Dreams (and interpretations)

I'd like to start a thread about recurring dreams. I keep having bathroom related dreams, like I need to pee and I find a bathroom but all the commodes are already dirty (or in use) and the like. Last night I dreamed that I was doing laundry in the laundry mat that had those upright washers that you could see your clothes through the front of it. Well the machine was filling with water and once it started to agitate the clothes the rubber seal gave out and water started leaking everywhere. The glass was intact so I just tried to hold the rubber seal up and block the gushing water with my hands. Then I woke up!

The meaning in these dreams is emotions that can't be kept under control and being filled with negativity I'm not getting opportunity to dispose of.

Any thoughts? Care to share any recurring dreams? Anyone doing dream journals in therapy?

I graduated high school in 2009
Ever since I've had the same dream at least 20 times.
In the dream, it's the middle of the day and I'm at one of the schools I went too. Teachers are telling me "Why are you ditching all your classes! You're not going to graduate! Get to class!
and I always say butbutbut I graduated in 2009. I have my diploma at home.
and sometimes I'm at home and my mom says "time for school" and I'm like what? I graduated. I'm just not going because I know I already graduated so this is ######6 ridiculous.
No idea what it means but it's not something I like. It bothers me on a deep level.
I'm not doing a dream journal, though maybe I should because I tend to have vivid nightmares.

Anything water-related is definitely about emotion.

I have this dream I had since I was 4. It's not often I get it, but when I do, it jars me and it makes me wonder what it's about.

It's from the perspective of a baby in a pram, and the person pushing it is pushing the pram while running down this narrow corridor, but what is frightening is that this person pushing the pram is really frightening looking, not even human really, he or she has got really dark skin, with tangled long hair and this huge pair of lips, and just prior to having this dream, I get this cottony feeling in my mouth and my jaws get tighter and tighter. Also, after having this dream, I will inevitably run a fever and be quite ill.

I don't know what I'm suppressing, my hubby tells me it might be a memory from very young, but it makes me anxious and I get a whole huge set of anxieties etc associated with this dream.

Hmm, MRG, it sounds like you may be experiencing people telling you to grow up before you're ready or that they don't believe you've grown up (graduating high school is culturally accepted as the rite of passage to adulthood these days). It could signal a lack of validation you're experiencing.

Moomin, it could be a repressed memory or it could be your child-psyche explaining experiences you had that you don't remember/understand. Were you seriously ill as a very young child maybe? Sounds almost like mumps remembered through a child's understanding. Some kids get really bad chicken pox cases and have nightmares about that (I had that and kept having nightmares about my cat's stomach turning orange before it died, an interesting child-like impression of what it was like to have a severe case of chicken pox is my best guess).

This is an interesting topic. Some believe that recurring dreams are the psyche's attempts at resolving something left unresolved, like with trauma.

Dreams fascinate me.
I've had some scary ones. But a recurring dream I had for yearssss was always about me narrowly escaping a shark. Lol. They terrified me. One of the recurring shark dreams was when I'd be on the edge of this large metal cliff and I'd keep jumping in when I knew there was a shark in the water. I couldn't stop myself from jumping in. Nuts. In one dream the shark was chasing after me ON LAND through this weird maze. Ugh, you can imagine my heart racing in those dreams.

kirayng wrote:Hmm, MRG, it sounds like you may be experiencing people telling you to grow up before you're ready or that they don't believyou've grown up (graduating high school is culturally accepted as the rite of passage to adulthood these days). It could signal a lack of validation you're experiencing.

This is an interesting topic. Some believe that recurring dreams are the psyche's attempts at resolving something left unresolved, like with trauma.

I feel that is certainly possible. My therapist feels similarly. He said that because I'm not in college as I had previously planned to be by now and not working, I don't feel ready to move on. I've been in a very depressed state for almost a year now to the point of not even wanting to get dressed. I started the Lexapro in July and it does help a lot with the outbursts of anger, but because of the situations I've been going through I feel very lonely and depressed.
Another dream I have had a few times (though a lot less than the graduating dream) is a dream that I'm getting off a plane in Mexico and am required to go down a very steep slide like thing that is terrifying and the people I'm with are all like come on you have to! You can do it! So I do and it's a terrifying fall but I'm safe at the bottum. Then the dream usually gets pretty weird after that.

-- Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:30 pm --

kirayng wrote:Hmm, MRG, it sounds like you may be experiencing people telling you to grow up before you're ready or that they don't believyou've grown up (graduating high school is culturally accepted as the rite of passage to adulthood these days). It could signal a lack of validation you're experiencing.

This is an interesting topic. Some believe that recurring dreams are the psyche's attempts at resolving something left unresolved, like with trauma.

I feel that is certainly possible. My therapist feels similarly. He said that because I'm not in college as I had previously planned to be by now and not working, I don't feel ready to move on. I've been in a very depressed state for almost a year now to the point of not even wanting to get dressed. I started the Lexapro in July and it does help a lot with the outbursts of anger, but because of the situations I've been going through I feel very lonely and depressed.
Another dream I have had a few times (though a lot less than the graduating dream) is a dream that I'm getting off a plane in Mexico and am required to go down a very steep slide like thing that is terrifying and the people I'm with are all like come on you have to! You can do it! So I do and it's a terrifying fall but I'm safe at the bottum. Then the dream usually gets pretty weird after that.

Water plays a major part in my dreams. I can't swim and I am terrified of water, so these dreams are really distressing. I am driving on a highway and suddenly the highway turns into the ocean. Bridges collapse and cars go underwater. I always make sure that my head never goes under the water. However a couple of nights ago the car began to fill with water,but I discovered that I could breathe underwater.
Large ships that I know are destined to sink. This ship I am on is in the middle of the vast ocean and it will sink and I will drown.
The water is always in the form of the ocean. Vast amounts of water, powerful water that can kill me.

mooshoo wrote:Water is plays a major part in my dreams. I can't swim and I am terrified of water, so these dreams are really distressing. I am driving on a highway and suddenly the highway turns into the ocean. Bridges collapse and cars go underwater. I always make sure that my head never goes under the water. However a couple of nights ago the car began to fill with water,but I discovered that I could breathe underwater.
Large ships that I know are destined to sink. This ship I am on is in the middle of the vast ocean and it will sink and I will drown.
There water is always in the form of the ocean. Vast amounts of water, powerful water that can kill me.

You know I have a dreams about drowning,
and I'm an excellent swimmer. they seem to real!

In the last couple of months I've had about a dozen dreams about elevators falling while I'm in them. Most of the elevators are made out of what looks like really unstable wood and rope with no sides or top. Sometimes they wobble or tip, sometimes I'm going up or down, sometimes I fall and sometimes I make it to the top or bottom, sometimes I'm scared and sometimes I don't even notice I'm on the elevator at all. But always the goddamn elevator.

Anyway I remember almost all my dreams (but they tend to fade a way after a few weeks). And I'm always getting better at my lucid dreaming, so hopefully I'll soon be able to make my dreams interpret themselves.

Just a forewarning these are quite violent and vicious to the standard affairs of dreams.

In my dreams I am always witnessing or conducting or being: torturing, disemboweling, chasing, killing or incapable of defending myself. They are very realistic and vivid. If I get stabbed my mouth fills with blood and it is highly difficult to breathe - I can taste the iron in my mouth and the coagulation occurring. I feel every single stab. I am either accepting or terrified of death. If I do the stabbing or shooting it usually doesn't kill the individual and I have to keep doing it. The gun malfunctions or the knife isn't sharp enough. It causes me to be more violent to achieve the desired result.

I am either aggressor or victim. Though, it is often that I am the aggressor. Most of the time it is strangers or animals that I kill or torture. Rarely is it someone I know. I feel somewhat relieved after I realize that I am dreaming and then I can do what I want. I'm quite docile in real life, let "people walk all over me" or only because I don't care or want trouble. Trouble invites irritation, irritation induces anger and anger is the precursor to violence. I tend to avoid violence in real life.

But not for a lack of wanting to do it - indeed, it is a great struggle not to stab or shoot people whom I deem stupid or unworthy of breathing. Yes, I have a great superiority complex, and it's not without good cause. I live in the middle of no where, the South where morons don't know how to find the United States on a map let alone point out the individual states. Anyway, I believe my dreams are directly connected to my secret desire to cause the death and suffering of many. Sometimes my own dreams scare me, of what I do, of what I am truly capable of. But I feel so much better after it. I also feel that if someone finds out I will be ostracized and the very last thing I want is to be an outcast. Those on the outer rim of society never make it anywhere.

I have indulged in hunting to test out the theory of enjoying violence. I do enjoy it, however, I always want more. That scares me a bit.

So, am I crazy or just a vicious person acting out fantasy's during deep sleep?