Recurring Nightmare

Dee1012

Aveline

Are either of you taking any particular medication? Sometimes that can be a side effect of certain ones.

I am taking medication but this is fairly recent, I did mention the nightmares to my consultant but he didn't feel there was a link. The nightmare does precede this too by a number of years.

Interestingly Indigo8, the nightmare is similar to what you have described.
I'm the passenger in a vehicle and sometimes the driver is a person I know, at other times I can't see them. We are on a long country road and the car goes off the road into water, the driver leaves and I can't undo the seatbelt or open the door....it then goes on.

Dee1012
This sounds like the classic 'Lack of control' nightmare. You say you are not under stress or trauma and you have had this for 10/12 years but maybe it pops up when something is bothering you that you feel a lack of control over. Maybe you are subconcsiously worrying about the problem you have had the medication for, or even the medication itself. We don't always realise we are under stress or trauma until much later.It doesn't have to be major trauma either, can just be something small but this couold be your brains way of wanting to take back control of the situation. I hope that isn't too garbled an explanation !

I frequently have a version of the exam dream - finals, everyone else has been revising for weeks and I keep procrastinating. Also the theatre dream - about to go on stage and don’t know my lines. Both shriek unpreparedness but in reality I’m a great planner and organiser.

This is an interesting theory:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_fulfilment_theory_of_dreaming

Apologies typos.

Has anyone ever dreamed they are falling from a great height but it feels remarkable like flying, except you get closer and closer to jagged rocks or buildings and realise you might fall onto to them, which is when you flap your arms to try to move yourself away.
I had this a lot in my 30s and 40s.
Never have the dream now.

I dream I am lost in a hospital I used to work at trying to find my way out. I take Bisoprolol and do have bad dreams particularly when been drinking wine

No nightmares since I stopped drinking (worth a try)

I've always thought that dreams were made up of things that subconsciously you pick up during the day and they become sort of combined into a dream but the telephone one which others have had besides myself must have some other meaning i.e. perhaps we are trying to communicate and feel as though people aren't listening to us.......maybe that's a bit deep, but it could be a possibility.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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!

jules1 - that sounds so like mine…

Weird isn't it!

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.

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.