do you think your dreams inform your life?

[freshstart]

I was never a person who believed dreams meant anything, maybe at a stretch they were your brain doing some work to help you make a big decision or working out a problem. But now my dreams have been so consistent and persuasive that I just don't know.

For the last year I dream some variation on I am back at work but I am lacking some desperately needed skill and I am trying to hide that I don't have it. Then I wake up in a panic, realize yes, I am desperately lacking in the skills to do my job which is why I am not doing it. Well, dreamland has upped the ante. Now I am in college, nursing school, and everything is in French. I had 6 or 7 years of French, I could read Emile Zola in the original just fine yet conversational, useful French eluded me and is now completely gone. So I am taking microbiology and chemistry and it's all in French. I have to publicly speak in French, I have to write scientific papers (not required in nursing school that I remember, lol) in French, I have to get published to graduate. I have a computer but struggle with my French using a dictionary. Somehow I graduate. I work in a hospital on an oncology ward just like I did IRL but everyone speaks French. Eventually, I realize it is not safe to keep up this charade that I speak French.

Then I wake up, realize I barely speak English, I am not working so thus not at risk of harming anyone because of my crappy memory, I speak English to the dog, she looks up and it's all good.

I think I am having these dreams about fearing harming a patient because of a lack of some crucial skill to help me work out and accept that I'm not nursing nobody for a very long time, if ever. Maybe to help me accept it? But every night and with more weird details building the story? Maybe dreams do matter because once I wake up and realize there is zero chance of me harming someone, I break out in a cold sweat of relief.

anyone else have similar?

[herbgeek]

Pretty much every night. I work as a project manager in software during the day, and most nights in dream world have me on dysfunctional project teams where I can't figure out what we are supposed to accomplish, or no one is doing anything useful towards getting things done. I wake up completely exhausted and frustrated. In other words, I have the same world pretty much 24/7. :~)

[Ultralight]

freshstart:

Your dream world... whoa...

[Zoe Girl]

I have lots of vivid symbolic dreams, all the time. The worst is the 'losing a kid on a field trip' dream. I usually have those both before and after a camp field trip.

I also have dreams that are not so literal, there was one with a progression of death in my daughter, like she was dead, then on life support, then in a wheelchair and then fine. I think it was about the year of getting sober and actually not a bad dream. I have ones about driving when I am feeling work out of control, the dream meaning is determined by who is driving, what is the speed, dangerous or safe, can you see outside the car, etc. Very interesting.

[Ultralight]

In college I dreamed about the zombie apocalypse every night -- literally every single night -- for 4 years. This was back in 2002-2005, so it was before The Walking Dead and whatnot.

I still have a zombie dream about once per week. They are very disturbing and scary.

I also dream of apocalypse in the form of plagues, alien invasion, wars, ecological collapse, etc. I have these dreams probably once a week as well.

After my divorce I had nightmares about my ex every single night, usually 3 or 4 nightmares about her each night. Again, I have a nightmare about her maybe once per week now.

My dream are vivid, layered, and usually frightening. I will occasionally wake up weeping, depending on the theme of the dream.

Once in a great while though, I will have a good dream -- about fishing or falling in love or sprinting on the beach with Harlan. In those cases I awake to the nightmare of ennui and/or absurdity in which I live daily.

[Zoe Girl]

Here is what dreammoods says about zombie dreams, interesting


Zombie
To see or dream that you are a zombie suggests that you are physically and/or emotionally detached from people and situations that are currently surrounding you. You are feeling out of touch. Alternatively, a zombie means that you are feeling dead inside. You are just going through the motions of daily living.
To dream that you are attacked by zombies indicate that you are feeling overwhelmed by forces beyond your control. You are under tremendous stress in your waking life. Alternatively, the dream represents your fears of being helpless and overpowered.

[Ultralight]

To dream that you are attacked by zombies indicate that you are feeling overwhelmed by forces beyond your control. You are under tremendous stress in your waking life. Alternatively, the dream represents your fears of being helpless and overpowered.


Yup.

[ToomuchStuff]

Sometimes I think they do. I can be working on some problem and sometimes if I say something outloud before I go to bed, when I awake, shortly after the answer comes to me.
Generally don't remember dreams. The ones I do tend to remember are more the fear dreams.
But they can also be simply an escape from reality.

[pony mom]

I have a few dreams that occur frequently. One of them is that I'm working at my old job (office), and I can't find where I'm supposed to go, or the job has changed so much that I can't do it.

My other one, I think, has replaced the old common dream of going to school and forgetting my schedule, locker combination, etc. Now I dream that I need a bathroom, but there aren't any with doors on the stalls. The toilets are along the walls of a room that is usually full of people. Or, I can't find a toilet that works. Someone on a horse forum I belong to has mentioned the same dream.

Will I have bladder problems in the near future?

Oh, and I often compose music in my sleep but forget it when I wake. It all sounds really great at the time (last night was music for an orchestra!). Maybe if I had a recorder handy so I could wake myself up and hum into it......then I'll realize that it sucks.

Just before falling asleep, I'll often jerk myself awake and it's always the same image that causes it: I'm riding my horse and he trips. The falling feeling startles me awake. A friend, who was a pro ice skater, wakes herself with falling after landing a jump.

[jp1]

OP, those dreams definitely sound like they're trying to help you to accept what your limitations are and show you why. It'll be interesting to see if they continue, and if so, if they move in any particular direction.

Most of my dreams can be tied back to something that has happened in my recent real life. Not directly, but closely enough that I can say "oh, yeah. I probably had that dream because X happened." By and large they are pretty unremarkable, although at least once a month I'm able to have lucid dreams where I realize I'm in a dream, so I try to influence what happens in the dream. I love when that happens.

The only time I've ever had dreams that seemed to have a bigger meaning was when my mother died ten years ago. Shortly after her death I started having dreams about her maybe 3-4 times/week. At first in the dreams she was healthy. We were doing things and happy and it was all good and I'd wake up, remember that she was actually dead and be sad. After a few months she started being sick in the dreams. Not sick in the way people actually get sick, but sick in the way people in movies get sick. In other words in the dreams she was still lucid and didn't look horrible or sleep 20 hours/day, she was just kind of tired, but I knew that she was dying. After a few months of that the dreams shifted again. Now the dream her was dead. Either she had just died or she had been dead a while. When I woke from these I wasn't really sad the way I'd been with the healthy mom dreams. And after a few months the "mom's dead" dreams stopped and were not replaced by anything. I suppose this long series of dreams was my brain's way of dealing with my loss. Nothing similar happened after my father died.

[Williamsmith]

If someone experiences frequent dreams and nightmares, it is terrifying to ponder possible meanings. Are you aware of constant conversations and thoughts you have during your waking moments? If so, then is it reasonable to assume those thoughts are continuing during sleep? But during sleep you are not receiving visual cues which redirect your brain to important tasks at hand. It is now free to download all information that is stored during the day or has been compartmentalize as a way of dealing with trauma or unsettling images. So the dream experience is the way your brain processes information. If trauma is substantial enough it never fully gets compartmentalize and may reoccur. This is how I understand it. My personality and my experiences are such that this has been a constant state of existence for me. I have seen many natural human brains at autopsies and am fasicinated by their construction and operation. And amazed at how fragile an existence we live day by day.

[Ultralight]

If someone experiences frequent dreams and nightmares, it is terrifying to ponder possible meanings. Are you aware of constant conversations and thoughts you have during your waking moments? If so, then is it reasonable to assume those thoughts are continuing during sleep? But during sleep you are not receiving visual cues which redirect your brain to important tasks at hand. It is now free to download all information that is stored during the day or has been compartmentalize as a way of dealing with trauma or unsettling images. So the dream experience is the way your brain processes information. If trauma is substantial enough it never fully gets compartmentalize and may reoccur. This is how I understand it. My personality and my experiences are such that this has been a constant state of existence for me. I have seen many natural human brains at autopsies and am fasicinated by their construction and operation. And amazed at how fragile an existence we live day by day.

The human brain is fascinating.

[Float On]

I've always dreamed about tornadoes. In my dreams the tornado looks like an old fashioned antenna, small up high in the sky.
I dream about spiders either one or thousands in my bed. Another reason DH sleeps up in the loft he's tired of me smacking spiders in my sleep.

[Valley]

I have ALS, and now that I'm in a wheel chair all of the time (I can't walk at all) I'm constantly dreaming that I'm traveling and find myself walking. I then realize with horror that I can't walk and must get to my wheel chair immediately. I look and look for my wheel chair and can't find it anywhere. These dreams mostly occur in an airport or a shopping area. I worry that I'll see someone I know and that they'll think I really can walk and no longer believe I have ALS. It is disconcerting to say the least!

[Ultralight]

It is disconcerting to say the least!

Your mind is sure doing some wacky stuff to you in your dreams.

[freshstart]

this reality based dreaming is more common than I thought. Last night I dreamed I left the hospital for hospice and they freaking spoke french, too! Maybe I'm meant to be in Paris!

Valley, I am sorry to here you have ALS, that's a tough one

[Ultralight]

Valley, I am sorry to here you have ALS, that's a tough one

I share freshstart's sentiments regarding your condition.

[catherine]

I remember that right before I took a momentous job change I had a dream that the president of the company I worked for, and who gave me a wonderful opportunity for career advancement, for was a midwife to a baby I gave birth to, and nothing could have been more clearly easy to interpret than that.

But I often have dreams that I'm missing a train or a plane, and in my dream I'm experiencing those "running as fast as I can but not getting anywhere" dreams. And usually there are numerous obstacles to getting on the train or plane. The feeling of not making it to the station in time is one of sheer panic.

freshstart, if you are dreaming about speaking in French and you are struggling with English, maybe its a sense of loss over your reduced language abilities. Maybe you are the patient in your dream?

[freshstart]

yeah, I think it's me struggling to accept my working life will never be the same and the struggling to speak French makes sense as I struggle to clearly speak proper english

[Teacher Terry]

When I was younger I had lots of nightmares and would sleep walk. The walking ended by 40 and as I age I have much less nightmares. Although, I have punched my hubby a few times while sleeping thinking someone was attacking me. 3 of 5 people in my family of origin sleep walked and all had nightmares so I think maybe a genetic component. 2 of my 3 kids talked in sleep and walked but out grew the walking by 19. Sometimes i have vivid dreams of someone that has passed and we are doing fun things, etc and I read that person's spirit is actually visiting you when that happens. It feels like a nice way to think about it. Usually it is pleasant but once I woke up sobbing when I realized my bf was dead.

[jp1]

yeah, I think it's me struggling to accept my working life will never be the same and the struggling to speak French makes sense as I struggle to clearly speak proper english

After I wrote my post yesterday about lucid dreams I had one last night/early this morning. Nothing too crazy and the events in it were very much tied to things that have happened in my waking life over the past couple of days. But it occurred to me when I woke up this morning that you might benefit from learning how to have lucid dreams. Essentially a lucid dream is one where the dreamer realizes they are dreaming and takes actions to make things occur that they want to occur in the dream. For you that might mean asking the other healthcare workers to speak English, or even just deciding to leave the building so as to not risk making a mistake with anyone's care while knowing that it's 'just a dream' and no harm will be done. You have a great dreamstate cue, (providing healthcare in French), and you already do well remembering your dreams, so you would probably have an easy time learning how to make your dreams lucid. Taking control of your dreams might be helpful in dealing with your health issues and all the effects they have on your life.

[Williamsmith]

After I wrote my post yesterday about lucid dreams I had one last night/early this morning. Nothing too crazy and the events in it were very much tied to things that have happened in my waking life over the past couple of days. But it occurred to me when I woke up this morning that you might benefit from learning how to have lucid dreams. Essentially a lucid dream is one where the dreamer realizes they are dreaming and takes actions to make things occur that they want to occur in the dream. For you that might mean asking the other healthcare workers to speak English, or even just deciding to leave the building so as to not risk making a mistake with anyone's care while knowing that it's 'just a dream' and no harm will be done. You have a great dreamstate cue, (providing healthcare in French), and you already do well remembering your dreams, so you would probably have an easy time learning how to make your dreams lucid. Taking control of your dreams might be helpful in dealing with your health issues and all the effects they have on your life.

jp1..... just to clarify, taking control is an action that occurs when you are awake and remember the dream. You replay the scenario and determine a happy outcome rather than the outcome that scares you. This not only reduces the intensity ofthe threatening dream but also the frequency. That's the theory anyway.

I personally don't have much luck as my brain seems to come up with endless variations on themes relating to my former job. My dreams and often nightmares occur within the first three to five hours of sleep and interrupts my ability to return to a resting state without activity. At times the intensity is accompanied by a feeling of suffocation which probably indicates a breathing disorder during sleep.

I used to move about and sweat and on a few occasions I found myself out of my bed. Once I was outside the house. Happily that has only happened once and a long time ago when I was under extreme stress. I remember a certain nightmare that drove me out of bed and into a dark corner of my house weeping uncontrollably. Thankfully, my only response to these dreams now is usually a general feeling of sadness or regret over the outcome.

Strangely, the dreaming generates a heightened state of awareness followed by a somewhat improved ability to be creative.

Thus, many of my posts here occur at odd hours.

[jp1]

jp1..... just to clarify, taking control is an action that occurs when you are awake and remember the dream.

No. That's not what I mean. Lucid dreaming is where one is able to be aware that a dream is a dream while it is happening and then is able to make conscious decisions within the dream. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream

[Simplemind]

I can't wait to go to bed at night. I have the most vivid and fascinating dreams. I have lucid dreams in the last hour or so before I fully wake up. They sometimes feel like they last for hours and play out like a movie. Some have cemented decisions I already knew I had to make. Others have been other worldly.
Right after my mother died I decided to buy a new car. It was time anyway but after caring for her to the bitter end I just felt that it was something I needed to do for myself. I bought the car and we took everything out of the old one and drove home with the new. That night I had the first of several dreams featuring my mom. Suddenly her face loomed over mine and in a loud voice she said "You forgot your cross". Years before she had given me a Celtic cross that I clipped to my visor. I loved it and would often reach up to touch it and say a little prayer. I suddenly woke and couldn't remember if we took it out of the car. I woke my husband up and he said he didn't remember. We ran out to the garage and couldn't find it in the box of stuff. We called the dealership as soon as the opened and the car had already been loaded up on a truck for transport. They had somebody run out and check it and found my cross. If mom hadn't woke me up it would have been lost forever.

[Zoe Girl]

My most prophetic dream was about 15 years ago and I still remember it. I was in our small town walking and a low black car was driving through the town slowly. There were men with guns and they were shooting people. I tried to run but felt exactly where I got shot between my shoulder blades. The next morning I was feeling a little sick, it developed into bronchitis which caused ache and pain in that exact part of my back. It was also interesting that bronchitis was going around the town so shooting many people was accurate. My best friend at the time caught it as well,

[Lainey]

Years ago I was in a relationship off and on for 8 years. I dreamed frequently of being trapped in a tiny space, panicking about running out of air. After we broke up those dreams stopped.
Pretty clear now to see I felt stifled but so difficult to see that in real life.

[freshstart]

We called the dealership as soon as the opened and the car had already been loaded up on a truck for transport. They had somebody run out and check it and found my cross. If mom hadn't woke me up it would have been lost forever.

I had almost the same thing except my mom is still alive. I had gotten in an accident and my car was totaled, I had my box of stuff from it. That night I dreamt my mom was telling me I didn't have the St Christopher's medal that she had given me when I became a driver that her dad had given her. I got up and dug through the box, not there. I called in the am and my car was on a truck to be taken out of state for some reason, the lady who answered the phone, climbed up there and got my medal. Without that dream it would've been gone forever.