Category: Let's talk
Have you ever had a series of dreams that occur on the same location? Where do they happen often and why?
I am a very vivid dreamer. My dreams, since mid-2004 are almost always set in this mahogany forest and the vast, flat, grassy field beneath its slope. The dreams are all different ones, the place sometimes matching the mood, color, and quirkiness of each dream, but the general setting is recognizably still the same.
The place is located at the back of our residential compound and is a part of the elementary school right next to our house. It used to be my childhood playground when I was still in grade school. The visits became less frequent when I went to high school and stopped entirely when I went to college. That's when the recurrence started.
I suppose it's the location that seems to always be the setting for my dreams because I have such vivid, pleasant, and comforting memories of it when I was still a child. My thoughts navigate to the best, well-established places in memory and constantly replicates it over and over while adding new features, colors and characteristics to suit each dream.
Most of my recurring dreams occur at various schools I have attended -- the blind school where I attended through the eighth grade, the public high school I attended, and the two colleges I attended. Some of the dreams have a little of all of these places. In other words, in part of the dream I am in a hallway that looks like one of the hallways at the blind school, then I'll turn a corner and be in a completely different hallway, perhaps from my high school or college campuses. I seem to have these dreams when I am having stresses in my life, and the dreams usually consist of a situation where I realize it is about two weeks until the end of the quarter and I haven't been to a single classs and am frantically trying to find my schedule and find out what classroom I should be in.
I also have recurring dreams that take place in various places I have lived. Again, the scene can change from the living room of one place to the dining room or kitchen of another within the same dream. These dreams can happen at any time, and I haven't really figured out what triggers them. In some of the dreams my mother is still alive and living with me even though the location is someplace I have lived after she died.
The school for the blind I was forced to live at from seventh to 12th grade. And they're nightmares.
Usually,
I never experience any dreams. The best that I can recollect occurred when I was much younger. They were the dreams that felt like you are falling and then wake up suddenly.
Oh, I guess for both of you the recurrences seems to be triggered by stressful life events. Mine weren't triggered by stress though. I mostly set my dreams in advance, I suppose. I end up thinking of what I want to dream, and most often, pieces of my thoughts appear into the imagery. It's like cooking vegetable soup. I prepare the ingredients ahead and when it boils, the various ingredients start mixing into the broth, adding their own flavor into it.
I just thought of another recurring dream I used to have. Thank God it's been a very long time since I've had these dreams. Again, I know they were caused by stress and frustrations I was feeling at the time. They went something like this. There would be something terribly wrong such as someone breaking into my house or chasing me or something like that. I'd try to use the phone to call 9-1-1, but when I would pick up the receiver, there would be music playing. I couldn't get a dial tone and therefore couldn't call for help.
For several years now, I've been having dreams about being in a plane crash. I'll be sitting there and all of a sudden, no engine noise. Makes me not want to get on a plane ever again.
Oh my, Blue Velvet, your dreams are definitely stemming from stresses in reality..
Imprecator, I guess a fear of flying is a cause of those recurrences.
The thing is, I used to love flying and anything to do with aircrafts. I would get really excited the night before the family and I would fly somewhere, so much that I could hardly sleep.
I've never had a dream about being in a plane crash, but I have had dreams about car crashes. I'll be riding with someone, most often my mother, but one memorable time my cousin, and they have a heart attack at the wheel and I have no idea what to do. One of those dreams took place in very foggy conditions on a mountainous road. We used to travel to West Virginia and North Carolina every year for vacation when I was a kid, and I do remember how scary it could be driving on a twisty mountain road in the fog, but I used to find it kind of fun in a scary way. But in these dreams I am left to try to steer the car to safety since the driver is dead. I always wake up before I drive the car right off the side of the mountain.
Most of my stress related dreams occurred during the last two or three years I worked at my former job because there were a lot of bad things going on at work, and I hated going to a job that I had loved at one time. So I know exactly where those feelings of frustration and helplessness were coming from that influenced my dreams. I stopped having them as soon as I stopped working there.
The only recurring dream I've ever had is not a perfect replication: it's merely the repeat of a similar situation over and over, circumstances changing but emotions remaining the same. From kindergarten to the end of high school I had the same educational assistant; she was verbally abusive much of that time and I still suffer from some of what she put me through in school. Anyway, these dreams--which would happen probably once a week while I was still in school--were some form of her lecturing me or yelling at me or putting me down, usually for a ridiculous reason. The trapped, helpless feeling was the worst part of the whole thing. I still sometimes have the dreams, and I've been out of school for more than a year.
I would have beaten the living shit out of her if she was my assistant.
Oh, it happened countless times in my head. I used to entertain myself in moments of boredom by imagining all manner of horrible things that might happen to her.
Meglet, unfortunately you will probably continue having those dreams for awhile, but hopefully they will occur less and less frequently the longer you are out of school. Perhaps sometime in the distant future when you are experiencing a totally different kind of stress, they will come back. I think our dreams can be largely caused by stress, but they may not necessarily be about what is currently going on in our waking lives. For example, my last few years at work were horrible because of bad management and no one at work being able to do anything about it. We all felt helpless and hated coming to work. But I never once had a dream about being at work. My dreams went back to my school days, or I would have a dream about being helpless, such as not being able to use the phone when needing to call 9-1-1. I would wake up frustrated and realized that even though the dreams were not about my work place, they were a reflection of my helpless feelings and frustrations while at work.
that isn't necessarily true that Meglet's bad dreams about that teacher will occur less, as time passes.
I've been away from a bad situation for over four years, and still have horrible nightmares about various things that happened in real life, and others that I have to deal with regularly.
there may be things a person can do to help keep them at bay, but I doubt stuff like this ever goes away completely.
Actually, I'm pretty sure Becky just finished saying that, Chelsea...saying that memories from her childhood, in the form of dreams, would come back and probably bother her off and on in moments of stress for a good long time.
I'm one of the lucky ones. For awhile when I was small, I had a fear of sudden loud noises. I still don't like them much (who does?), but they don't really scare me now. Anyway, I used to have horrible dreams about them, and even now in moments of stress I don't tend to get them. The only real common thread in my dreams is a bit of an odd one. It involves me being back in high school while still being my current self, or going to university and not knowing where my classes are, things like that. That's fairly easily chalked up to the issues I've had with education (or guilt over lack of education) in my life, but that's about all.
Becky only said the dreams would likely stay for a time, whereas, I'm saying they'll likely never go away. there's a major difference between the two.
Chelsea, read my post again. I told her that *hopefully* these dreams would occur less and less frequently. I also mentioned that they could come back in the future. Before attacking someone's statements, make sure you have read and understood them completely.
They certainly occur far less frequently than they did while I was actualy experiencing the situation. My hope is that they'll keep coming back less and less often as they've been doing so far.
Without getting into too many unnecessary details, an indescribable vastly cratered battlefield crawling with combatants and war machines.
no need to get snarky with me, Becky. I'm sure you've misread a word or two in your lifetime.
anyway, back to the topic, I also have dreams that are located at the school for the blind that I went to, as well as places I've lived.
The worst one is my graduation from the school for the deaf and blind. One of the deaf seniors actually died of a heart attack right after getting his diploma. I didn't know the guy, but still, creepy. Twelve years on, and I still have nightmares.
Funny because I have a lot of them about florida school for the blind to where I went until 8 th grade. Also, I have them with x's from my past a lot which totally weird me out and also with me flying on a horse which is super strange.
I haven't had many like this lately but I used to. It was as though the more traumatic experiences that I experienced, the more frequently they would come up in dreams. I went several weeks in a row where I would have similar dreams of things I experienced with my father, and dreams that would repeat the abuse I heard my mother experience at the hands of my step-father. The helplessness I felt was exactly the same as it was in real life and I was beyond relieved to wake up. . Fortunately I haven't had one of these in months.
yes, that's true. the more traumatic an experience is, the worse the nightmares are.