the equivalent of this for me would be asking someone if they had nightmares about suddenly being at MAGFest and having not only forgotten it was going on and it’s suddenly Sunday, but no costume, and which was even your hotel room and also how is the hotel 170 stories and only one elevator
(the non-sexual ones)
(and non-“why is the toilet in the living room and not even behind any dividers or anything and also it’s overflowing” ones)
If anyone is having nightmares just about every night, it might make sense to do a sleep study and check for obstructive sleep apnea. Vivid dreams are one of the most often misdiagnosed symptoms of sleep apnea.
Also, getting up to pee several times a night… can often be a sign of sleep apnea. Just apropos of nothing.
Oddly enough, while I don’t tend to get dreams that cause intense feelings of fear, commonly referred to as “nightmares” (the definitional speak is relevant later, I’m not talking down to anybody here), I *do* frequently get dreams that cause intense feelings of frustration or sometimes even rage. I have decided to call them “nightfuries” as they are clearly akin to nightmares but instead of scary they are infuriating.
If I’m not having a nightfury, my dreams are just extremely weird. For instance, while many people get dreams of flight, whenever I fly in my dreams there are really specific limitations, consistently the *same* limitations. I can fly no higher than I am tall (roughly six feet) and no faster than I can sprint (although it is far, far less exhausting than sprinting, so basically I can go my sprinting speed for as long as I could normally walk at a casual pace), but if I ever need to go faster I can take a pole or cane and push off the ground like a gondoleer to go faster, it looks kind of like I’m pogosticking but perpendicular to the stick. I have never flown in a dream without these specific limitations. Also, a lot of my dreams don’t actually feature “me” or any sort of point of view character, often I just inhabit the role of the “camera” and watch the dream play out like a movie. Apparently I have a tendency to get way too interested in the mechanics of whatever weird crap is going on in my dreams and start asking questions or trying to figure things out until I wake myself up from my mind being too active, so I think the movie dream thing is partially a way for my brain to compensate for that and actually get rest while dreaming, and also partially because I just watch WAY too much TV.
I have the exact same flying dreams as you. I think you might be having lucid dreams. I have occasionally had lucid nightmares, those really suck. I also have type 2 narcolepsy.
Psychie
I am not having lucid dreams, I know that much, as any time I gain too much awareness, I wake up fully, which, as far as I know, runs counter to the idea of being lucid.
Although, interesting that someone else has the same weirdly specific and restrictive rules surrounding their dream-flight. I’ve never encountered someone who had dream-flight with *any* rules, let alone the same ones, and I’ve spoken with multiple “experts” on dream interpretation and none of them had ever heard of it either. I was kind of operating under the assumption that the rules were because of my fixation on hard magic systems and game-rule systems, and the use of a pole to go faster was due to my love of breaking those systems to do things the writers never intended or otherwise get overpowered. Like, it’s literally applying a lever to create an unexpected rules interaction that enables me to do things that I technically shouldn’t.
Honestly, the pole is why I stopped talking to “experts” on dream interpretation, when I had a third one trying to tell me it was a phallic symbol without being able to say what that actually has to do with me, my personality, or my experiences beyond the classic Freudian “penis, penis, penis” nonsense, and frankly all three of them contradicted each OTHER when trying to tell me what having a phallic symbol used in that way in my dream says about me in particular, I realized that none of them actually had any idea what they were talking about.
Thelie
In the few lucid dreams I had, flying was also restricted. One time all I could do was jump really high (like ~50m) and the other time I just turned into a bird…
My subconcious’s current favourite is “You’re at work and you have no idea what you’re doing and also it’s an exam somehow and are you even sure you’re supposed to be there today?”
Another good one is “You’re in Edinburgh, but it’s your last day there and you somehow haven’t been to any Fringe shows. Or Science Festival lectures, if that seems more plausible at the time.” These usually occur about a couple of months before the festivals in question, especially if I haven’t got round to booking anything yet, but they can also occur entirely at random.
Anyway, they’re fine, because I wake up and I’m relieved it’s not real. Whereas with the good dreams, where I stumble across a Discworld novel, comic book event, or Star Trek series that I didn’t even know existed before, I wake up and I’m disappointed it’s not real.
I feel it might be mildly inappropriate to describe a situation where a teenage girl has a sexual fantasy about a man she’s idolised since she was a child.
Yet it’s a reality that people, boys and girls alike, have fantasies about people they idolize from childhood onward; right through into adulthood… and a LOT of the time, some of those people are going to remain the same throughout.
I think that’s a thing people’s brains do sometimes, though. Lots of weirdness goes on in the teenage years, including (for the majority of people) developing sexual interests that sometimes manifest in uncomfortable-seeming but harmless ways.
(When the interest is in a fictional character or unmeetable celebrity, there ain’t exactly any way for someone to act on it in an unhealthy manner.)
My dream stories are sadly quite boring. I’ve got one cool one from being a kid and getting shot in a dream and waking up with a nosebleed, but that’s the only one worth retelling, and even then I’m editing out a lot of boring prelude.
The nosebleed that directly corresponded to getting shot in the head freaked me out and I really really did not want to go to school that day because I thought it was some sort of omen
Laura
Sounds scary! Wise choice… these days, going to school can be so scary!
I had a dream as a kid that my teeth were falling out… and then woke up in the morning with a newly chipped tooth. Weird!
Devin
I had what I think is a similar experience.
I live in an apartment building, and the dream I had was that the building was falling over for an unknown reason, and I had the sensation (in the dream) of knowing with full certainty that I was going to die.
Turns out what had happened was my sleep number bed had lost its seal and was deflating, and I strongly suspect that what happened to both of us was our brains trying to craft a narrative around a sensation it was detecting while we were asleep. This conclusion did not help me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that dream for weeks.
thejeff
Way back in college I was asleep in the top bunk and dreamed about getting into a fight and being hit on the top of my head, only to wake up to find one of the ceiling tiles had fallen and hit me.
I agree it’s our sleeping brains wrapping a narrative around the sensation. The weird thing in my case is that the subjective time was much longer in the dream. The whole thing seemed like an extended sequence, but it all must have actually happened in the flash between being hit and waking.
I forgot that Joyce doesn’t know about Dorothy ignoring the Yale acceptance letter. Wonder how she will react to that, among the other things bothering Dorothy.
Unlike shopping for clothes, I actually enjoy Grav Roulette.
Sirksome
For a sec I didn’t realize this was all one person and was very confused by the conversation.
Needfuldoer
Yeah, I like the sneaky way better. (Just change it for every post you’d make anyway.)
RassilonTDavros
This thread is gonna read completely differently the next time the Gravs are inevitably re-rolled, and I kind of love that.
Decidedly Orthogonal
For the unaware.
There’s an article about Grav Roulette on the Walkypedia.
vlademir1
I almost get the Grav-roulette thing, but in this kind of situation with multiple retries I don’t get why you don’t just sign up on Gravatar and set the image to exactly the one you want rather than engaging in this much Frederica Bernkastel probability manipulation.
clif
What? And miss all the adrenalin surge of risking your very identity on a random process? Where is your sense of adventure?
My nightmares are eithet me crashing off a 100 foot or more bridge falling into the water I or ravine or a snake biting me absolutely terrified of heights and snakes so it makes sense.
155 thoughts on “Nightmares”
Ana Chronistic
the equivalent of this for me would be asking someone if they had nightmares about suddenly being at MAGFest and having not only forgotten it was going on and it’s suddenly Sunday, but no costume, and which was even your hotel room and also how is the hotel 170 stories and only one elevator
(the non-sexual ones)
(and non-“why is the toilet in the living room and not even behind any dividers or anything and also it’s overflowing” ones)
Rose by Any Other Name
… okay, it’s kinda scary how close that is to, like 80% of my nightmares. Except replace MAGfest with any of half a dozen other anime or game cons.
Ana Chronistic
well, we only go to the one these days, or I’d say Anthrocon
(lack of interest in driving solo for a 4-hour-one-way trip)
Kyrik Michalowski
My nightmares are too fucked up to explain. The safe explanation is: bloody, guilt wracked, and highly illogical.
Laura
Just as a general PSA:
If anyone is having nightmares just about every night, it might make sense to do a sleep study and check for obstructive sleep apnea. Vivid dreams are one of the most often misdiagnosed symptoms of sleep apnea.
Also, getting up to pee several times a night… can often be a sign of sleep apnea. Just apropos of nothing.
CPAP babes FTW!
https://www.cpapbabes.com
Hey, it’s better than the alternative explanation:
(“One morning, Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams…”)
Otl1973
Getting up to pee several times a night appears to also be a symptom of getting old.
Laura
Maybe both!
StClair
Definitely both.
And per below, yeah, get checked for apnea. Couldn’t live without my CPAP now (well I could, but it’d suck).
Liara
Damn, a Kafka reference in my comment section?
Laura
How Kafkaesque!
Hof1991
And sleep apnea will take years off your life and life out of your years. Get checked if you or the person you sleep with notices the symptoms.
StClair
Cost me a job. Thought I could handle it, didn’t; fell asleep, got fired and diagnosed in that order.
ktbear
Oh, MAGFest…somehow read that as MAGAFest. Can’t say Ive ever had a dream about MAGFest.
Laura
MAGAfest would be a true nightmare!
Ana Chronistic
that’s just a rally =p
Psychie
Oddly enough, while I don’t tend to get dreams that cause intense feelings of fear, commonly referred to as “nightmares” (the definitional speak is relevant later, I’m not talking down to anybody here), I *do* frequently get dreams that cause intense feelings of frustration or sometimes even rage. I have decided to call them “nightfuries” as they are clearly akin to nightmares but instead of scary they are infuriating.
If I’m not having a nightfury, my dreams are just extremely weird. For instance, while many people get dreams of flight, whenever I fly in my dreams there are really specific limitations, consistently the *same* limitations. I can fly no higher than I am tall (roughly six feet) and no faster than I can sprint (although it is far, far less exhausting than sprinting, so basically I can go my sprinting speed for as long as I could normally walk at a casual pace), but if I ever need to go faster I can take a pole or cane and push off the ground like a gondoleer to go faster, it looks kind of like I’m pogosticking but perpendicular to the stick. I have never flown in a dream without these specific limitations. Also, a lot of my dreams don’t actually feature “me” or any sort of point of view character, often I just inhabit the role of the “camera” and watch the dream play out like a movie. Apparently I have a tendency to get way too interested in the mechanics of whatever weird crap is going on in my dreams and start asking questions or trying to figure things out until I wake myself up from my mind being too active, so I think the movie dream thing is partially a way for my brain to compensate for that and actually get rest while dreaming, and also partially because I just watch WAY too much TV.
Allen Alberti
I have the exact same flying dreams as you. I think you might be having lucid dreams. I have occasionally had lucid nightmares, those really suck. I also have type 2 narcolepsy.
Psychie
I am not having lucid dreams, I know that much, as any time I gain too much awareness, I wake up fully, which, as far as I know, runs counter to the idea of being lucid.
Although, interesting that someone else has the same weirdly specific and restrictive rules surrounding their dream-flight. I’ve never encountered someone who had dream-flight with *any* rules, let alone the same ones, and I’ve spoken with multiple “experts” on dream interpretation and none of them had ever heard of it either. I was kind of operating under the assumption that the rules were because of my fixation on hard magic systems and game-rule systems, and the use of a pole to go faster was due to my love of breaking those systems to do things the writers never intended or otherwise get overpowered. Like, it’s literally applying a lever to create an unexpected rules interaction that enables me to do things that I technically shouldn’t.
Honestly, the pole is why I stopped talking to “experts” on dream interpretation, when I had a third one trying to tell me it was a phallic symbol without being able to say what that actually has to do with me, my personality, or my experiences beyond the classic Freudian “penis, penis, penis” nonsense, and frankly all three of them contradicted each OTHER when trying to tell me what having a phallic symbol used in that way in my dream says about me in particular, I realized that none of them actually had any idea what they were talking about.
Thelie
In the few lucid dreams I had, flying was also restricted. One time all I could do was jump really high (like ~50m) and the other time I just turned into a bird…
Daibhid C
My subconcious’s current favourite is “You’re at work and you have no idea what you’re doing and also it’s an exam somehow and are you even sure you’re supposed to be there today?”
Another good one is “You’re in Edinburgh, but it’s your last day there and you somehow haven’t been to any Fringe shows. Or Science Festival lectures, if that seems more plausible at the time.” These usually occur about a couple of months before the festivals in question, especially if I haven’t got round to booking anything yet, but they can also occur entirely at random.
Anyway, they’re fine, because I wake up and I’m relieved it’s not real. Whereas with the good dreams, where I stumble across a Discworld novel, comic book event, or Star Trek series that I didn’t even know existed before, I wake up and I’m disappointed it’s not real.
Kazuma Taichi
see, I’m pretty sure the “toilet in the middle of the room” nightmares don’t fall into the non-sexual category
at least not for me
Amós Batista
Look, I ship them forever. But, at same time, it will be awkward Dorothy starting to weep and telling that Joyce is the reason of her nightmares.
StClair
“It’s you. You’re my anxiety.”
DailyBrad
“WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME? AM I ANYONE ELSE’S ANXIETY?!?”
Becky: “Not, like, currently?”
Nono
You’re always someone’s anxiety.
Freezer
We need upvote buttons, Cheeze Dammit!
Decidedly Orthogonal
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There you go bud. ❤
Nono
Finally, Dorothy and Joe can bond.
Hoboturtle
Dorothy: You think you’re hot stuff.
Joe: Do you know who’s hot stuff?
Dorothy: Joyce?
Joe and Dororthy: Ya…
Doctor_Who
Joyce: The…mostly non-sexual ones anyway.
(Hey a man good with a hammered dulcimer has nimble fingers, Joyce couldn’t help but take note)
jeffepp
That’s a new development for her, though.
Doctor_Who
What?…Nimble fingers would be great for repairing washing machines, that’s all. Joyce’s naughty dreams are all about washing machines.
(And Rich Mullins dressed as the Maytag Repairman)
Nono
I feel it might be mildly inappropriate to describe a situation where a teenage girl has a sexual fantasy about a man she’s idolised since she was a child.
Mano308gts
Yet it’s a reality that people, boys and girls alike, have fantasies about people they idolize from childhood onward; right through into adulthood… and a LOT of the time, some of those people are going to remain the same throughout.
eh, whatever
Huh. Interesting.
clif
If it’s only mildly inappropriate, you’re doing it wrong.
S.R.
I think that’s a thing people’s brains do sometimes, though. Lots of weirdness goes on in the teenage years, including (for the majority of people) developing sexual interests that sometimes manifest in uncomfortable-seeming but harmless ways.
(When the interest is in a fictional character or unmeetable celebrity, there ain’t exactly any way for someone to act on it in an unhealthy manner.)
Thag Simmons
My dream stories are sadly quite boring. I’ve got one cool one from being a kid and getting shot in a dream and waking up with a nosebleed, but that’s the only one worth retelling, and even then I’m editing out a lot of boring prelude.
PirateTawnee
Ooh, I’ve had the being shot one, except it was just my brain deciding the alarm going off sounded like gunfire.
Thag Simmons
The nosebleed that directly corresponded to getting shot in the head freaked me out and I really really did not want to go to school that day because I thought it was some sort of omen
Laura
Sounds scary! Wise choice… these days, going to school can be so scary!
I had a dream as a kid that my teeth were falling out… and then woke up in the morning with a newly chipped tooth. Weird!
Devin
I had what I think is a similar experience.
I live in an apartment building, and the dream I had was that the building was falling over for an unknown reason, and I had the sensation (in the dream) of knowing with full certainty that I was going to die.
Turns out what had happened was my sleep number bed had lost its seal and was deflating, and I strongly suspect that what happened to both of us was our brains trying to craft a narrative around a sensation it was detecting while we were asleep. This conclusion did not help me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that dream for weeks.
thejeff
Way back in college I was asleep in the top bunk and dreamed about getting into a fight and being hit on the top of my head, only to wake up to find one of the ceiling tiles had fallen and hit me.
I agree it’s our sleeping brains wrapping a narrative around the sensation. The weird thing in my case is that the subjective time was much longer in the dream. The whole thing seemed like an extended sequence, but it all must have actually happened in the flash between being hit and waking.
NGPZ
I had a dream just last night where I was in a suburban neighborhood and there was this giant swarm of ducks and geese that knocked down a fence. ??
Coincidentally, I am working on a game about dinosaurs for all of November. ?
Sirksome
What’s Rich Mullins’ opinion on pants?
RassilonTDavros
“I can fix her!”
Kyrik Michalowski
I forgot that Joyce doesn’t know about Dorothy ignoring the Yale acceptance letter. Wonder how she will react to that, among the other things bothering Dorothy.
Kyrik Michalowski
Once again, wrong sibling.
Kyrik Michalowski
Relevant, but not Sal.
Kyrik Michalowski
Few more tries tonight.
Kyrik Michalowski
Hell no.
Kyrik Michalowski
Acceptable for the evening.
elebenty
That was like watching you shop for clothes.
Kyrik Michalowski
Unlike shopping for clothes, I actually enjoy Grav Roulette.
Sirksome
For a sec I didn’t realize this was all one person and was very confused by the conversation.
Needfuldoer
Yeah, I like the sneaky way better. (Just change it for every post you’d make anyway.)
RassilonTDavros
This thread is gonna read completely differently the next time the Gravs are inevitably re-rolled, and I kind of love that.
Decidedly Orthogonal
For the unaware.
There’s an article about Grav Roulette on the Walkypedia.
vlademir1
I almost get the Grav-roulette thing, but in this kind of situation with multiple retries I don’t get why you don’t just sign up on Gravatar and set the image to exactly the one you want rather than engaging in this much Frederica Bernkastel probability manipulation.
clif
What? And miss all the adrenalin surge of risking your very identity on a random process? Where is your sense of adventure?
Coatl
If things get out of control, a strong argument will be ahead and rest assured there will be serious wounds for both.
UrsulaDavina
My nightmares are eithet me crashing off a 100 foot or more bridge falling into the water I or ravine or a snake biting me absolutely terrified of heights and snakes so it makes sense.
StClair
grav roulette time
StClair
Jason suits me.
tim gueguen
You’re a British TA with questionable ethics?
StClair
Fussy English major (
with a bit of a thing for green-eyed gingers … preferably less evil).Sirksome
Grav roulette season gotta be one of my favorite genders.
clif
You’re saying it engenders much amusement?
Sajuuk-Khar
“In song terms my nightmares are much more, uh, centered around…well, Animotion, in particular ‘Obsession’. Also, you’re there.”
Nono
Wonder what Walky’s nightmares are about. Math grades and zombie Nachitos?
tim gueguen