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How do other people here experience dreams?

I personally have very intense and vivid dreams. Sometimes they are so vivid I wake up thinking they are real! Other times I wake up and see "demons". Last night I saw decapitated baby heads rattling on the ceiling while men with no forearms or shins walked around staring at me. I woke up my partner but she could see nothing. I couldn't sleep for another few hours because these things would leak into my new dreams again. Usually I see things like objects moving around the house or mechanical hands trying to grab me etc.

As a kid I had to learn how to not think about a certain thing that made me feel crushed and like I was going to explode.

The crazy thing is, while I know they are not real, when you actually see these things you question yourself.

Anybody else get these? How do you guys limit it, I used to enjoy them but it seems to be getting worse the older I get.

You may want to consider seeing a psychologist if those get too bad, it sounds like that is rather extreme!

I sometimes see freaky stuff, stuff I'd rather not say, but I totally get what you mean by it feeling very real. But you really should consider getting that looked at!

I often roll out of bed while dreaming about falling off a high railway bridge. I always wake up next to my bed just before hitting the water. I really don't hope that is a prophetic dream about how I will die

I sometimes also have very realistic dreams about going to school. In my dream, I will wake up, have breakfast etc. and get ready for school, and always while I am walking towards school I suddenly realise it is weekend and this must be a dream before actually waking up.
I also often dream that I got something I really wanted. When I wake up, I get very excited thinking about this awesome new thing, and only after a while do I realise that it was probably a dream and that I can't even remember what precisely the thing I got was anyway. That always leaves me very dissapointed.

Strangely enough these dreams always come back time and time again. I always have the same dreams, altough I do no longer get some dreams I used to have while I was younger.
When I was younger, I would often dream about losing someone I care about and about being chased by monsters (usually vampires, but also nazgul, giant jellyfish and even policemen happened)


Your dreams are really disturbing though... Wonder what Freud would have to say about that.

Yea maybe I do need to someone, but I may wait to see if they go back to harmless again.

My friend also says he wakes up let down because he realized he had something cool in his dream but it was simply a dream.

Googling Freud now.

Hmm... dreams. When I was younger, I never really dreamt much, but over the years I've been dreaming a lot more. At the moment, I'm basically dreaming every night, and remembering around 50% of what happens. It's weird.

I have experienced sleep paralysis several times. The imagery you can experience is sometimes quite vivid and disturbing. Perhaps you have something similar?

My dreams are...horrific. Watching friends and family get tortured, force sexual relations with undesirable/unwilling people, or getting killed/mutilated over and over: those are the standard topics.

I research ways to remember your dreams better, and do the opposite. If hypnocil was a real thing, I'd take that gak in a heartbeat.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Googling Freud now.

I'm going to save you some time, don't he's not worth it. You won't learn much about psychology from him other than antiquated ideas.

 Alex C wrote:
I have experienced sleep paralysis several times. The imagery you can experience is sometimes quite vivid and disturbing. Perhaps you have something similar?

I can move though... I can look away and look back and they are still there. I wake up my GF to confirm that they aren't there (as I know already). I haven't tried but I am fairly sure I could walk out the room while it is happening. So I agree it may be similar, but I don't experience any paralysis. But what they describe seeing is similar to how I see things etc. Probably is similar.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Googling Freud now.

I'm going to save you some time, don't he's not worth it. You won't learn much about psychology from him other than antiquated ideas.

In my opinon, Freud's statements about dreams are probably his best work. Basically, he said don't look too far into them, they're just random blips of your brain processing material.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
I have experienced sleep paralysis several times. The imagery you can experience is sometimes quite vivid and disturbing. Perhaps you have something similar?

I can move though... I can look away and look back and they are still there. I wake up my GF to confirm that they aren't there (as I know already). I haven't tried but I am fairly sure I could walk out the room while it is happening. So I agree it may be similar, but I don't experience any paralysis. But what they describe seeing is similar to how I see things etc. Probably is similar.

I had a dream once that I had fallen asleep on my couch, and became paralyzed as this blue light started pouring in the window. The door swung open, and this bald monster in a trenchcoat (very nosferatu-like) came in to abduct me. I kept trying to scream, but all that came out was this hoarse, raspy 'uhh' sound. Then I woke up, and I really had fallen asleep on my couch, and really was making that sound.

 Dr. What wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Googling Freud now.

I'm going to save you some time, don't he's not worth it. You won't learn much about psychology from him other than antiquated ideas.

In my opinon, Freud's statements about dreams are probably his best work. Basically, he said don't look too far into them, they're just random blips of your brain processing material.

I'll take you word on it but my familiarity with Freud is that he claims because women don't have penises they don't have that fear of being castrated by their father (who are apparently the moral authority of families and society) and that somehow means that women don't have morality,

intelligence, whatever (how will you know right and wrong if you're not in constant fear of getting your dick cut off cause you want to feth your mom) to to be trusted in positions of authority, so with that kind of drivel that Freud spouts out I'm always skeptical when people take him seriously.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Dr. What wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Googling Freud now.

I'm going to save you some time, don't he's not worth it. You won't learn much about psychology from him other than antiquated ideas.

In my opinon, Freud's statements about dreams are probably his best work. Basically, he said don't look too far into them, they're just random blips of your brain processing material.

I'll take you word on it but my familiarity with Freud is that he claims because women don't have penises they don't have that fear of being castrated by their father (who are apparently the moral authority of families and society) and that somehow means that women don't have morality,

intelligence, whatever (how will you know right and wrong if you're not in constant fear of getting your dick cut off cause you want to feth your mom) to to be trusted in positions of authority, so with that kind of drivel that Freud spouts out I'm always skeptical when people take him seriously.

According to a fast google earlier he thinks dreams are our brains way of tricking us that we are fulfilling bodily needs to keep us asleep or something. I could be wrong though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
I have experienced sleep paralysis several times. The imagery you can experience is sometimes quite vivid and disturbing. Perhaps you have something similar?

I can move though... I can look away and look back and they are still there. I wake up my GF to confirm that they aren't there (as I know already). I haven't tried but I am fairly sure I could walk out the room while it is happening. So I agree it may be similar, but I don't experience any paralysis. But what they describe seeing is similar to how I see things etc. Probably is similar.

I had a dream once that I had fallen asleep on my couch, and became paralyzed as this blue light started pouring in the window. The door swung open, and this bald monster in a trenchcoat (very nosferatu-like) came in to abduct me. I kept trying to scream, but all that came out was this hoarse, raspy 'uhh' sound. Then I woke up, and I really had fallen asleep on my couch, and really was making that sound.

Yea I had that but without seeing anything. Just woke up doing the raspy uhh sound. Weird stuff eh?

I haven't had a nightmare (that I remember) in maybe ten, twelve years. Possibly longer. Very very rarely, I have very sad dreams, someone will die that I've lost before, or I'll be irreparably split up from part of my family. I'll wake up sodden, having genuinely cried in my sleep, and feel incredible grief for a few hours.

My dreams are often a bit nonsensical, but fun. Usually there's a mission that needs doing, that I'm helping with, or I'm part of a large organisation that needs something achieved. The sense of purpose is very strong, but not always explainable upon waking. I could never really tell you the end goal for most of them.
I never dream as myself in a day to day setting. I never dream of people or places I know or work with, outside of those very sad dreams. It's usually somewhere entirely nonsense.
Almost exclusively I dream as someone of the opposite gender, which is fine, I don't care. The weird ones are when the dream is third person, from the ceiling view. It's a little abstract.
On occasion I will dream I'm a character I've been writing for recently, which is a little alarming as it's not always a good character.

Someone tried explaining lucid dreaming to me, and I was a little confused because I am usually in complete control of my dreams, apart from again, the terribly sad ones.

I also swear profusely in my sleep. One time I was awoken by my partner because I'd sat bolt upright in bed, yelled, "JUST FETH OFF WILL YOU?!" and then laid down calm as you like.
Of course when someone does this, you must wake them up and ask why. Every time. They'll thank you.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Dr. What wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Googling Freud now.

I'm going to save you some time, don't he's not worth it. You won't learn much about psychology from him other than antiquated ideas.

In my opinon, Freud's statements about dreams are probably his best work. Basically, he said don't look too far into them, they're just random blips of your brain processing material.

I'll take you word on it but my familiarity with Freud is that he claims because women don't have penises they don't have that fear of being castrated by their father (who are apparently the moral authority of families and society) and that somehow means that women don't have morality,

intelligence, whatever (how will you know right and wrong if you're not in constant fear of getting your dick cut off cause you want to feth your mom) to to be trusted in positions of authority, so with that kind of drivel that Freud spouts out I'm always skeptical when people take him seriously.

The rest of Freud's work is very silly to me. Most of it has been debunked at this point and I stand by that. A lot of his published work on dreams is muddled by his claims about the Id/Ego/Superergo and anaylzing dreams to try and understand them. In my opinion, the best thing he ever said from all of his works (I'm paraphrasing) was to not take your dreams too seriously or analyze them too much.

Yeah, I agree although he is also significant in the sense of bringing the idea of psychology to the mainstream and how the words "id and "ego" are common phrases in the English language now.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Dr. What wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Googling Freud now.

I'm going to save you some time, don't he's not worth it. You won't learn much about psychology from him other than antiquated ideas.

In my opinon, Freud's statements about dreams are probably his best work. Basically, he said don't look too far into them, they're just random blips of your brain processing material.

I'll take you word on it but my familiarity with Freud is that he claims because women don't have penises they don't have that fear of being castrated by their father (who are apparently the moral authority of families and society) and that somehow means that women don't have morality,

intelligence, whatever (how will you know right and wrong if you're not in constant fear of getting your dick cut off cause you want to feth your mom) to to be trusted in positions of authority, so with that kind of drivel that Freud spouts out I'm always skeptical when people take him seriously.

According to a fast google earlier he thinks dreams are our brains way of tricking us that we are fulfilling bodily needs to keep us asleep or something. I could be wrong though.

From Wikipedia:

Freud believed that the function of dreams is to preserve sleep by representing as fulfilled wishes that would otherwise awaken the dreamer.[121]

In Freud's theory dreams are instigated by the daily occurrences and thoughts of everyday life. His claim that they function as wish fulfillments is based on an account of the “dreamwork" in terms of a transformation of "secondary process" thought, governed by the rules of language and the reality principle, into the "primary process" of unconscious thought governed by the pleasure principle, wish gratification and the repressed sexual scenarios of childhood.[122]

In order to preserve sleep the dreamwork disguises the repressed or “latent" content of the dream in an interplay of words and images which Freud describes in terms of condensation, displacement and distortion. This produces the "manifest content" of the dream as recounted in the dream narrative. For Freud an unpleasant manifest content may still represent the fulfilment of a wish on the level of the latent content. In the clinical setting Freud encouraged free association to the dream's manifest content in order to facilitate access to its latent content. Freud believed interpreting dreams in this way could provide important insights into the formation of neurotic symptoms and contribute to the mitigation of their pathological effects.[123]

Oh dear, we better hope Freud is wrong about this...

 Cheesecat wrote:
Yeah, I agree although he is also significant in the sense of bringing the idea of psychology to the mainstream and how the words "id and "ego" are common phrases in the English language now.

But the most important reason why you should always look up Freud on this sort of issues is that his ideas are absolutely hilarious and will lead to much awkward

Have you looked into astral projection? Especially if you also have lucid dreaming (dreams you can control), that may be a possibility.

You may well have some untrained talent at seeing beyond the veil. There are charms and spells to control that, if you wish to journey down the Wiccan path. My son's gone through a fair bit of this, and my wife also has seen and sensed things I can't. But I've got no talent for that sort of craft.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Have you looked into astral projection? Especially if you also have lucid dreaming (dreams you can control), that may be a possibility.

You may well have some untrained talent at seeing beyond the veil. There are charms and spells to control that, if you wish to journey down the Wiccan path. My son's gone through a fair bit of this, and my wife also has seen and sensed things I can't. But I've got no talent for that sort of craft.

While I am skeptical, what should one see in Astral Projection?

One important bit to note, is the things I see ALWAYS are where I happen to be looking when I wake up which, to me says it is simply to do with my brain. It starts where I wake up, but I can still look away. If I happen to be traveling to other plains etc then I think I would likely see things around me? But I know nothing on the subject.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Have you looked into astral projection? Especially if you also have lucid dreaming (dreams you can control), that may be a possibility.

You may well have some untrained talent at seeing beyond the veil. There are charms and spells to control that, if you wish to journey down the Wiccan path. My son's gone through a fair bit of this, and my wife also has seen and sensed things I can't. But I've got no talent for that sort of craft.

Yes. That is awesome! Maybe you can train to be a wizard!

 Jimsolo wrote:
I had a dream once that I had fallen asleep on my couch, and became paralyzed as this blue light started pouring in the window. The door swung open, and this bald monster in a trenchcoat (very nosferatu-like) came in to abduct me. I kept trying to scream, but all that came out was this hoarse, raspy 'uhh' sound. Then I woke up, and I really had fallen asleep on my couch, and really was making that sound.

The first time I experienced sleep paralysis there was a blue light/fog that seemed to emanate from the door and fill the room. How interesting that you had the same thing. This happened whilst I was at university and at first I was able to move. I was confronted with what I believed to be my Nan (who had recently passed away), the bed was very low and the face was at my head height and when I reached over to her and touched her face I became instantly aware that this was not my Nan, but some thing that was using her face; smelled like damp earth in a cellar and the skin was very cold and slimy. It was at that point the sleep paralysis kicked in. Haven't had one for a while but I've had so many I've actually learned to enjoy them for what they are.

I've experienced many lucid dreams as well and they really are great although I know that as soon as a realise I'm dreaming I only have five or ten minutes before I wake up so there's a bit of a race to do something cool whilst I can.

Someone else already mentioned disappointing dreams and I get those too, usually I find lots of very rare and valuable models and books, thrown out in a skip or something, and I spend ages digging them out of the rubbish and then I wake up and they're all gone.

I'd had plenty of vivid dreams as a child but it wasn't until my mid-teens, on the night I'd had lots of morphine following an operation that the dreams became very vivid and very involved and weird.

My experiences have involved the blue light, apparant "looming figures" and the raspy "not-screaming" too. It's what a lot of people who think they have been abducted by Aliens see, but it's just the brain trying to process light and shadow in a half-wakened state and your fear of the unfamiliar trying to vocalize through paralyzed vocal chords. Freaky as hell to experience though.

I've had lucid dreams before, when I was younger, but not lately. Fething awesome to control dreams. You become a God. My most vivid was a recurring nightmare of me being in a room that was getting smaller and crushing me. I went lucid and proceeded to explode the room, fly beyond the universe and annihilate all known matter as my hate for that dream manifested, at which point I woke up smiling. Never had that nightmare since!

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Have you looked into astral projection? Especially if you also have lucid dreaming (dreams you can control), that may be a possibility.

You may well have some untrained talent at seeing beyond the veil. There are charms and spells to control that, if you wish to journey down the Wiccan path. My son's gone through a fair bit of this, and my wife also has seen and sensed things I can't. But I've got no talent for that sort of craft.

While I am skeptical, what should one see in Astral Projection?

One important bit to note, is the things I see ALWAYS are where I happen to be looking when I wake up which, to me says it is simply to do with my brain. It starts where I wake up, but I can still look away. If I happen to be traveling to other plains etc then I think I would likely see things around me? But I know nothing on the subject.

Well, from what you were saying earlier, it sounded like what you see remains in the same place, and can't be seen by your S.O. That's seeing beyond the veil to other planes of existence.

Astral projection is more of a leaving the body while asleep, and possibly waking up with memories of those trips. Generally those abilities are associated with indiividuals with a strong affinity for air. I'm afraid my knowledge is strictly secondhand on this- I'm earth, and earth folks are more anchors than wanderers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Have you looked into astral projection? Especially if you also have lucid dreaming (dreams you can control), that may be a possibility.

You may well have some untrained talent at seeing beyond the veil. There are charms and spells to control that, if you wish to journey down the Wiccan path. My son's gone through a fair bit of this, and my wife also has seen and sensed things I can't. But I've got no talent for that sort of craft.

Yes. That is awesome! Maybe you can train to be a wizard!

Nah, you need to see owls dropping off letters for that.

One thing about my dreams,, whenever I'm like fighting or have to fight in a dream I'm slow, like moving like molasses. Or I'm running and I can't get far.

I used to have a lot of dreams, but the less sleep I get the less I actually dream. I even had a thread on here for people to share their dreams.

Now, I barely dream at all and it makes me sad. :(

@OP Go to a book shop or library and start looking for CG Jung's works. He wrote more about dreams and dream symbolism than you could imagine.

All of my dreams are related somehow to a Book, Movie, Comic or videogame I've recently interacted with.

I played Fallout New Vegas, had a dream later in the week about a Fallout 'Kill Everything' run where it was real life.

Read a Star Wars comic. Got kidnapped and trained to be a Jedi by Quinlan Vos and Shaak Ti.

Watched Watched Winter Soldier, became Captain America later that night.

That sort of thing.

Other than that the only really scary dream I had was of a little plush Witch doll choking me to death while I tried to yell out for help.

 Swastakowey wrote:
How do other people here experience dreams?

I personally have very intense and vivid dreams. Sometimes they are so vivid I wake up thinking they are real! Other times I wake up and see "demons". Last night I saw decapitated baby heads rattling on the ceiling while men with no forearms or shins walked around staring at me. I woke up my partner but she could see nothing. I couldn't sleep for another few hours because these things would leak into my new dreams again. Usually I see things like objects moving around the house or mechanical hands trying to grab me etc.

As a kid I had to learn how to not think about a certain thing that made me feel crushed and like I was going to explode.

The crazy thing is, while I know they are not real, when you actually see these things you question yourself.

Anybody else get these? How do you guys limit it, I used to enjoy them but it seems to be getting worse the older I get.

I used to get these, they're called hypnogogic hallucinations. They can be tied to sleep apnea, mental stress or substance use, but some people just get them for no discernible reason. It's sort of inverse sleep walking, where you're mentally awake but your body is still in REM mode. It's the source of things like the legends of night hags and succubi.

As long as you don't have breathing problems, they can be terrifying but harmless.

 Boggy Man wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
How do other people here experience dreams?

I personally have very intense and vivid dreams. Sometimes they are so vivid I wake up thinking they are real! Other times I wake up and see "demons". Last night I saw decapitated baby heads rattling on the ceiling while men with no forearms or shins walked around staring at me. I woke up my partner but she could see nothing. I couldn't sleep for another few hours because these things would leak into my new dreams again. Usually I see things like objects moving around the house or mechanical hands trying to grab me etc.

As a kid I had to learn how to not think about a certain thing that made me feel crushed and like I was going to explode.

The crazy thing is, while I know they are not real, when you actually see these things you question yourself.

Anybody else get these? How do you guys limit it, I used to enjoy them but it seems to be getting worse the older I get.

I used to get these, they're called hypnogogic hallucinations. They can be tied to sleep apnea, mental stress or substance use, but some people just get them for no discernible reason. It's sort of inverse sleep walking, where you're mentally awake but your body is still in REM mode. It's the source of things like the legends of night hags and succubi.

As long as you don't have breathing problems, they can be terrifying but harmless.

Thanks man, really useful.

I actually get these (after some long thought) when I sleep well. The better I sleep the more likely I wake up with these things. But I haven't had one since the OP.

Personally, I hardly ever dream. Or remember my dreams, at any rate. Maybe once or twice every two months. And if I do, its usually lucid dreaming, possibly even just daydreaming... since I can often just open my eyes (for instance if the cat wants something), close them again and continue with the dream... Dunno. Ive also been told that I dont move *at all* while sleeping, maybe its something to do with that... who knows?