All of that was bad enough. Disney films from that era--whatever that era is--were indistinguishable from horror films of today.
Looking at you, Fantasia.
But what made this a true nightmare was that if I stopped laughing at any point, Tweedledee and Tweedledum would teleport into the house and tickle me until I started laughing again. The tickling was painful because they had sharp fingernails. Once I started (fake) laughing again, they would teleport back to the porch where they would continue dancing.
It was basically a Disney torture dream.
I had this dream weekly.
It's not the only recurring dream from my life. I have had the getting-forced-to-marry-someone dream at least five times a year since I was 18. Since about 2017 Meg and I have gotten married with some regularity in these dreams. AND IT'S AN HONOR.
Truthfully, if Meg and I ever got married and had children together those children would have enough anxiety to power several planets.
BUT THEY'D BE SO HOT.
I have the must-go-on-another-Mormon-mission-and-for-some-reason-can't-say-no dream every six months or so. Usually in these dreams I'm having to live with 19-year-old boys YES BOYS and I'm trying to explain to them that I can't go out and knock on doors all day up hill both ways in snow up to here because OLD and TIRED and "IT WON'T BE DAWN FOR YOU FOREVER."
The worst recurring dreams are where people I know die. Especially when they're my baby boy Duncan Punkin.
I just asked Skylar if he's ever had a recurring dream and he immediately shouted, without even looking up from his medical school books, "zombies." Then when I asked him to elaborate he just said, "zombies" again, followed by "shhhhh!"
We haven't made eye contact in 12 months.
For years I had the school dreams. The one where I have a final for a class I didn't know I was in is the absolute worst of these. I still have that dream, even though I haven't been in school for nearly a decade now.
Recently I started having a new, very specific, one. I think this one started happening because I'm teaching a law school class on the First Amendment this semester--it's the first time I've ever taught and to be honest, I'm a little nervous because law students are intense. So for the last two weeks nearly every night I have had a dream that I show up to class and pull out my notes but instead of my notes for the class I have accidentally brought printed pages of Anna Karenina so I have to try to give a lecture about the First Amendment using the text of Anna Karenina.
I, of course, bomb. But not as much as you might suspect.
Tell me about your best/worst recurring dream from your life.
~It Just Gets Stranger
I am a teacher of small children and I have the final exam/ class I forgot I was in dream. It wakes me up with the shakes. That is why I begin reminding my students on Monday for a test on Friday. Even with me telling them daily we will have a test, there are still students who look at me on Friday as if they have never heard a word I said.
ReplyDeleteMy ADHD son would look at you that way . . . I probably would have reminded him about the test that morning.
DeleteMy brother and I raised rabbits when we were younger, and I still occasionally dream that I go out back to the rabbit shed and realize I haven’t fed, watered, or cleaned their cages in months. Somehow the rabbits always survive this neglect, but I always feel intense dread knowing that my dad will be SO disappointed in my livestock caretaking skills.
ReplyDeleteUgh. I never got around to commenting on your last post about the time I had to call the cops on our meth addict neighbors who were killing each other on their front lawn in the middle of the night. I made my husband make the actual phone call because I was so terrified that the man would find out somehow that I had been the one to call, and that he would come over and kill me in my sleep. That was an intense moment in my life, and I will tell you that story someday. You know, maybe? But my worst recurring nightmare aside from the school one of not remembering my locker combination and not having my homework done is this one: I am asleep in my bed, door open to the hallway. A man’s figure appears in the doorway, he does not move, he does not speak, yet he is menacing. Suddenly I realize I cannot move, I cannot scream. I brutally force myself to wake up, and it is hard, like ripping myself apart from myself. Then I am in my bed, terrified, heart pounding, and the man is in my doorway again. I realize I am still asleep, and he is still there. Again, I am unable to move or make any noise, again I tear my consciousness into awakening, again I breathe quickly, quietly, panicking and again I see him in the doorway. When I had that dream as a child, I would at some point in the cycle actually manage to wake up and go sprinting down the hall to my oldest brothers room and wake him up and beg him to let me sleep in his room. I only ever had this dream when I slept alone, something about having someone with me helped me know what was real and what was dream, because that was the scariest part. So for the most part I didn’t have it at all in college or after getting married. Until I had babies. And when I would take naps (sleep when the baby sleeps, they tell you,) it would be of my toddler standing right by the side of my bed; their face right in my face, and the cycle of terror begins. Sounds funny, but it so isn’t. (Amy Rose)
ReplyDeleteOkay - that does sound terrifying!
DeleteAnd this meth addict arrest thing - that sounds like an upcoming episode of Strangerville . . .
Word. Amy Rose, when you free girl?
DeleteAmy’s neighbors’ fights were beyond terrifying.
DeleteWoah. Amy Rose. We’re having an eerily similar recurring dream. Mine is also that I’m asleep, but then someone is in the room with me. I both hear and sense them coming in and then standing right by the bed. I feel a sense of dread, but I can’t move or scream. Sometimes I know who it is (sometimes my own kids too!), and sometimes I don’t...when I don’t, it’s creepier, but the sense of dread is there for whoever in some degree. With a ton of effort, I force myself to open my eyes and look, sometimes because I want to see what’s happening, but also sometimes because in my dream I realize I keep having this dream, so I just need to check if it’s real. So finally I look and no one is ever there. Except I didn’t really open my eyes...I’m still dreaming, and moments later in the dream I’m trying to sleep again & someone comes in the room again...repeat the cycle a few times. When I finally for-real wake up, I can tell those other “wake up” times were part of the dream. I don’t like it!
DeleteAnon: I am simultaneously elated to here someone else has this terrifying dream, that feeling of not being alone and yet also wish neither of us had to experience it at all!! The other crazy thing is that as I am falling asleep, i can sometimes tell if I am going to have that dream from the way I am falling asleep, and so I begin panicking even before all the way asleep and force myself alert again, and then sometimes I can spare myself by falling asleep slower and more carefully. Because I also have found I usually have the dream if I have fallen asleep too fast (it takes me a long time to fall asleep most nights)
DeleteI actually was signed up for a class I didn’t know about my freshman year of college. I didn’t know until the second week and the professor had someone tell me she was expecting me there OR ELSE. I had no idea what my options actually were and since I had that same professor for another class, I couldn’t drop without being confronted and I can’t bear to let people down. So I took the class. I already had 21 credit hours, so what’s another? It was kind of a nightmare with the OR ELSE bit, but I ended up really enjoying it. I still have nightmares though.
ReplyDeleteI signed up for a class my senior year at 8 AM (what was I thinking?!?!?) I attended the first week and then COMPLETELY FORGOT I had the class until I got something (an email maybe - it was in the very early days of email so maybe) saying that if I didn't drop the class I was going to fail. This was like 6 weeks into school . . . I graduated undergrad magna cum laude but he probably thought I was the biggest loser . . .
DeleteAlways in some form of a public bathroom and the stall door is either way too high or way too low so everyone in the very busy bathroom can see me trying to pee. I can never find a stall that won't show my lady bits to the entire room. NOT THAT WE KNOW WHAT LADY BITS ARE CATHIE! I've had this dream about every six months for the last 18 years. The bathroom usually changes in color and setup, but the premise is the same.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine and I recently had a conversation about how easy it is to see between the cracks in bathroom stall doors and how unnerving that is . . . Your dream sounds awful!
DeleteThese are my most frequent kinds of nightmares, too. Toilet ones. Where I really have to go, but there's generally something wrong with the toilet. Either it's overflowing, or the only one that's available is actually a hole in the ground out in the open area of the bathroom, or it's in a maze of toilets that you sometimes have to walk through other stalls to get to the one that's available...only to find out that it's overflowing or filthy or whatever my subconscious decides is the worst thing EVAR at that particular moment in time. ::sigh::
DeleteI hate those nightmares. But apparently, the general idea behind these kinds of dreams is that we're needing to express emotions that are built up and we're not allowing to be expressed. Which is my life in a nutshell. :/ In your case, it's a need for more privacy, also relating to emotions.
Toilets, man. They have a lot of meaning!
That's exactly many of my dreams.
DeleteMy most recent nightmare was too awful for words. It took me days to shake it off.
ReplyDeleteHowever you asked about recurring dreams. I don’t have those. If I have ever dreamt the same thing twice, I unfortunately don’t remember.
I’ve been thinking about this all day and finally remembered the recurring nightmare I had as a kid. It featured a green jello glob thing that slowly oozed through my house killing my family, and I was helpless to stop it. I always woke up when I was the last one alive, cornered in the basement:
DeleteNow I want to ask you what your dream is to console you, but you probably already feel better, right? -Unnie
DeleteSeveral years ago I had a recurring nightmare that I was sentenced to prison for something I didn't do (I'm innocent I tell ya!) and Peter Gallagher was the warden. This went on for about 4 months - every single stinking night.
ReplyDeleteMany years before that after seeing Rose Red I had a recurring nightmare that I'd have about once or twice a month in which I'd get up and rooms in the house would have moved around and I never knew what room I was walking into or if there was an evil spirit in there. I have night terrors without watching scary movies and this just made it worse. So much so that I almost broke my husband's nose in my sleep. He banned me from watching scary movies after that . . .
Amy Rose here- We need to get a dream expert up in this comment section to help analyze some of the elements in these dreams!
DeleteEver since having kids I semi-regularly dream that I left my baby in bed with me because I fell asleep before putting them in their own bed (even though I've never yet slept with my babies in bed with me). I start lifting up the covers and trying to pick up the baby which in real life translates to picking up my husband's leg repeatedly, or I dream that my baby is launching herself off the edge of the bed headfirst and I end up whacking my husband in real life in my attempts to catch the rogue baby.
ReplyDeleteI've had this about once a month for the last two years: I start the dream knowing that I need to go in for a surgery the next morning and I feel fine about it, but as the dream progresses I realize that I don't know where the surgery is at, what time I'm supposed to be there, what to bring with me, who my doctor is, or what is being operated on. I get more and more panicked until I force myself to wake up. There are sometimes variations on this, like I have a big test that I don't know anything about, or, most recently, that I'm getting married and I don't even know to whom. This is obviously my subconscious telling me that I'm a horrible procrastinator who is not prepared for anything. To which I say, "No duh, subconscious."
ReplyDeleteCan I please sign up for your First Amendment class? I'll behave. Promise.
ReplyDeleteI have hw most bizarre, specific and horrifying dreams just about every night. They look like movies, with full scripts/soundtrack and ultra salient colors and visuals. BUT my recurring dream is that cats (house cats, lions, pumas, mountain lions, and so on) are trying to rip me apart and kill me, but I have to keep them safe for some reason, so I just have to let them attack me.
ReplyDeleteI have a dream fairly often about tigers and lions coming in to my backyard, and I am always in a house full of children/babies that’s I know I have to protect from the big cats. So I go outside and fight them off, usually with my bare hands. A friend told me that big cats in dreams represent rage, so... I have chewed on that for a while.
DeleteAnonymous....it’s ALWAYS bare hands!! some
DeleteTimes I’m Protecting my kids, sometimes I’m keeping the random cat breed/lion/puma safe from some internal danger.
I am now mumble-teen years out of college, but I still have dreams about missing class for the entire semester and trying to pass the final anyway. I often can't find my classes, or even get to the office where someone could print out my schedule for me. But! The really amazing thing is that after my own kid hit high school, my subconscious finally realized that I have graduated. So now when I have the school dreams, half the time I can say, "Wait, I don't need to pass this high school math class, because I already graduated from college!" It takes so much of the pressure off! And then I remember that I haven't been to work in like six days or maybe three months and I don't remember quitting that job... Do they still expect me to be there? Crap!
ReplyDeleteI have two reoccurring dreams:
ReplyDelete1. I used to play softball in college. Its been 15 years but I still have this dream pretty regularly, like at least once a month. I am back on the team, but my current age, much too old to play with these youngins, and they are making me play in the game, and are getting mad at me that I am not doing as well as I used to. Like super-mean, yelling at me, and I am holding a newborn baby while they yell at me (yes I have children. No, none of them are babies anymore.) Then they take said baby away and force me to go play outfield again, and I can't run because I feel like I am in cement. I always tend to wake up in the middle of running to first base after I finally hit the ball after they made me go up to bat about 50 times.
2. I travel for work about once or twice a month. ALWAYS in the few days before I leave, I dream that I didn't pack my suitcase, didn't pack my briefcase, and just went to the airport without any of the things I needed for my business trip. When I get to the gate my mother is always there to remind me that I forgot everything. Then the ramp from the terminal to the plane ends up being miles long and it crisscrosses across the airport, goes by other gates and planes until it finally reaches the plane I am supposed to be on, which when I see the plane it looks like a building. The plane/building takes off, and then I start panicking that I didn't bring anything I needed with me. Then I wake up.
When I was a kid, I had a recurring nightmare that took place in a Super Mario (the "original" NES one) level--and the thing that made it terrifying, that I couldn't place when I was a kid, was that you could really only move in one direction to get away from the horror. Being forced into a one-directional side-scrolling nightmare was terrifying. I never could remember what I was getting away from, but the cornering feeling of most of my options being taken away was not fun.
ReplyDeleteFor as long as I can remember, I've had a recurring dream that my family has abandoned me at a gas station. I'm always a kid in this dream even though I'm now in my 30s. Typically, we're on a road trip, so I also have no clue where I am and am too far away to walk home. I also have no money and no phone since I'm a kid in the 90s in this dream. Occasionally, when I have this dream, some guy wearing a black leather jacket wants me to come with him. Sometimes the gas station worker lets me use the phone. But I never get reunited with my family in the dream. This dream definitely occurs less frequently as I get older, but it still happens a couple times a year.
ReplyDeleteThat actually happened to me when I was a kid. I have 6 brothers and sisters and I had a tendency to wander off when I was little, so I got left places. I was never afraid and it never made it into my dreams, probably because someone always remembered and came back for me.
DeleteIt's like you're a real life Kevin McAllister!
DeleteI have a recurring nightmare of a giant spider which slowly makes it's way towards me, coming down from the ceiling while I lay there in bed. It's the only time I ever sleep walk/run shrieking from my bed, turning on all the lights trying to avoid the spider. My college roommates and now my husband have all had the pleasure of experiencing such terror with me at 3 or 4 in the morning. I once even scrambled into my neighboring roommate's bed. Alas, she woke up confused in a panic, her hair all tangled, asking me what was going on while I slowly awoke myself, confused and panicked as well. My husband usually wakes up yelling, ready to fight off intruders. Adrenaline for all!
ReplyDeleteOh My Gosh - this reminded me of a recurring dream I had as a kid. I once watched a Twilight Zone episode about a gigantic spider (like godzilla monster gigantic) that lived in a building and killed everything in it and people went in to investigate and found all these cocoons and couldn't figure out what was going on and they decided to go upstairs and when they pushed the button on the elevator they spider came down and got them. Are you terrified now? I am!
DeleteAnyhow - I was about 6 or 7 when I saw that. Did I mention I have night terrors? And these are the things my parents let me watch . . . the dream that resulted from this was that I dreamt the spider lived in the hallway all of our bedrooms were on. We lived in a ranch house and the hallway was pretty long and at night you couldn't see the other end. I also had a tendency to sleepwalk when I had night terrors as a kid and I would end up outside my door at the end of the hall screaming at the top of my lungs and waking everyone up until they woke me up.
Fun stuff!
I've had recurring night terrors for years. All like what you've both described but instead of a Spider it’s an Alien trying to abduct me from my room. I've ended up running away from my room, screaming bloody murder, I’m told. I wake up in another room, hopefully without a boo boo from falling, and then must process why I’m on the floor in my pj's. Then end up apologizing to someone else in the house for scaring them!
DeleteThe funniest time this happened, weird how I can say that right? was right after moving into a new place. My brother was one of my roommates. Our second night in the house my brother woke up to me screaming which scared him silly in and of itself but then HE got scared because he didn't know where HE WAS!
My most recurrent dream is one in which I’m driving really fast down a long and very curvy road through what appears to be a swamp, a pretty swamp, but still a swamp. Water on both sides of the road. I go around a curve, still going WAY too fast, and I see that the road ahead is covered in water!! I know that I’m just going to wind up drowned in this swamp when suddenly the road rises up. Not just rises but turns into one of those Hotwheel circle tracks. The ones where the cars do a loop de loop! I gun it and think that yay! I’m saved! But instead when I come around the loop I fly off into the sky at Mach one speed. This is not ideal since 1. I’m afraid of heights(proven with a dna test and the fact I refuse to cross the bridge at Grandfathers Mountain) and 2. It’s a car NOT a plane! Then as the car flies across the sky and then starts headed back down to the swamp I usually wake up. I’ve had this same dream since before I could drive.
ReplyDeleteRight now my dreams consist of being scared the Traveling Snuggie is never going to get here! Though if that happens I have my emergency car Snuggie to substitute. It won’t help if I’m every lost in the swamp anyway.
I was the ward organist for two years, and it was easily the most stressful calling I've ever had. I would dream at least once a week that I was late to sacrament meeting and/or forgot I was supposed to play that week. The stress of a nightmare is alllllmost worth the sweet, sweet relief when you wake up to realize it was just a dream.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else have the recurring nightmare that you're trying to run away from something but for some reason you have to run on all fours instead of upright on just your legs?
ReplyDeleteI have one where I’m trying to run but I can only move in slow motion!
DeleteDitto to Troy. Or when I run it's like I'm on the moon and every step launches me several feet upward so I can't move forward very quickly.
DeleteI used to have a recurring nightmare that the Hamburgler from McDonald's was staring in my front room window, but nobody else could see him. Made me wake up crying every time it happened.
ReplyDeleteMy husband used to have a recurring dream that Angelica from Rugrats was riding the McDonald's Grimace character and chasing him. Why were those McDonald's things so creepy?
DeleteProbably to scare us into buying their food so they wouldn't murder us!
DeleteI used to have a recurring nightmare that the Hamburgler from McDonalds was staring at me through my front room window, but nobody else could see him. I would wake up crying every time.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was about 3 or 4 I had this nightmare at nap time every day where I was in a white closed in room and there were krabby patties floating around in a slow ominous pattern while a mirror image of myself sat on the floor across from me laughing in a monotonous tone to the tempo of the floating patties. I put a lot of effort into avoiding naps during that time, but my mom ran a daycare and disruption of scheduled naps could cause a lot of issues so she was pretty hard to bargain with on that front.
ReplyDeleteI have two nightmare reruns, going back a few years now... one where I am wearing VERY tight pants and I can NOT get them off (and there’s some kind of bathroom emergency where my pants MUST come off rightthisminute). I usually wake up very sweaty and tangled in my sheets��.
ReplyDeleteThe other one involves me (I’m a teacher irl) and I’m naked in the school hallway and the bell is JUST about to ring to let all the middle schoolers in! PAN. IC.
Besides the usual ‘can’t remember my locker number or find my Math class’, my recurring dream is a difficult one. I dream that I am with my parents and we are all having a good time together. The setting varies, sometimes we are having Thanksgiving, sometimes we are in the living room talking or watching tv. Then, I wake up and remember that they are both gone. Instead of losing them once, I lose them over and over. It’s not a good way to begin the day.
ReplyDelete(((HUGS))
DeleteI can't imagine experiencing this repeatedly - it was hard enough the first time I lost mine. You need all the hugs . . .
I often dream of loved ones who have passed on. We are almost always just doing mundane things together, but it’s always a nice time. It used to hurt to wake up and remember they aren’t here. It took awhile, but now I cherish those dreams. I am so sorry for your loss and hope that when you wake up from your dreams, you feel peace. Lots of love and all the hugs . . .
DeleteI have the same type of dream. I am at my parents home and I’m a kid but I’m also grown up me. It’s always mundane activities. My parents both died before I was 21. They never knew grown up me. I always wake up confused and disoriented. After 25 years I rarely think about not having parents but when I have those dreams I remember what it’s like to be someone’s kid.
DeleteI used to consistently dream about being chased in supermarkets. Generally it was right before we would learn that we were going to be moving. Other people were being chased with me, and I knew them in the dream, but not in real life. I'm pretty sure they represented people I was going to meet. It was always terrifying, but I also associated it with moving, so that made it more interesting as well. ~Kylle
ReplyDeleteI used to have a recurring dream where I was stuck in a huge mansion with my entire family and all of my friends. We were being chased by a huge man who had a giant baseball in place of his head. If you came across the baseball head man you had to immediately drop to the floor and cover your head so that he wouldn't hit you. It was kind of like a terrifying game of hide and seek that went on forever. I haven't had the dream in years but I remember it so vividly!
ReplyDeleteI have the standard went to school without pants on and can’t find a way to get to my pants and can’t cover up so it’s a constant struggle dream. Always wearing an awesome 80’s peach colored, slightly puffed sleeve polo shirt. Always. I don’t even think I owned that shirt IRL but it haunts my dreams.
ReplyDeleteI also have a different recurring dream home. I’ve had many dreams in a house, which is mine and awesome. No idea why. Not a house I’ve ever lived in or been to. Kinda creeps me out. But it’s a sweet house!! I dream big.
Got a couple different recurring nightmares. 1) Pretty classic school horror, but it's always me showing up to the first day of school hours late and without stuff like backpack/books/binders. It's always at my high school and I frequently run into teachers and staff I know well, who are angry that I'm not in class. Often, this also includes me showing up to school without shoes, which is always the most traumatic part when it's in the dream. This happens most frequently in the weeks leading up to the start of school (still in college), but also happens a fair amount whenever I am stressed, whether or not school is the stress. 2) I grind my teeth in my sleep, so frequently I have dreams where I literally grind my teeth out of my mouth. These are horrific because I can feel and hear it happen and blood pours out of my mouth and I cannot do anything to stop myself from destroying my mouth. 3) I haven't had one in a while so I hope they're gone, but I have variations of a recurring dream where I am falling from a ridiculous height, uncontrollably. I fall for a long time, hit the ground, and then bounce back up, soaring into the sky even higher than before, and then return to falling. I cannot control where I land or where I fly up to and often am just plummeting to the ground, though the ascent often feels worse because I know that at any moment I will start falling again.
ReplyDeleteAs a child my most recurring nightmare was that there were 'bad people' in the house and were chasing me (I HATE the Lord of the Rings Movies - it's my dream reenacted by Elijah Wood). If I could get to our backyard, I would have to hurry and take a good enough flying leap to get airborne (usually took several running attempts off our back porch, never knowing when the bad guys would come out the sliding glass door). But once I got airborne, I just had to Breast Stroke swim feverishly until high enough and once airborne I'd be safe.
ReplyDeleteAs an adult, I occasionally have dreams where I agree to remarry my ex-husband, OR I'm back in high school having to repeat my senior year and am so annoyed I can't find my locker or if I do, can't remember the combination. I used to have dreams where I'd be caught out in public and all of a sudden realize that I didn't have any clothes on and would have to 'casually' walk about covering the naughty bits with my hands/arms, but then I discovered the meaning of those kind of dreams is that I'm afraid of letting people see the real vulnerable me. I doubt I'm any better at that practice, but I don't seem to have the dream anymore.