SultanOfSwing

That's enough to keep a thread going

Steerpike

Well, I didn't want to be a kill-joy, and I apologize for getting this spun off. But my first take on reading it was total confusion and some anxiety, as at least 2 or 3 other posters mentioned. That's how many good novels and good movies start - deliberately edgy, confusing, obtuse ... I just don't expect it on a thread about a current pandemic.

The best ever 'dream' story, for me, is 'One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest'. Unlike the movie, in the book the story is told by the 'Indian', and the Indian describes events and experiences that are, to him, 100% real and it takes a while for you to realize it's all in his head. Stuff like the smoke coming out of the walls ... to this day thinking of that book sends chills down my spine.

I'm having bad dreams almost every single night now; probably because my daily routine involves watching stuff on Netflix or HBO every night until I pass out ...

BristolUK

A previous one

SultanOfSwing

Watch something like Arrested Development before you think you might be about to fall asleep and you'll have weird dreams instead

Sorry to hear you're having that many bad dreams though, that's got to be messing with your head a wee bit, given the current circumstances.

SultanOfSwing

Ah, that one's from before I became a regular poster so that's why I wasn't aware of past ones.

I don't know that I have recurring dreams, as much as I have recurring themes and locations. Obviously real locations crop up over and over, the most common two being my old house before I moved, and my mum's parents' old house that was round the corner. Usually with one, if not all three of them in it. But even 'made up' places (and I'm not sure if they really are truly made up because I always understood that all the people in our dreams are real, so presumably places are too) will come back, and dream me will usually remember them from before within the dream.

BristolUK

Well maybe it can continue here.

I saw the movie first but enjoyed both.

So you're a lawyer running scams?

SultanOfSwing

If it was BCS related, they'd all be good dreams because they'd have Kim Wexler in them.

BristolUK

Whenever I dream about my old house in England it's never like it really was. There is a mystery third floor that wasn't there. Or extra rooms. The door fronts onto the pavement (sidewalk) and it didn't. Usually it's falling apart in some way too.

Red Eric was in a dream a week or so back. I have no idea what he looks like - or I didn't then - but 'recognised' him. Now it turns out the 'red' part is ginger and not "Robbo" or Ken after all.

SultanOfSwing

I often have dreams about extra space and extra rooms in houses, and it could be just about any house I've lived in, sometimes two houses combining. I have dreamt about a basement in the old semi I lived in, when obviously it didn't have one. Entire wings attached to houses that are whole other houses in themselves, fully furnished, that for reasons not gone into in the dream we never went into until we suddenly decided to. Almost all of them involve massive amounts of space that couldn't possibly fit inside the house they are applied to in the dream either.

I'm sure there's a deeper meaning but I can only assume I want a bigger house

I dreamt about Pulaski a few weeks ago, but it was literally just Clarkson in my dream, in character as Pulaski because somehow my dreaming mind made that distinction. Was bloody weird.

BristolUK

That school one in the other thread - someone discovering "from education records" I left 6 months early so have to go back and do the six months even though I'm an adult and have been employed for years. I'm sure it's explainable by the fact that my whole working life was in the bureaucracy of the civil service and having all those procedures to follow.

SultanOfSwing

That kind of makes sense.

I remember having a dream where I was back in school (of course my brain faithfully recreated every detail, and I do dream about the school a lot but anyway), and I was probably about 14/15 in the dream, but my brain was still accessing all my memories from after school, so in the dream I was walking in the corridor talking to my friend, freaking out because I had all these memories about my life after I left school, having children and everything but I was still only 14. That one messed with my head a bit.

Jerseygirl

I realise I must dream but I can hardly ever remember dreaming. On a rare occasion, I wake and can just grasp a few details, but within minutes it’s gone. Maybe it’s because I tend to sleep very deeply, I don’t move or make noises and I don’t wake easily. Hubby sometimes has to shake me because he can’t tell if I am still alive. When I wake I often cannot move or say anything for 10/20 minutes, although I am vaguely aware of things going on around me. Does anyone else experience this?

Red Eric

If I want to read a good book, I'll write one?

SultanOfSwing

I don't experience exactly what you describe, but I do experience sleep paralysis from time to time, which I think is caused by a similar mechanism, where your brain wakes up but before your body is able to move again, because there is some hormone released during sleep that relaxes your muscles or whatever. Maybe you're having some variation of that.

But usually the sleep paralysis happens during the night and you're still kind of dreaming when you wake up so you often get the feeling that something or someone is in the room with you, often it feels like they are sitting on your chest making it hard to breathe. It doesn't happen a whole lot of times, but when it does it's really creepy. Possibly related but I also get dreams where I try to shout for someone (often due to some kind of paranormal event happening in a dream) and no sound comes out. I'm never sure if I'm awake when that happens or not, but it's unsettling.

Jerseygirl

I have wondered if it could be some sort of sleep paralysis, but I don’t get the feeling of being sat on or held down, or that someone is in the room that isn’t there. I have read that people with sleep paralysis do get those feelings, but I don’t. It doesn’t frighten or bother me. It’s just a strange feeling that I am awake and aware but cannot move or say anything.