My weird recurring dream

[Ratty]

I've never really had recurring dreams before but for the last year or so I have been. It's very strange, not disturbing or scary, but curious. Anybody know anything about dreams?

The dream is always different except for the core part. It'll start off like a typical dream and then devolve into a long tedious session of trying to find my way, trying different roads and paths, feeling frustrated because I know I should know the way, but not quite able to. And for some reason I'm usually on a bicycle, and I'm not a bicyclist, haven't ridden a bicycle for years.

Example 1:
I'm sitting on my bicycle overlooking a vast, dusty construction site or gravel pit. It is crisscrossed with lots of dirt paths. I start off intending to get to the other side but I always seem to take the wrong path. It is a wide open space and all of the paths are visible and it's easy to see the ones to take but I can't seem to manage it. I try path after path after path. It becomes very tedious and frustrating.

Example 2:
I am impatient to get off of an airplane waiting at the terminal, so I sneak off. I know this is a very bad thing to do and I could get into trouble but I do it anyway. Only right afterwards do I start to worry about it, to realize I could REALLY get in trouble. So I decide to sneak back into the airport. But I can't find my way back. Which is frustrating because I should be right outside of it. Seems every way I go takes me farther from the airport until I end up miles away. I turn right, I turn left, I try this road, I try that road (I'm walking for once). On and on, all the rest of the dream until I wake up. I get more and more frustrated.

Example 3:
After a dinner together with some important people, I am supposed to follow them in my car to another location. On the freeway they take an exit but there is this huge truck bearing down behind me and I miss the exit. I decide I'll take the next one and double back. More trucks and I miss that one too. After awhile I get off but I am totally lost and the rest of the dream involves trying different roads and exits and onramps (I am riding a bicyle by this time) trying to find my way back to the exit they took. I am very frustrated and worried because these are important people and I will look bad if I'm late.

Seriously, the part about trying different roads and paths is the bulk of these dreams, the particular circumstances differ, as above, but they devolve into this endless searching and trying. Sometimes I wake up mentally exhausted. I'm having them ALL the time and I can never remember having recurring dreams before.

What's up with me? What recurring dreams do you guys have?

(I'm leaving now but I'll read this thread again later)

[Nay]

1. From what I know about dreams, this seems like a common

one and probably reflects a conscious or unconscious feeling on your part that you have "lost your way" in life and it bothers you. There is also an element in the last 2 dreams that suggest you may feel you are disappointing those close to you with your aimlessness.
Recurring dreams are often very straightforward in their meaning.

Just my 2 cents.

[Ratty]

6. That's much more profound than my theory

Thanks to new management I've had an unusually productive year at work. I'm a programmer and recently I've been working on a lot of new and different programs that have really challenged me. I just thought perhaps I would go home with an unsolved problem and then dream my way through it in the odd manner of dreams and wake up with a better idea of the solution. Of course, how does finding my way among a variety of actual physical paths translate into lines of code or architecture in a computer program? Beats me, but that's what I suspected. I've always had good luck solving problems through dreaming. I would deliberately mull the problem over before I went to sleep and I've had what seems like great success waking up with the solution.

But, to your theory. There are things going on in my life that could translate into these dreams in the manner you suggest. But they've been going on long before I started having these dreams. Who knows, something coming to a head? The fear of disappointing others is an element I've always had in dreams, it's not a new phenomenon for me. I think it's a very common one. When I've had naked dreams--you know, showing up to a meeting naked, going out to dinner with friends naked--it's not humiliation I feel but a great fear of disappointing those around me: my boss disappointed because I didn't care enough to get dressed, etc. I think other people feel humiliation but naked dreams always made me regret disappointing people. An interesting thing you brought up. I hadn't really noticed the fear of disappointment in my dreams, only the frustration and tedium, but the more of these dreams I recall, the more I see that element is indeed there. Thanks for noticing that!

[mlawson]

2. Mine is the 'last day at the beach' dream.

The beach is one of my very favorite places. But in the dream, 'we' (a group of people that I seem to know, but I don't) are in the hotel at the beach, on the last full day. We have been there for at least a week, but for some reason we haven't made it down to the shore. I realize that it's my last chance to get down there, but when I start I find that the ocean is only a river, or I can't find it, or the scene changes to some other location.

I have this dream a lot, and it's always unpleasant.

[Swede]

3. Use a recurring dream to enter lucid dreaming

I had a recurring dream about storms. I read somewhere to try and become aware you are dreaming next time you are in the storm. Presto! Now you can even change your dream,even fly. Seriously try it. Google lucid dreams. Just a suggestion.

[mlawson]

4. Once I realize I am dreaming, I wake up.

Instantly. That is how I usually stop nightmares: I focus on sitting up in bed. It does work, but I have to realize I'm dreaming first, obviously.

[Lizz612]

5. For me the dream starts over

I don't fully realise its a dream, but I suddenly want to go back and remember part of it, and the dream starts over and it forks off before the part I want to remember.

Waking up mentaly stressed feels good for me. I did that the other day after dreaming about trying to buy shoes in a snowstorm. When I woke up I realised that, in comparison, my studies are easy!!

[Ratty]

7. Oh yes, I've done directed dreaming

I love it. I've found that eating a lot of chocolate just before bedtime often elicits dreams that are easy to direct. Also, wrapping myself up in a lot of blankets so that I get too hot in my sleep always nets me some great controllable dreams. A weird kind of experience, the latter. I have this horrible dream, at least it starts horrible, where I am aware I'm asleep and know that I'm dreaming, except I'm in my bed and can't nove. And something horrible is in the room with me, in the waking world, and I have to wake up before it can hurt me. But I can't make myself wake up! I concentrate on trying to open my eyes, pry them open just a little to see what's in my room, standing over my bed. Eventually, after a LONG time, I really do wake up.

BUT ... if I remember that I always have these dreams and that there really isn't a monster about to kill my sleeping self, if I resist the urge to struggle awake and instead let myself fall back into sleep, these are the most vivid and amazing dreams to control (because I know it's a dream right from the start). I can fly, soar high above the landscape, and it seems absolutely real. Fabulous, marvellous dreams where I can make anything happen (even naughty things!) They always start with this great fear but if I remember and trust that I'm in no danger they turn into these great dreaming experiences.

Anybody else ever keep a "Dream Journal"? I did for several years back in high school. Care to share some of the good ones?

[AlienGirl]

8. Dream Journal

I enter all my dreams into the Twisk database, and encourage you to do the same! Here's the link to mine: http://www.twisk.com/zoek.asp?type=snel&zoekdromer=Tucker

Tucker