Recurring Nightmare

I’ve had the same recurring dream since I was a child. I’m a passenger in a van, which being driven by a man wearing a duffle coat and we’re driving along a country road near to where I live and I ask the driver a question and he turns to me and he’s actually a skeleton. At this point I always wake up. My mum had two theories one was that the skeleton was actually my dad, who was killed when I was 6 and the other is a story my brothers told me to stop me going near a coal bing, they said the dead bodies of German soldiers were buried under the coal waste and if you disturbed them they pull you under to stay with them.

As a youngster I used to have the same scary dream of someone little in a red cloak and hood chasing me on a bicycle. Nowadays my bad dreams are always about getting lost, either an emergency and I can't find my way to a hospital or just hopelessly lost anywhere. These must relate to the fact that I have no sense of direction and even get lost inside shops.

There was one nightmare that I always used to have, as a child, when I was running a high fever..........haven't had it for years though

Mine is always about large spiders. I mean much larger than we ever get in UK. Not giant like horror movies just large. I've taken 4 years to try to ride myself of my arachnophobia and I'm much better. If I have one of those dreams it sets me back a bit. I'm always on the look out. I had to learn to deal with it when my husband died. Therewas no one else but me.

My recurring dream is that I can't remember where I've parked my car. I'm wandering along road after road, and can't find it. Another one is looking for a loo. People tell me where it is, and then when I get there it isn't. At which point I wake up and am so relieved that mine is next door.

So interesting to read about other people's recurrent dreams. My regular nightmare finds me lost and unable to find my family or indeed anyone I know. I realise I am all along and it's always in a horrible frightening place. It is obviously a fear of ending up alone but I wish I would stop having it! I wake up all upset for the rest of the day.

I am sceptic when it comes to interpreting dreams, I think most are the result of either biochemical changes in our minds when asleep, or our brain processing what happened the previous days, or they reflect deep seated worries and fears.

DH an enthusiastic amdram person often used to have the stage dream described by Indigo8. I ued to dream that I was at a party or other gathering and I had realised the house was on fire or some other such calalmity, but although I tried to get people's attention and warn them so they could escape, no one seemed to hear me or listen to me, which I am sure reflected my feelings of alienation by other people..

Now, I dream, but never remember them.

I used to dream that my old parents were insidting I drove their car to do an errand for rhem although they knew I had no driving licence.
They had insisted I could not sit my test before moving from the U K at 16, and I had never been able to afford the mandatory lessons here.
When I linked this dream where I was forced to do something illegal to being morally obliged to doing things I did not feel were right for me, this nightmare stopped.
Perhaps you can use this to find what your dream is linked to.

I am always lost in a strange city. I’ve had it for decades. I don’t know the language. I can’t remember how to get home, or back to my late DH who is somewhere miles away but in the city too, or I am walking and walking through streets or alleyways, or passages in buildings trying to get somewhere. Once I was in a high level walkway looking out over a strange city, knowing that I needed to be somewhere else. It’s always desperate and I wake up knackered and in despair and sad. I had the same dream before DH died, so not to do with that great loss.

Blacktabby2

I am forever dreaming about needing the loo! Every public toilet has glass walls. Or no doors. Why? This has gone on for years!

I dream about needing the loo as well.

I am usually in some huge subterranean hospital like building and I keep finding promising looking doors only to find they have brooms or washbasins in them but no loos. Eventually, I wake up and guess what? I need the loo.

On a bad night this can happen six or more times.

Weird isn't it!

jules1 - that sounds so like mine…

Usedtobeblonde

I have one which isn’t really upsetting but plagues me.
I am taking my GCE’s as they were in my day and whatever the paper is I know nothing except what an Isthmus and an Archipelago are.
I go into the hall thinking well at least I know the answer to those questions.
Not much good if that day is French or maths.

I used to regularly have anightmare about taking the final exams for my degree. There was a huge file of notes I hadn't even looked at and I would wake up very anxious.
Eventually it stopped. I think I accepted that I hadn't prepared properly as I had procrastinated repeatedly and began revising very late, but I passed the exams. I got a 2:2 but had I worked harder I should have got a 2:1! It didn't prevent me from following my chosen career path so the repeated stress was pointless.

I've recently had some strange dreams about my ex husband. I keep seemingly getting back with him. I have no desire for this so it is rather puzzling as he is still with the other woman he left me for! hey aren't exactly nightmares, jst a bit disturbing!

Marge75, I have that dream too! It’s always a different situation but I’m putting numbers into a phone - it’s urgent, but I just can’t get it right. When I have to ring a number in real life I always falter a bit as I remember my dream.

I used to have awful night terrors, but these have almost stopped now since I married hubby and am now in a safe & secure relationship. Stress triggers mine, so if anything is going on they come back. I had one nightmare for years where I was being held face down on a hospital bed and they were sticking a needle in the base of my spine & I was screaming. For decades I hated anyone even touching my back, I would lash out. I would throw myself out of bed trying to escape, hit the wall and furniture, get black eyes doing so! One day hubby said I have a scar at base of my spine, so I questioned mum about it and she said when I was 3 yrs old I had meningitis and they did a lumbar puncture! I asked if they gave me anaesthetic, and she said NO! they said I was too young and I would not remember it anyway - yeah right decades of PTSD and nightmares thanks very much!

Yes I have, horrific. They were caused by the medicine I was taking at the time.

As a child I dreamt I was in a friend's house and heard a noise upstairs. I would go to the bottom of the stairs and look up to see a huge grisly bear coming down. I was rooted to the spot, but just as the bear reached to grab me (to eat?) I floated up to the ceiling where it could not reach me. I dreamt it so often that I could hear myself saying "No problem, it won't get you cos you will float up to the ceiling" - and I always did! Haven't had that dream, nor anything like it, since then.

After my mum died, having been in a care home with dementia, I had a dream that I had taken her out for the day and when it was time to go home I couldn't find her. I hunted and hunted to no avail. A passer-by told me they had seen her go off with a man who he knew to be violent. I woke up at that point screaming and trembling.

I think it was brought on by the huge responsibility I had (as an only child) in obtaining a diagnosis for her and fulfilling my promise to my dad on his deathbed to "look after her". I could not bear that she might suffer in any way - and apart from her sudden death (which in many ways was a blessing), she never did suffer.

I often dream of looking for a toilet and they all seem to be in places without doors and other people can see you. Another one that I seem to be having recently is being in an enclosed space, some type of tunnel or very small cupboard, I didn't think I was afraid of small spaces but this really gets my heart pounding and I wake with a start then can't go back to sleep for a while.

In the past I have had terrible nightmares of people in the room with me, frightening. I finally realised these had started occurring when I started using an electric alarm clock next to the bed. No electric alarm clock and these terrible dreams have disappeared. I do still have some weird dreams, especially the ones about finding a toilet!

If you believe in past lives, (which I do) the dream sounds like far memory. If this is the case, past life regression therapy with a good hypnotherapist would help, and you should be able to move on.
Me, I have recurring dreams of dog poo, but I think that comes with owning 4 dogs!

Marg75

Skydancer I dream a lot, mostly nothing to upset me, but the phone one happens every so often. Are you able to actually dial the right number but no one answers or like me, you are unable to actually dial the numbers and have to go back and start again several times!

Marg75. No I can’t get through. Sometimes the phone screen doesn’t look right. Even if I manage to dial numbers they are wrong. Sometimes I can’t find my husband’s number. I don’t like this dream and am pleased to wake up.

I had recurring nightmares. The first was before I went to secondary school. Always the same. I was in class and the teacher was handing out books, pens etc. When it came to me there were none left. Sad thing is, it actually happened in just about every class as it was always done in alphabetical order and I was last in the register.
The next one started in my 30's. Aeroplanes taking off and exploding midair. It went on for about 10 years. Then the horrific events of 9/11 occurred. Never had the nightmare since.
When I was a child, we moved every 18 months. Dad was in the forces. Wherever we went I always recognised places and could find my way around wherever we went. I could even describe places in detail even though I had never been there before.
As a very young child I used to spend a lot of time talking to an old lady in a bath chair, dressed all in black. I asked my Nan who she was. Nan thought I had seen photos of the lady, who was actually my Great Grandmother, even though there were no photographs of her in her later years. She had been dead for many years before I came along. Nan thought I had inherited my great grandmother's second sight. It used to worry me but I take it in my stride now.

When I young, it was monsters chasing me.
I recall my adult nightmares, but they're too horrible to share really.
I do have funny / ridiculous dreams too, a bossy friend making me park my car on top of some tall scaffolding, herding sheep & they turn into zebras & giraffes.
I don't think I've ever been as rigid with fear in waking life as I am when I wake from a nightmare.

The unavailing search for a proper toilet dream happens to me when I need to wake up , get out of bed, and go to the loo.

I used to have the needing the loo but not being able to find it, or when I got there it was locked or it has moved. And eventually I would wake up and yes I was bursting for a wee. It took ages to get back to sleep because of the dream. But logically it was good I didn't find the loo as if I did I would have probably woken up in a puddle! Nowadays I wake up before I get really a really full bladder, but get back to sleep quicker, as I don't have the dreams any more
I've recently started taking magnesium to help with sleep, and I think it is helping me get better sleep,.or at least more REM sleep, I am having more dreams, not bad ones just weird ones!