in a large city somewhere in South America. People were simply going about their business as a few T Rex's, would occasionally gobble someone up, to their obvious, at least to me, death struggles, as they were being eaten. No one seemed to notice or care though I tried to draw attention to the plight of those being eaten. Then I decided to get hell away from this awful place, essentially the condition we are all in. As a response to this thought of escape, I did this sort of hollywood pull back where I could see thousands of people across the landscape and intermixed amongst them, the T-Rex's grazing. My concluding though about this dream while still in the dream, was that there is no escape, no safe place, to run too.

That's just a few examples, so as not to bore anyone too much.

@Magerette- My cats hate it when I have the nightmares about them. I'm always a mess and I go to their bed and pat them and cry and they just sit there and I can see them thinking "ok, if I put up with this for a couple of minutes she might go back to bed". The reoccurring dreams always mess me up.
I do have nice dreams too... like winning a huge lotto, quitting my job, going through Uni and volunteering as a vet for the RSPCA and WSPA. Very nice dream, until the alarm goes off at 5am and I realise I have to go to work... at one of the most despised government agencies in Australia... the Tax Office.

I had a pretty funky dream last night. It was unusually vivid and coherent; could've been a snippet from a film. As usual with dreams, though, it was just a snippet -- it didn't tie in to any larger context.

I had agreed to perform a sting on a guy trafficking in guns. He ran a combined bar-n-grill and strip club as a front for his gun running. The job was pretty simple: go there, get him to sell me some guns, and report back to whoever gave me the assignment, using a cell phone with a throwaway account given to me for this purpose. I also have a debit card on an account I can draw on to pay for the guns.

I walk into the bar. For some reason, an ex-girlfriend is with me. It's daytime; the bar is empty, and the grill is cold. It's a bit dingy and run down, with orangey, dim lighting -- the windows are heavily curtained so there's not much daylight coming in. There's a smell of stale grease and tobacco smoke. The bartender, a jowly, greasy guy in a wifebeater shirt is slouching on a stool behind the bar. I ask if I can see the manager; he waves me to a small, arched and curtained doorway at the back.

We go through the doorway. There are stairs leading down. More dim, orange bulbs. The walls are papered with a red, fake silk wallpaper with baroque patterns in gold thread, also fake, and quite worn and stained. The soles of my shoes stick unpleasantly to the stairs; they haven't been washed in a quite a long time.

Down the stairs, through a door, into the strip club. This one gives the impression of being even darker, even though there are ugly fluorescent tubes switched on for the day in the ceiling. Violet curtains, a low stage surfaced with dark-gray linoleum, a couple of strip poles. Small round tables, soft chairs and couches. A dark-gray marble bar trimmed with chrome. Near the center, a big bed, also violet. Sitting at a table, smoking a cigarette, the manager/arms trafficker. His gut is hanging over his belt. Small, shrewd eyes peering from between folds of flesh. He hasn't shaved in a few days, nor showered. Leaning against a wall in the background is a big guy in a suit jacket and shirt, no tie, pants don't match the jacket -- he looks like used to go to the gym a lot about five years ago, but has gone soft since then. He has a revolver stuck in his waistband.

I walk up to the manager, and tell him why we're here. "What you want a gun for," he asks. I realize I hadn't actually bothered to think of a cover story, and get a momentary panic as well as feeling like an idiot for not preparing properly for this kind of thing. However, I think fast and start going on a rant against the European Union -- the way our national sovereignty is being bled away drop by drop to the crooks in Brussels; a handful of brave Irishmen saved us this time, but there will be a next time, and one after that, and eventually they will succeed; if we want to retain our culture and our way of life, we will have to be able to defend ourselves. I can use a gun, I tell him.

Then my ex-girlfriend starts to argue with me. What the hell am I talking about, she says; I didn't used to think like that.

We go on for a minute or two. Then the trafficker goes "All right already, I may have something for you." He starts ticking off a list: he has some FN FAL rifles, a shipment of Dragunovs, some Kalashnikovs of course, plus a handful of small arms -- some 9 mm pistols (Beretta and Glock), a .357 revolver or two, and crate of .45 automatics, Smith & Wesson if I recall correctly.

We talk price. I opt for the FN FAL's, but I ask to see them first, to make sure they're in good condition. He sends off the goon to get them.

While we're waiting, he starts hitting on my ex. This irritates me.

Then he starts hitting on me. That irritates me even more.

Finally, the goon comes back, carrying an oblong package of oily, yellowish canvas. He opens it. There is an FN FAL there, disassembled, heavily greased. It appears to be slightly used but in good condition. We discuss the question of ammunition and the price a bit more (he drops a few hints on how the price could come down, but I'm not interested). We agree on the price. I tell him I'll be back with the money in a couple of hours, to pick up the merchandise.

We leave. I walk off to a bank-o-mat a block or two off, withdraw the money. There's a quite a lot of money, so I have to repeat the operation a few times. With the wad of cash in my hand, I use the phone my contact gave me, and make the call.

And then the dream ended.

Dang. The dream must continue tonight.

Unlikely, but if it does, I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Most of my dreams I can't remember... well only if I concentrate hard enough...

one dream that I'll never forget is from the time when I was small... I watched some terminator movies (I think the first one) and at night (I can't remember if the night with the movies or another) I saw terminator with a gun in my face... I instantly woke up...

another time I dreamed that there was a joystick on the table that worked (I was playing airplane games at that time) and I approached it... (I could see myself) and I said this in my mind... "Is this a dream?" and I instantly woke up!

sometime I dreamed that I was in a post war place... it was a part of my town... another made from my imagination... I had my bicycle and went through the city... it was kinda strange...

one that was recently... was very very real! It was a war.. well an attack on a kind of a big place... I think it was some headquarter.. we were attacked by some kind of aliens... and we struggled to keep them at bay... I had to repair defense systems and to shoot at the invaders... to hide... I spoke to the others... it was so so so real... when I woke up I couldn't believe.. that is one of my favourite dreams...

Sometimes my dreams are quite plain and simple but when there is a special one... oh boy it is really different!

A classmate had nightmares about a professor he's afraid of.

It starts with him going to the professor's office for an oral exam in the neural networks course (an exam he failed three times in real life). The professor is friendly enough and ask if he can videotape the oral and use it for some pedagogical exchange thingy, and my friend agrees. Then the questioning begins and it becomes increasingly obvious that my friend is about to flunk it again. The professor looks increasingly frustrated in a way peculiar to impatient academics.

Then the professor walks over to the VCR, takes out the tape, and puts in a new cassette. A cassette labelled Crouching <name of professor>, hidden bratwurst...

At that point my friend wakes up screaming

I rarely remember my own dreams, but I've also had nightmares of this particular professor. It's very short, just him accusing me (a lowly PhD student at that point of time) for being the cause of falling application numbers to our faculty, which didnt make any sense at all And my gf dreamt of a weird Vietnamese woman who talked about what to do with Tony Blair's head at a public ladies toilet...