In the “What woke You up” thread, I posted a poll regarding a thread about dreams. It got 11 votes, and a few encouraging comments to proceed. It seems you good folks have a story to tell.
Unfortunately for me, I don’t have much to tell, as I rarely remember my dreams upon awakening.
Between the ages of around 10 – 15 I did have a recurring dream … dozens of times … that I could fly. However, the only place where this flying too place was inside my parent’s house. I was addicted to Superman Comics, so I’m sure that was the reason. Ho-hum.
Another recurring dream: I’m standing atop a tall building. In the floors below is pretty much everyone I know. They’re heads are sticking out the windows and they are yelling “Jump!!”. There’s a large crowd on the street below …. every one of them is my mother, and she’s screaming “No!!“. I usually don’t jump. But, sometimes I do, and I wake up crying and/or in a cold sweat just before I hit the ground. I also know where that’s from. My childhood years were less than ideal and many many times I wished I would just die … the first time as early as about first or second grade.
Lastly, my ex-father-in-law’s dream.
—– This part is real; I’m driving back to Indiana after having visited my parents in NJ. I didn’t get much sleep the night before leaving. Somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania on I-80, I ask my (ex)wife to take over driving. I feel asleep, or should I say a half-sleep, as I didn’t trust her driving. She dozed off slightly and hit the rumble strip. The noise startled me and instinctively I grabbed the wheel and jerked it straight down. The car went out of control, spinning on the highway, and landed in a ditch on it’s side. Miraculously, no one is hurt. We climb out to survey the scene. The front of the car is just a few feet from a big tree. About a hundred feet or so down the highway is a bridge over a gorge, and no shoulder. In short, there was NO other place where we could have landed without serious injury. This happened around 3AM (my memory fades with each passing year).
—– The Dream: We get home, and a couple days later we visit my ex’s parents. Her father asks what happened around 3AM of our trip. We tell him. Her father then tells us that he was startled awake at around 3AM, and the Lord told him to urgently pray for his daughter, grandsons, and myself. He wasn’t sure what to pray about, so for the next half hour he prayed that God would protect us from harm as we traveled the highway home. I still clearly recall that at that time we realized that he awoke and prayed right about at the exact time the accident occurred … and my ex and I got goosebumps all over.
Well, that’s it. Looking forward to hearing your story.
A few weeks ago I had one of those dreams where I suddenly realized I was having a dream and could control every aspect of the dream. When I say every aspect I mean everything.
I am not real proud of that dream.
Lets just say if I ever get bit by a radioactive spider or doused with gamma rays or suddenly manifest psy powers I need to be put down like a mad dog.
It will be for the best……..
Jimski
Were you able to control your nocturnal emissions?
I dream BB quit commenting on TBP.
I rarely dream but when I do it’s usually in regard to some solution I’m seeking. I have a knack for finding solutions while “sleeping on it”.
The only dream I ever had that came true was of a commercial airplane crash. I was in high school in Spain and we lived in a 10th floor apartment. Our balcony overlooked the final approach path to Madrid-Barajas Airport but the airport itself was just out of view. I was a paperboy delivering the Stars and Stripes newspaper to Americans living in Torrejon de Ardoz at the time. This was 1980-1985 and the dream happened about 1984.
Anyway I dreamed that I was sitting on the balcony watching planes come in when I noticed one was burning at the tail. Once I spotted this IFE I was riveted on it. Everything seemed to slow down to super slow motion and I knew this plane was not going to make it even though it was on final. My perspective of the event kept changing as if multiple cameras were filming it and was watching the feed from each camera but in the dream each view was as if I was watching it in person. I was extremely anxious and did not want to watch it but I “saw” the whole thing from final approach to the point that people came walking out of the cornfield. The next day when my bundles of newspapers showed up the front cover had a picture I’d never forget. That was the end of the dream.
Fast forward to 1989 and the actual crash of United flight 232 at Sioux City, Iowa. That was the exact crash I saw in my dream five years earlier. What little video existed of it is exactly what I saw and the still image of the plane “cartwheeling” down the runway was the front page picture I saw on the S&S newspaper in my dream.
The actual footage of the flight in this video is what I dreamed except there were no obstructions to my view and I could see it from any angle.
It’s the most vivid dream I’ve ever had.
Halfpint , I thought about not making anymore comments until I found out that AWD loves me and Stucky cares about my feelings. Knowing this I will probably be making more comments then before. Even admin thinks highly of me in bug terms.(Cockroache )
Now about my dreams. In the ones I remember I’m always running from something or falling off something like the Empire State building in New York.Not sure what it means if anything.
I dream BB quit commenting on TBP.
that’s some nightmare, but rest assured, bb ain’t doing that.
great people have awesome revealing dreams, most of us have selfish dreams. a lot of dreams are word play:
The day came when our Q was finally retiring. Everyone called our area ‘the SPA’ or shuttle processing area. He said, I had a strange dream last night, I was in a hot tub with two beautiful women and for some reason, i got out of the tub and went to go take a nap.
I said, that’s not a hard one, the hot tub is also called a spa and to go to sleep is also called retiring.
So, I agree with SSS, dreams are personal concerns. God promised to speak to prophets in dreams, and would only speak to Moses face to face, but he cautioned that others only have dreams they cause.
the topic was dreams: i had a lot of horrible dreams, nightmares after i quit drinking, it put me into a funk for months and i spent, rather wasted a lot of time in the occult section of the bookstore. I hate that, uphh, I run from shit that smells of the paranormal.
god made the universe in an ordered fashion and people want to believe in the disorder of spirits and magic. what bullshit!
“I have discovered only this: God made human beings for righteousness, but they seek many alternatives.”
In the ones I remember I’m always running from something or falling off something like the Empire State building in New York.Not sure what it means if anything.
it means you are in a betty boop cartoon, bb.
I once dreamed that I arrived at my job and the boss gave me a 100 percent raise. Then a super model called me and asked if I was interested in a nooner. After that, Barack Obama called and said that I was right, he was wrong and if I dropped by the White House he would give me the keys to the front door. Unfortunately none of this actually happened.
Last week I had a dream that I had to change Hank Paulson’s diaper. I woke up and laughed and told my daughter right away. Hank was very, very upset about something; something terrible had just happened, he said.
This isn’t going quite the way I envisioned.
Read a story about some Turkish (I think) guy who had a dream that he was standing behind his boss, holding a lot of money. When he went into work the next day, he implored his boss to buy a lottery ticket, and kept at him until he did. Well, what do you think happened? The boss won the lottery. After a court hearing, the boss had to split the proceeds with the man who urged him to buy the ticket in the first place.
So sometimes it pays to listen to your dreams.
Stucky says:
“This isn’t going quite the way I envisioned.”
LOL! Well if you learn anything from TBP it’s that you not expect things to go as expected. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out you get your ass handed to you.
Stucky – “This isn’t going quite the way I envisioned.” Sorry, Stucky, I dove in without reading your whole post. I’ve read it all now. You are one lucky SOB for grabbing that wheel. We’re all glad you did!
I had two other experiences that may be what T4C called a lucid dream.
When my brother went on his honeymoon to some tropical island I got the overwhelming sense that something had happened to him. A day later I got the feeling that everything was ok. When he got home he told me that he had lost his wedding ring while scuba diving on a coral reef. The next day he went back out and found it in the very first place he looked.
While living in the UK we did not have a phone for about two years. We used to walk to a phone box once a month and call our families. Our families had the number for my wifes first sergeant in case of an emergency but they had no number for me since I had several jobs and an erratic schedule. One of my jobs at the time was cleaning a butcher shop on the base. There were some days when business was so light the meat cutters never cut any meat but I still had to show up just in case they did. I was sitting in a back room with the meat cutters playing cards when the phone rang. Before anyone could answer it I said “that’s my dad calling to tell me my grandmother has died”. And sure enough it was. I didn’t even know she was sick and I have no idea how he knew where I was or where to get the number.
Mr Chen , glad to here you quit drinking. My lasting drink was New Year’s eve 2001 .It’s the only New Year’s eve resolution I have ever kept.
I to looked into the occult after I quit drinking . Read books , rented movies. Now I stay away from the paranormal .I don’t watch it on TV.It’s very seductive with the promise of power.
Stucky , give it some time .This post will get alot more interesting as others reveal their dreams.
T4C, I don’t see a dream post by SSS. Just the beat down I handed him on the Drought thread last night.
No worries on splitting hairs. Dreams don’t fascinate me so mach but that might be because I rarely dream or remember dreaming. I will occasionally read about dreams (like this post) in case it offers insight but I don’t really consider it a topic of interest most of the time.
T4C – yes, premonitions, using your intuition, a strong “knowing” that something is about to occur or has occurred. I’ve had lots of these.
INTJ’s are intuitive people.
Over the years I cultivated the ability to do Lucid Dreaming. It usually works best in the morning when I awaken, I can induce a dream state by watching the inside of my eyelids. Because light is penetrating through them and the blood flow, you see different patterns. As you move your eyeball around to look at the patterns, this induces REM, and you start dreaming.
I have any number of recurring dreams, but I had a truly interesting (and SCARY) dream a couple of months ago.
In this version of on of the recurring dreams, I wake up in my cabin, but it is not quite right in some way. Sometimes it has been ransacked, other times it has pictures on the walls I don’t have, a boarded up door I can’t leave out of, etc.
Because it is Lucid Dreaming, I know I am dreaming. So I say to myself, this SUCKS, time to wake up. So I wake up. Or so I think.
Once again though, things are not “right” in the cabin. I realize I did not wake up, I only dreamed I woke up. I start to get worried and try again to wake up.
After the third iteration of this dream, I am REALLY getting scared. I CAN’T WAKE UP! I MUST BE DEAD!
After this, I DO Wake Up, and I am finally really AWAKE. I am back in “reality”.
Sadly of course, reality is not a whole lot better than the Dreams where I am trapped in the Cabin and can’t get out, or the ones where I am on a train and my luggage with my laptop disappears, etc. LOL.
On the other hand, quite a few of the dreams are very pleasant, and make these nightmare episodes somewhat tolerable. I will keep the pleasant dreams to myself. LOL.
RE
My friends and I had taken LSD at my home. Around 3 AM they went home and I went to bed alone in my empty house. That night I realized that I wasn’t living up to my life’s potential as I measured my success as doing better than my friends. I came to the conclusion that my friends were basically losers and earning more money than them wasn’t really much of an accomplishment.
Two days later while driving in my car there was an interview with Brian Tracy who was plugging his motivational seminar. I took the seminar and in about 6 months my business had doubled and I was no longer sleeping alone. I became a much happier person.
I realize that this is more of a tripping story than a dreaming story but to me it was the same thing. Had I not come to the conclusion while trying to sleep that night that I should do something more with my life I would not have taken the seminar. Had I not had the radio on that particular station I may not have made the necessary changes. I am just thankful that things came together when they did.
I had met a man from the old country, eastern Europe, worked for him a season, and I had a dream where I was flying not the first of course, and his reply was : ” that’s a sign you are a good person”
When I was in my early 20’s I read about lucid dreaming. Intrigued, I started some of the excercises that the author of the article had written about, prior to going to bed.
I tried it for a couple of months, to no real effect. In fact, it seemed to me that I could recall fewer dreams than usual. So I abandoned the whole thing.
A couple of years later, I got on a real health kick. I was doing some kickboxing and weightlifting at a local gym. I over did things and strained a rotor muscle. As part of recovery, one of my friends from the gym suggested I try some tai chi at the local park, to keep up with some light isometric excercise, that would not be putting excessive strain on my joints.
It was after I had done the tai chi for a while that I started experiencing lucid dreams. It could have been all of the breathing excercises, but it was probably just the fact I was excercising properly and eating well, which meant that I was sleeping better and getting more of the REM sleep required for dreams.
I never experienced a ‘full’ lucid dream that I could control from start to finish, just fragments that I could influence and control in small ways. My recall of dreams after I awoke, also slightly improved, especially once I started doing some of the lucid dream excercises again.
My first lucid dream was nothing special. I was walking through a parking garage after work and I saw a pair of guys following me, getting ready to jump me. I was not aware it was a dream until the fight started. I was getting hit and I could feel the hits, but there was no pain, no adrenaline and I was trying to talk the guys down while fending them off, but somehow I was not out of breath.
Once I ‘woke up’ to those clues, I started going ‘all out’ and it became quite apparent that my subconscious mind has no grasp of physics. It was like I was punching rubber. No marks were inflicted, no blood spilled, noone even got their clothes torn. I ended up making it to my car in the dream and drove out of the garage. I awoke shortly after.
I don’t think this was a premonition dream, or anything like that. It did have some relevance to me though. For one thing, I had taken more responsibility at my part time job and had to lock up the business a couple of times per week. That had been making me anxious about security,.
Another thing I was anxious about was the fact that I was training with some amatuer-level fighters, and my self confidence had been shaken. I had found out that I was not as tough as I though I was, so my ego was a little bruised. More than that, developing skills was a lot of work; I had been half-hearted in my progress and had been ‘turtling’ a lot during sparring, because I was afraid of making a fool of myself (and getting hurt).
On reflection, I think dreams can be a great teaching aide. Sometimes. Most dreams are just dreams though.
I have not done any lucid dreaming excercises in a long time, but I will occasioally have a fairly vivid, sort-of lucid dream. Perhaps a dozen in the last decade, so not very often.
Sometimes I dream I really gotta pee. Then I wake up and I REALLY DO need to pee. It’s like a premonition.
Lucid dreams have come and gone throughout my life. It seems when I’m living a life characterized by denying my true feelings, my dreams abandon me. So, I’ve barely had a memorable dream in the past decade.
A couple exceptions. The first was right before I took my path into natural health, I was in the doctor’s grip, more meds, abnormal tests, ballooning weight and blood pressure, allergies out of control. I was sick, and getting sicker.
I dreamt my mother came to my new house. She walked in the door and I was awestruck sitting on my couch. She spread her arms wide and said, “what, no hug for your mother?” I replied, “but you’re dead!” Mom smiled, grabbed me and said, “You still need my hugs.”
A few weeks later, the dream still stuck with me and I did some “research” on dreams/meanings. Allegedly, when you are hugged by a dead relative, one meaning holds that you are having health issues that will be resolved.
Most ironic is that my mom tried to get me interested in natural health going back as far as the ’70s, but I resisted, truly believing the propaganda of “better living through chemistry.” After I watched what the medical industrial complex did to mom, and numerous other people I love, and then my own issues where their “cures” made me sicker, I finally woke up. That dream led to it all.
When my last husband left me, I had a dream where my son and I were in an old rickety truck and trying to cross my hometown, a hometown that was the same, but different. We ended up on a dock, driving to the edge, trying to get to the other shore and safety from the water, but danger from it being a private mansion’s grounds. As the truck, puttering and shaking, nearly reached the shore the dock/pier gave way but we were close enough to shore to make it. As we made our way slowly across the grounds, the man came out and was yelling at us but we couldn’t hear it over the din of the motor/rattling of the truck. We finally made it to relative safety, parked, gave each other a big hug and congratulated ourselves on once again saving our own asses by taking the less traveled path.
Pretty sure that was my subconscious telling me that I was going to be fine, that I had still had the ability to drive my own life, no matter how messed up that life currently was.
I had recurring nightmares as a child, usually centered around a funhouse and a horror that was always right around the corner, and a father that would stand outside and scream at me and tell me I was going the wrong way, doing the wrong thing, going to fail – and die. After having the dream for years, I finally taught myself how to wake up mid-dream. It took a couple more years for it to go away. Looking back and analyzing it from my adult perspective it makes sense. No matter how hard I tried, or how high the grades, how long I cleaned, it was always what you didn’t do with my father. Never felt like I did a good job, never felt worthy of praise, never felt like the old man was proud of anything I accomplished. Is it any wonder this dream re-occurred? (or that I got knocked up at 15 to get the hell away from it?)
Great thread, thanks Stuck
I used to have lots of recurring dreams. Some nightmares.
The ones that stand out as….odd:
1) Parents divorced when I was 7. I started immediately having much more vivid dreams/night terrors. Some of them were so vivid I would only sleep a few hours a night, if that. One in particular was more strange than scary, but it always woke me up and I was always tired as hell from it.
I’d be riding down a gravel road on a quarterhorse with a chestnut coat, and a blonde mane. I can still remember to this day what the surrounding countryside looked like, steep hills with creek beds knifing between them, and trees along every surface that you can’t plant crops or mow hay.
As we ride along, I look up on a hill, and way far up is a house surrounded by a group of tall (for this area) trees. We start riding up the hill, and I wake up.
A few months after I turned 9, we moved to the farm in NE Kansas, and it was the exact same as the dream. The hills, the trees, the house….all of it. Except I got an appaloosa horse, not a blonde quarter horse.
I still continue having the dream, same dream every time. Its weird though, because in the dream I didn’t feel as uneasy as before because I recognized that place as home. So, I would sometimes wander off the road, through creek beds and over hills. Always continued home though.
Two years later we traded off my appie (she was old) to an old family friend who’s granddaughters liked to ride horses in the summer.
In return I got a quite spirited younger quarterhorse with three blonde socks, a blonde mane and a brilliant white blaze.
I recognized him immediately. He had been bought without me seeing him, but as soon as I saw him I knew he was my horse.
A few days later, we went on one of those wide-ranging, day long trails rides that serve no purpose other than to see whats out there.
On the way home, the sun was in the same spot, the grass was the right shade of green…all of it. Even the cadence of Billy’s hooves (he came with the name). I realized that I was living my dream, and I thought “even with the divorce and everything, I’m where I’m supposed to be,” and then never had the dream again.
That was a longer story than I thought it would be. I’ll leave it at just the one. Dream stories are always extremely interesting to the teller, but often suffer in translation. This one is the better story anyway.
I think dreams could be living out real lives in alternate universes. Some believe we live multiple lives at the same time. Quantum physics is a gas to study.
I take a multi-vitamin just before going to bed, purposely to help dream. I think it works because I have a lot of dreams. One recurring dream is I get lost in unfamiliar territory, either walking, driving, or on a bike and can’t retrace my steps to find my way back. I’m sure there is some hidden meaning in THAT! Lots of erotic dreams with beautiful women, too (they’re always fun).
One time I had an out-of-body experience that was amazing and I’ll never forget it. I was floating/flying over the mountains of Virginia in a clear starry night and came down into a house with lots of people’s pictures on the walls, and they talked explaining what their lives were like. Vividly real experience and the only time I’ve had an OBE.
I used to frequently dream I could fly and did so by simply taking a few steps and suddenly I was airborne. Fantastic feeling of freedom. Haven’t had many of those in years.
“We ended up on a dock, driving to the edge, trying to get to the other shore and safety from the water,”
Crossing a waterway, river, lake, sea to get to the other side is a good metaphor for starting over.
” No matter how hard I tried, or how high the grades, how long I cleaned, it was always what you didn’t do with my father.”
Fella over here killed the whole family – wife and 3 teenage girls – my co-worker Patricia said he may have been frustrated he couldn’t have the daughter. She was a beauty and he attacked her with a knife, she had many defensive wounds on her arms and hands. When mom and the younger girls got home, he shot them. Why share this? I still don’t understand why some fathers pick on their daughters.
You could have a good talk with the old man, does he have to hear it? No, but have that ’empty chair’ talk with him, let it all out, it’s cathartic.
I wasted time and money with the occult and interpretation of dreams until i realized i could do a better job. most themes are universal anyway. the meaning was not lost on me to dream my girlfriend leaving on a cruise ship with another while i despaired on land watching them go.
Ah Mr. Chen, my new (seemingly) admirer. Thanks.
Talk with dad, good one, all of us kids felt his disapproval to some extent. The family baby, not so much, yet he is messed in the head anyway.
My dad is 75, nearly blind, sick, and at this point, is not going to change. Not a chance. I don’t take much crap from him anymore, living 100 miles away helps with that, but I still spend lots of time and money trying to make his life as good as I can. It is the right thing to do. It is also the only way to avoid the inevitable guilt that will come after his passing if I didn’t.
And while I am (obviously, or I wouldn’t have felt compelled to bring it up) still trying to work past these old issues, I for the most part have come to accept that it wasn’t me, but him. Just like I try to accept that your history does not have to be your future.
And though I love(d) my grandparents with all that I have, the reality is that they really fucked up my dad.
Then dad, like the vast majority of humans, chose to live in the muck instead of recognize the destructive/hurtful behaviors and find a way to grow past them. He passed this shit to his children, thankfully I saw the destruction and strived to not do that to my kids.
Looking at my son, I think I did pretty well. Though, I’m sure, as with nearly every human alive, his girl has asked at least once, “just what did your mom due to you to mess you up like this?”
Baggage, we all got it….lol Some just have lots more than others.
” Lots of erotic dreams with beautiful women, too (they’re always fun).” —— Rise Up
Well …. that does explain your name.
I KNEW someone would eventually fess up to wet dreams. I thought it would be bb, telling us about his dream-land boyfriend.
And though I love(d) my grandparents with all that I have, the reality is that they really fucked up my dad.
In the days before Dr. Benjamin Spock, our grandparents were hard parents. I got this confirmation from the principal Mrs. Ralph, at my son’s AVChristian School, told my son something to the effect that, ‘your parents have the obligation to correct you, my mom (a sweet old lady there present) would whip me often when I did wrong…’