I sleep little but when I do I dream a lot and they are always negative. I can only remember snippets and awake feeling unsettled.

Merlotgran - I used to have the dream of trying to find a loo. They were always either dirty or didn't have a door.

Oh yes, I have the loo dream too - not dirty ones but they don't have doors, or there is a row of cubicles and every time I open a door, there is no toilet behind it, or it's a shower, and the only one I can find is in the communal area with no privacy at all. I always wake from these dreams bursting for a pee

phoenix and downtoearth. Felt really moved by your posts. So sad.

I do dream a lot and when I wake I am snatching desperately to keep hold of the dream but it fizzles away.

Poor Mr Vampirequeen, but I did laugh!

Oh I didn't imagine anyone else had thay flying through towns dream. When I'm on the plane it doesn't feel odd. The loo dream is quite common I gather. In my dreams there is always something wrong, no doors or filthy.
I've also dreamt I was in a bed in a showroom, or public place. And being naked in public happens occasionally. Dreamwise ! Sometimes I've been in a previous workplace but it's completely different and I can't find my way about. I must be saying a lot about myself here!

I have those dreams too Ashtree! they always turn out to have showers or a small bath in them, and if they are really loos, then disused and filthy so you can't use them.It must be the body's way of saying " look, you need the loo, but you really MUST NOT do it!"
I dream about houses too, we have moved house loads of times, so maybe it's that, but in the dreams they are really big houses with so many rooms, and there is always at least one bedroom that I am frightened to enter, and a feeling of evil generally.Needless to say, we have never had a house like that.A worry dream I sometimes have is of waiting at a bus stop, and when the bus arrives, my shopping bag breaks and all is spilling out onto the pavement , and I try to cram it all back in but there is too much of it.Also of driving a car really fast and just missing people and objects and being out of control, taking too long to brake.I used to have regular flying dreams which were pleasant, but they stopped about 20 years ago.Round about the menopause I had lots of dreams about my having a baby, I knew I was too old but was really pleased to having one (not reality, then.)
when I gave up working, I had a whole year of dreams that I had my handbag stolen, and found it flung somewhere, but the purse was always emptied .

Oh, I have the house dreams too. I read once that it meant you had unfulfilled ambitions. The sinister feeling about some of the rooms is quite unsettling. There is another dream I sometimes have, again about a place; I wake up knowing that I've had the dream again but can't remember what happened or where I was, but am desperate to get back into the dream to 'be there' so I can remember it afterwards. I can even 'feel' that dream now but can't pinpoint what it's about .

I dream constantly, every night. Dreams and nightmares have haunted me my whole life. I wish they would stop!

I dream about the toilet one, being on public display and in a huge panic.

In real life I check on going out that I have my trousers on, logically I know I have but my illogical part of my brain refuses to believe it until I have checked.

The other main dream I have, apart from dreaming of ex's, is driving along, and then wanting to turn left or right but the steering wont turn the wheels and I end up still in a straight line, waking in a panic. It really has put me off driving again. Mostly it was over the time of the violent neightbour at the old house and maybe it was to signify that going in the direction of moving away was the correct thing to do.

Many years ago I had hypnotherapy for eczema (it worked, by the way).

My therapist was what you might call an "holistic" sort of practitioner, and we would often discuss dreams.

He was of the opinion that when you dreamed of houses, they reflected the way your life was (or the way you felt about it) at the time. Looking back, I think he had a valid point.

henetha I too dream constantly every night but mostly I enjoy remembering them and trying to work them out.

So many of us have the dirty/public toilet dreams they must be significant. I thought mine was due to having a chemical toilet as a child. My poor dad had to empty it when it was full - yuck! Also our nearest big town had those below ground public toilets. Two of them had no doors so you did not have to pay a penny. Being rather poor I frequently used one of those.

Does anyone else have the 'packing' dreams? Trying to pack up everything and finding more and more 'stuff' for the suitcases and bags. then having to try and carry them all. I am worn out when I wake from one of those! I think they come from College and Uni when we had to clear all our stuff out of rooms at the end of the year, but maybe they are more deep seated.

My mother had a recurring dream that she was walking along the main road, close to where she lived, wearing only her vest!

I once had such a vivid dream that I was walking round a fairground during the winter in the snow and ice, a bit like the winter fairs they had a few hundred years ago on the Thames.

All the attractions were ultra brightly lit in vibrant colours.

It was like being in a technicolor dream and it was wonderful.

Do others dream in colour ?

I rarely remember my dreams but I remember one detail of what I was dreaming last night: white cyclamen flowers.

I dream every night and it is like being at the cinema- very brightly coloured.
Unfortunately I forget them as I wake.
I did have a time of trying to write them down.
As far as I can tell my mind is like a filing cabinet- it takes the events of the day , shuffles them around and puts them in the right folder!

The dream that I remember is similar to yours AshTree and when I wake and get to the loo I am always thankful that I never found a functioning, private one in my dream!

I do remember a whole series of dreams that I had following my husband's death where I was obviously coming to terms with it.

It must be awful for those of you who have to relive troubled times in dreams. You must almost be afraid to sleep, how horrible. Thinking of you all
I find it totally fascinating that so many of us have the same types of dreams.

I dream every night. On rare occasions I have a recurring nightmare during which I'm being attacked and I wake my husband up with loud shouts of NO! Most of my dreams involve me finding a way through or over a weird and tricky obstacle course...the likes of which I invariably manage to overcome.

Leticia one of my lecturers told me once that our dreams relate to what's going on in our subconscious, which surfaces when we are asleep, scans our "real-time" or awake landscape, and uses events from that to help process what is subconsciously going on in our minds.

That is what it feels like Grannyknot .

Dreams are such strange things, especially the ones common to many of us. I have the walking in the air one a lot. Lovely feeling! Also the house with many rooms that keeps expanding.

I have 2 that I have never forgotten! In both I have woken up crying.
When DS was in his teens, he was very difficult (so lovely now though). One night I dreamt that I saw him falling off a cliff. I raced over to try to stop him but couldn't. I ran to the bottom of the cliff to find him. He wasn't quite dead and as I lifted him up he has turned into the little blonde boy he used to be. He said 'night night mummy' and then died. I still get weepy remembering that.
The other vivid dream was a few weeks after my mother died. The year before my father had died of the same cancer. I dreamt I called at their back door and it was answered by my mother. I was surprised! She told me there was a special person waiting to see me, and led me into the living room where my father was sitting in his usual seat. When I went over to hug him, I woke up and, realising it was just a dream, began to cry. I cried all that day.

phoenix and downtoearth

My 'worry dream' that I had for many years, was that I'd be up to my thighs in the sea when I'd see a tidal wave heading my way. I couldn't move fast enough through the water then at one point I'd wake up. Another one was going out with the children and losing them and now I have that dream about my grandchildren. I often dream about someone who has died, like my mother and grandparents. Quite like those dreams. I lost a very dear friend last October but haven't dreamt of her yet.

I often dream Im in a public loo and the door doesn't fit so everyone can see me or I dream that Im in a house fire, it can be my house or my old school and sometimes my mothers house and I cant get out.

After my dad died I was always dreaming about him until one night he told me to stop bothering him and only dream about him when I really needed him! I guess I was coming to terms with his death then.

I still occasionally dream about both parents but then suddenly realise that actually they are dead and so change the dream around. I think I read somewhere that this was called 'lucid dreaming', though the resulting dream still does not end up being particularly lucid!

I have also used this technique to halt nasty dreams eg losing the grandchildren, my ex turning up etc not always successfully but often enough to be worth trying. Again the dreaming afterwards is pretty muddled though I have occasionally managed to tell myself to wake up.

NanKate and Leticia - I know I dream in colour because I have sometimes stopped and checked. The colours are very dull and muted though.

I believe that dreams are the brain's way of filing information and emotions recently experienced. I have tried to analyse and usually find the dream relates to something in the past few days, an odd comment, something that reminds me of a certain time or emotion, or a minor incident almost forgotten. Still fascinating though!

Most of the dreams I have I can't remember once I'm awake and some of them are so ridiculous I don't know where they can come from. Last night I dreamed that the Duke of Devonshire (the last one, not the current one!) and I were stringing up a wire which ran all the way to Norway and carried current which had been converted from gas. We were stringing it in trees and from buildings, until he fell into a swimming pool and then I had to do it all on my own. Then, suddenly, I was helping my sister to serve orange and grapefruit juice at a party and every time someone asked for one, it turned out to be the other! Work that one out! Perhaps the most vivid dream I had was of being held by a large animal, a bear I think, and for hours after I woke up, I could sense the fur and the smell of it. It was horrible.