Do you ever feel strong emotion in a dream (or nightmare)?

[Flaxbee]

I guess fear is pretty common to feel in a nightmare, but have you ever felt happiness or despair or sadness strong enough to bring you out of your dream? Most of the time I remember my dreams but they don't leave a strong emotional imprint, but last night I dreamt that we were missing one of our cats -- we have 7, but the missing one (Hedy) talks to me all the time - she's my conversational buddy -- we couldn't find her anywhere in my dream and I just felt awful despair. It was so strong it woke me up. It was a horrible sensation... wondering how common it is - ?

Anyone have similar experiences?

[SeattleGirl]

1. That happens to me quite frequently.

Sometimes the images and emotions seem so real that it takes me a bit to realize I was dreaming.

[Flaxbee]

4. really? I've had it happen before, but not very often --

it's interesting, in a detached, intellectual sort of way, that your mind is doing that to you while you sleep, but I hated feeling so damn sad.

[Forkboy]

2. Yes.

I'd rather have the nightmares.

[Flaxbee]

5. yeah, I'd rather take some fear than

the sadness. Was awful.

[Ladyhawk]

3. All the time.

I often dream about unfulfilled dreams. Freud would have called them wish-fulfillment dreams.

I've had a lot of dreams like you describe about my parrot. I sometimes dream he is lost or stolen or dead. My mind absolutely will not accept his death so my dream usually reverses that finality. Luckily he's fine right now. He's sitting on his cage, waiting to turn twenty the day after tomorrow.

[Flaxbee]

6. I hate the wish-fulfillment (or regret) dreams

but I'll take those over the sadness about a dreamt loss ... I'm glad your parrot is doing well!

[Canuckistanian]

7. I keep seeing my mother, who died 11 years ago

Then I wake up and face reality.

Nightmares are better.

[Flaxbee]

8. I'm sorry. At least my feelings were just cooked up

by my subconscious, and my cat is fine. Your dream sounds painful and sad. But I guess whenever you lose someone you love, a dream like that is bound to occur. :hug:

[Canuckistanian]

9. Thanks

It's not just her I dream about. It's usually our whole family. But I figure that because my mom kept us together, I long for those days. I'm sort of estranged from my father now.

But I'm fine. I have my own family now.

[Nevernose]

10. Happiness sometimes, but fear often.

Sometimes I have pleasant dreams that are simply TOO pleasant, and I wake up. The "extra-special ones," while still occurring occasionally, don't happen that much anymore. Sometimes I still dream an idealized version of a day at Disneyland with my kid, or an afternoon I spent at a park with a girlfriend from ten or twenty years ago, and the emotion is just too intense.

What happens more often than that is that I START having the pleasant dream, and then it quickly turns into a nightmare, which is far more horrific than a normal nightmare. Maybe that's why it's so bad? because it starts off so wonderfully, and is then decimated utterly?

Almost invariably, my daughter is missing. I can't find her. She's gone. Someone has her, or, even worse, I don't know anything at all. After a few times running through the house, looking for her and checking the locks on the doors and windows, these kind of dreams have led me to put in extra smoke detectors, an alarm service, extra alarms that I control, changed locks, and extra locks. It takes willpower not to give into the irrationality of my dreams and get my guns back from a relative, since I know that statistics show the greater likelihood of an accidental death than a random kidnapping (maybe a shotgun? something she isn't likely to play with?).

Then there's the dreams I sometimes have that I think we share, what I call the Involuntarily Emotionally Detached dreams (IED), or sometimes just Failure to Commnicate. Those are the worst. Those are the ones where I and a person I love -- parent, child, lover, love interest, and even pet -- just can't communicate. Those "failure to communicate" dreams really resonate with me.

I don't believe in most of the bullshit published about dreams, because most of it is bullshit, but there is definitely something to be said about getting one's emotions out through dreams.

[Flaxbee]

11. those deceptive ones sound nasty ---

like you're duped into relaxing into a nice dream, and then you have to freak out because your daughter is gone. How horrible. Sounds like you've taken rational precautions, though - you never know what your subconscious is telling you to do, esp. regarding the safety of your family. A lot of the dream symbolism is interesting, but so very subjective that analysis does seem hit-or-miss. But I agree - I think the brain has to vent pent up feelings and emotions while sleeping...

[barb162]

12. I think it is fairly typical.

[Truthiness Inspector]

13. Yes

I've had dreams where someone calls me or I call him/her over the phone, and the person tells me something important. Every time I've had a "phone" dream, the thing discussed ends up happening.

I rarely have them, but when I do, I pay attention.

Of course it's never good news in these "calls" like, you just won the Lotto! :eyes:

[grannylib]

14. I've only dreamed about my daughter twice since she died nine years

ago, and I'm glad...in the dreams each time, the emotion of seeing her was so overpowering, because I knew she was 'supposed' to be dead, and when I woke up and realized all over again that she really was, it was horrible.
I'm glad I don't dream about her much.

I've had other dreams too in which I've cried and woken up with wet cheeks...so yeah.

[intheflow]

15. Sometimes I wake up laughing.

Something happens in my dream that's just so funny I laugh right out loud and wake myself. I think that's kind of cool when it happens.

[Qanisqineq]

16. almost every night

mostly fear or despair, extreme sadness, depression, never anything happy. I used to take medication for all the nightmares I have but went off of it and my dreams were better for a while after that. The last couple years they are back to constant nightmares.

[fizzgig]

17. i sometimes wake myself up crying

and with such a feeling of heartbreak i can't stand it. it usually takes me the whole day to shake the feeling.

[grasswire]

18. I, too, dream that someone in the family is missing

It's often a scenario where two of us get separated at a subway or in a crowd or something similar, and we have no way to communicate with each other and the other person is at risk of not knowing what to do or how to get back together. That's awful.

Sometimes I dream about my lost love; in them things never resolve in a different way and he still isn't mine. Why don't I dream a happy ending to that? It would be a pleasant thing for my mind to conjure up, even if only a fleeting dream in a night's sleep.

[Ariana Celeste]

19. Frequently.

I miscarried when I was young. I often have dreams of what could have been and wake up in tears. The man who would have been the father, I've had many dreams of him over the years too that have left me with the same feeling of loss. He and I are in contact again today and I still have these dreams and still wake with the same sick sadness that just makes me want to curl up and die. There have been many times that the feeling I woke with was so intense I had to run to the bathroom and throw up.

When I was 9, my older brother died in a car accident. For years I had dreams that I was in that car with him. Sometimes I was in the car during the impact, close up and face to face with his death. Other times I'd be in the car for the ride and suddenly be yards away watching the crash from the outside. I'd wake up so sick and lost. It was never fear, just sickness and depression.

I've also had dreams where I was reunited with my brother, and I would wake up so happy. Just to face reality again.

[QMPMom]

20. Yes! It happened earlier today when I took a short nap after work.

I had a dream that my husband had another TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack/small stroke) and it woke me up in a bit of a fearful state. I stared at him for a good five minutes to make sure he was okay.

Earlier tonight I went to bed and since the Anxiety/Panic Attack a few days ago I don't want to be alone when I try to go to sleep. My son agreed to be in his room right acros the hall while I was trying to go to sleep and would only come back downstairs once he knew I was sleeping for sure. I read for a bit - my husband bought me an early birthday present at the bookstore - an anti-Dubya book, and woke up when I had a horrid dream about Dubya and Laura harassing my poodle. Honest to pete, the dog died 22 years ago, but there was Dubya and Laura harassing her and encouraging a cat to attack her. I couldn't stay in bed after that and came back downstairs with the rest of the family.

[Random_Australian]

21. I learnt to respond to emotional responses by changing the dream.

So I guess the answer is "I used to but now don't"