What's the most recurring theme/element in your nightmares?

Shit shit shit, I just remembered I haven't attended English class all semester.

Shit shit shit, I can't remember my locker combination, and I can't find the orientation sheet that has it, also I can't find my class schedule, I have no idea what class I'm supposed to be in right now.

Plus a few other variations. All High School. I dunno why the focus on High School, I'm 34. I get one of these once or twice a month.

18

I dunno why the focus on High School, I'm 34

High school is a recurring setting for me too, goes to show how deeply high school can traumatize us, I guess.

9
Wow, I have almost exactly the same recurring dream. I have locker 15 but I can’t remember where the lockers are.

2

Since becoming a parent my nightmares all involve my kids being harmed: crashing their bicycles, getting hit by cars, falling and hitting their heads, etc. It's awful.

12

I have had quite a few nightmares about not being able to find my kids during zombie apocalypses.
Same basic thing tho: the scariest part wasn't the setting or scenario, it was not being able to save my kids from harm.

5
Same

3

When I was younger, I had recurring nightmares of one particular place; it was kind of a big gothic castle-type house (mansion, something like that) in an outwardly nice grassy and wooded area. I could actually realize when I was there just from the landscape, even before I was near enough the building to see it.

Once I arrived at the building, the outside was just sort of creepy but ultimately harmless, but for some reason my task each time I had this dream was to get into the house, and start to go lower and more and more through locked or private areas of the castle into the darker basement and sub-basement, until it was almost like air ventilation ducts made of stone that I was squeezing through. The lower sections were dark and haunted with some kind of severe evil presence that sometimes I would run into or get near to.

It maybe isn't coming across as all that sinister just typing it out, but it was fuckin freaky being in the abandoned haunted basement area.

12

Have you ever had sleep paralysis? The combo of severe evil presence and severely constricting environment/feeling at often tied with sleep paralysis and have some correlation with dyspnea in real life while you're dreaming

4
- No, nothing like that. I definitely had a whole class of nightmares that was the "severe evil presence" variety, but usually I would be fighting it, or like with some kind of capability, not just pure helpless terror about the sinister presence of it.
  
  4

Work. I'm a chef and my nightmares are mostly along the lines of arriving at a strange kitchen, finding out nothing has been prepped, and I have half an hour to make 20 pans of lasagne but there's no tomatoes, only 2kg of pork, and the ovens are stuck at 300°C.

Ironically my best dreams are about a zombie apocalypse . And I'm the guy with the chainsaw and shotgun.

10

A general lack of control, but mainly manifested in not being able to stop doing something. Mainly walking, it's like things can be peaceful, but the moment I try to stop, take a look at something, there's an overwhelming feeling of I can't, I'm not allowed to, I'm moving for a reason and if I stop now, I'll never start again, they(whatever it is) won't let me.

Or sometimes it's coming out of hiding. I've had a few where it's like a horror movie, there's party music somewhere above me, but I'm hiding in something, and I know there's something just wrong, but if I try to leave wherever I'm at, I can't. Like my body in the dream locks up, refuses to let me step out and face it. It makes it feel so much worse, like I'm locked in by my own self.

9

The thing that gets me a lot of the time is falling up. I would trip while running or riding a bike, and lose contact with the ground. Soon I'm beyond any trees that I could grab, and just falling. Up. Until it wakes me up.

I've had nightmares about it since I was a kid (I don't know when "old" starts, but I'm probably closer to that than to being a kid. Well, in age - I'm still pretty immature 😅)

7

I sometimes dream something similar but its one of those dreams where you can fly until I loose control of it and just keep going up

2

Being at school. It seems I never graduated from dream school.

7

For me it's having to make an emergency call and the person on the other end either just won't listen properly, ignore me, not understand me, act in a weird way, or the call has technical problems like there is no reception where I am and I have to run around forever to find signal or a different phone.

I have no idea where that comes from, I've never even made an emergency call.

6

Dreams have symbolic meanings. They often represent things that happened in your waking life that have not been resolved. If the dream is recurring it could mean something important to you remains unresolved. If you can identify the reason for your dream and understand why are having it, it can stop recurring. For example I often dreamed about falling down a a stair at my grandparents house well into my teens. When I told my dad about it, he said I had actually fallen down a stair at home when I was two years old. The dreams stopped after that. Here the dream symbol is really close to the real thing, but it could be different in your case.

"Dialing 911 in a dream is a "cry for help" and reflects feelings of concern about a period of emotional crisis. If you are dialing 911 in a dream or someone else is, identify the emergency or urgent situation you or that person wants help with in your/their waking life. Getting a busy signal, no answer, the phone doesn't work, or you can't dial properly, reflect feelings of frustration, difficulty or failure to communicate your need for help with an "emergency" in your waking life." (Cmp.: https://www.dreamdoctor.com/index.php?option=com_dreams&controller=dictionary&task=details&id=1&Itemid=24)

So try to find out what your personal emergency could be, talk to someone about it and chances are the dreams are going to stop.

1

Running from something that is trying to kill me and being chased. Occasionally it catches me and I start screaming in my sleep. That was a fun one to explain to my boyfriend when he moved in.

6

I hate being chased nightmares. When I realize I have no hope of escape I turn to fight, but my arms move too slow. Like I am underwater.

3

They often involve being chased by something, often huge and very threatening looking insects or someone like a really tall dude with extremely elongated hands or being late for something like class at school. Running through corridors that then become really tight spaces that I feel Im gonna get stuck in and/or ruined buildings where I have to jump over deadly holes in the floor or broken down stairwells. It usually starts with a weird version of the apartment I grew in or my former high school and, for some reason, It doesnt feel like its wrong that the building is that way, its just how things are. And it often ends with me trapped in a room, sometimes alone sometimes not, while the insects somehow still crawl in. One time a huge spider attacked my cat and they fell from one of those stairwells and the spider then ate my cat and I woke up crying.

I also have a sleep paralysis demon. It likes to climb on top of me, grab me by the head and breathe on my neck. Good times!

Whats yours tho?

5

Being stuck far away from everyone else. Giant waves The death of specifically my brother Being back at my original college and it being completely empty and feeling profoundly alone

5

trying to catch trains, trying to find the correct room at university ...

5

Packing/moving. We're almost done, but discover another part of the attic around a corner. It opens up into a multi-level mall-like area (but with narrow stairs) full of dining room and bedroom furniture sets. It all needs to be out by morning.

5

This needs a content warning

3

Various horrifying things happening to animals, people, or on some occasions me and being unable to help.

Suffering animals are the worst.

5

I keep running into obstacles preventing me from getting somewhere/finishing a job/getting laid.

I hardly ever have any reward or resolution in my dreams. Really frustrating

4

Getting shot is probably the most recurring element in my nightmares. They say you can’t feel pain in dreams, but I always do. Very often I feel the bullets lodged in me and collapse and lose strength as I watch the shooter(s) come to finish me off. Sometimes I have friends or my husband there with me also getting shot, sometimes I’m just alone.

I deal with a lot of nerve pain and usually wake up in physical pain when that happens, so I assume it’s just pain I’m already having bleeding into my dreams.

I’m not particularly afraid of gun violence IRL so I’m not sure why my subconscious latches onto that, other than it’s scary.

4

School, forgetting assignments and the like.

Weird considering I've graduated well over a decade ago.

4

Same. Always school and always working on homework or something I've forgotten

1

I for some reason have gone back to a restaurant where I used to work but it's two or three times as large and wildly understaffed.

4

And it’s a comically huge number of people coming in; like people at every table and a huge line of people trying to come in, people standing around, at the tables and the bar wanting drinks and with little kids running around everywhere, and I’m there all by myself and for some reason trying to run around and do everything

I have had that one

4

Confusion, I am always struggling to understand or I am being misunderatood

4

I don't think I have any themes regularly, but I have had a few end of world dreams and they sat with me for a while. soooo sad.

4

Falling down a flight of stairs, or otherwise tripping on something.

When I was younger it was dreams about infinitely large objects, usually a cube.

3

The most recurring theme is that I took Melatonin before bed and I can't remember them. I just wake up drenched in sweat with my heart racing, so I assume what I woke up from was a nightmare. Have never had a nightmare otherwise.

3

anxiety inducing levels frustration at things that don't work like they're designed during emergency situations. ie unable to use a phone to call for help because of fat fingering or my car won't stop and go as expected when i hit the brake and gas pedals leaving me a few feet/yards off mark each time i try.

the second most common is a lucid-ish dream where i can remember that i dreamt this before, but i can't remember what i recognized; only that i can remember dreaming it.

3

In terms of Nightmares that induce fear: Usually something that is there that poses extreme threat that I'm unable to make out. Often I'm able to make out that it's a beast of some kind

3

While I don't have it anymore, for years I had a recurring nightmare about the house I grew up in. There had always been unusual occurrences within, mostly auditory but sometimes visual. Looking back, I was never that spooked about it while living there. I honestly loved that property and have fond memories of growing up among all those old apple trees. But for years after moving out I would dream that I had returned to it, and it was very, very different.

In the dreams the house was dark and full of shadows. Completely devoid of furniture and decor. It was gray, empty, and wholly abandoned. While inside I could feel an overwhelming and foreboding precense. It was this feeling of fear and panic. Pure dread. There was something disturbing there with me as I traveled from room to room, nervously anticipating every new corner as the sun sank low and the shadows grew deeper inside. As the years progressed, I would find the house to be filled with spectral cats that accompanied me throughout, or darted around the rooms inexplicably, sometimes out of the corner of my eye and other times as clear as day. Though I couldn't quite focus on them, I had the feeling these were all the cats I had owned growing up. Some of them cats I had owned and lost since originally living there. It was as though they were trapped in the purgatory of that haunting, empty dream house, and even though the cats seemed to be full of spunk, there was an immense sadness about them being there.

The dreams occurred with greater frequency into my late 20s-early 30s, until one night I simply stepped inside and realized there was nothing left to fear. Suddenly the house no longer bothered me. It stood still and silent. Cleansed somehow. There were no more shadows, ghostly cats or smothering prescences within. It was as though the both me and the house had been freed.

I haven't dreamt about that house since, other than a snippet from another unrelated dream, where I found myself briefly gathered with a co-workers family on the back deck, but I didn't realize where I had been until waking.

3

Large animals hunting me. Usually big cats (lions, tigers, jaguars, not house cats). But the last few times I remember these types of dreams I have been safe inside some structure, with just the threat they will find a way through a door or window.

3

Finding an animal I forgot I owned, usually sick or half-starved in a dark, cramped enclosure.

My father was an animal hoarder, no mystery where that comes from.

Other than that, I just have a lot of dreams about my family arguing. Never anything ridiculous or dramatic, just a bunch of people who look down on each other making it known.

2

Earth falling out of orbit and careening towards the sun.

Looking up at the sky, I see a void open in the center, going from blue to black, then eventually to blinding orange into white before everyone collectively melts and then incinerates in the extreme heat.

Worst off, its a slow descent, so we have time to contemplate it as it happens.

2

Being a helpless bystander to something horrible happening to my family.

2

I'm in a rush to get out of the house because I'm late for work or school or something like that. I get there on time to realize that I'm not wearing any pants and am shocked by this fact. I then try to hide that I'm not wearing pants.

2

When I was younger, it used to be falling down a large hole, getting swallowed up by the darkness, and never knowing exactly when I'd hit the ground (or worse).

Now I have a family, my most frequent one has been losing my 9yo daughter, usually when we're camping or at a busy shopping centre - something like that.

2

I think it's that they always turn from full color to "black and red" when they get too stressful for me.

2

There's always a specific restaurant plaza I go to. The food there looks really delicious.

2

All my teeth falling off (I wore braces as a teen, I don't know if it made a difference). Also since a cousin died in a car crash I dream about car accidents, always in the driver seat. In the first year after the accident I even woke up trying to press the breaks sometimes.

2

Me yanking off my own teeth with my bare hands.

2

Constant danger or a threat.

2

An exam or class I didn't study for or somehow haven't been attending.

2

I'm not really sure if I remember any of my dreams (or if I even dream anymore), but sometimes I'll suddenly wake up because my mind thinks it hears a restaurant kitchen printer going off.

That's a bitch if you haven't experienced it yourself, lol.

1

Falling, getting into a fight, being attacked, or watching a disaster happen. I regularly get night terrors, where I’ll wake up screaming. It’s genetic, apparently, my dad and his dad both had them too. My brothers get them too. I don’t get them much any more, regular cannabis use has turned off pretty much all my dreams. Shit gets whack when I stop, the dreams come back way more realistic and intense.

1

What about Tiananmen Square…?!? That was kinda cool for the CCP!

I wasn’t there but maybe someone here was.

Oh wait.

No.

They were all killed and then turned to mush by tanks repeatedly driving over the bodies and then hosed dune the drains.

GLORY TO THE CCP AND HOW WONDERFUL THEY ARE TO ALL THE PEOPLE.

-1