Recurring dream

[starrylizard]

Anyone got an opinion on recurring dreams and what they mean?

I have this recurring dream that I had again last night. It's very clear and very odd and I remember having it twice before - once in highschool and once while at uni.

So it's a recurring dream, but years between each time I've had it.

It makes me think of the whole past lives thing, because in the dream I'm not me (and I die). It's such a random scene and there is nothing in it that seems to be from my life now, but it is so real.

Usually when I wake up I can dissect out a dream and see where all the bits came from. Fears, worries, things that have happened, things I'd like to happen, a movie I've watched or a book I've read. This dream doesn't fit anywhere and it puzzles me.

Comments

[lark_ascends]

I had recurring dreams when I was a kid that would always happen before I woke up with croup. It was a very weird dream and didn't make sense.

I don't know what they mean.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Hee! Neither do I in this case. Obviously!

[pavaneofstars.livejournal.com]

Interesting. :) I used to have recurring dreams as a child. One was rather apocalyptic and very vivid. I have no idea where that was coming from or how my 5 year old mind produced it. I stopped having it when I was 7.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

This isn't apocolyptic like that. Though I do have dreams like that, where a bomb explodes or a plane crashes or everything just ends, but I always figured that to be just anxiety over things out of my control.

In this dream, I'm a guy, prob 30ish and I get shot. It's very vivid and happens the same every time and yet I don't wake up immediately when I die like you do in most dreams. I just kind of float around for a bit in blackness.

*scratches head* I'm a scientist and I like rational explanations. I just don't have one for this dream.

Thank you for sharing.

[pavaneofstars.livejournal.com]

Wow - and your dream doesn't scare you? It doesn't wake you up? I'm not a believer in past lives/reincarnation, so I couldn't suggest that it's something like that. I *can* say that dreams are an interesting phenonmena.

Five years ago, I had a dream that an airplane crashed a mile from my house. In the dream I watched the plane falling from the sky, billows of smoke trailing behind. It was so loud! When I woke up, I was *convinced* that a plane was going to crash that very night. Nothing happened, of course, but I lay awake for quite some time.

I've on occasion had a few prophetic dreams - things that happened to me in my life. I haven't had one in a while, though.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

I do wake up eventually and remember it and in the dream I'm aware that I'm scared, but in a sort of "that's interesting" analytical sort of way.

I really don't believe in prophecy since most of the time the things in my dreams don't happen...thank god!...and the few times they do seems statistically insignificant. :P

I generally don't believe in past lives, though in a lot of ways reincarnation makes more sense to me than say heaven does. *shrugs* Pick the agnostic. :)

[arlessiar.livejournal.com]

I have recurring dreams, too. Two, to be exact. I often dream of goldfish. Not a joke! We have a pond in the garden, and there are goldfish in there. Some of them died when we had cold winters, others survived for many years. In my dreams there are often pretty weird situations where I try to rescue these goldfish from certain death, because their pond suddenly shrinks or because they jump out of the water or whatever. Sometimes I succeed and save them, sometimes I don't. The setting is never the same, but I always feel pretty helpless. Don't know what this dream means, maybe it's a childhood trauma. :S

Another dream I have quite often is that of a big and unexpected tsunami wave I cannot escape. And I already had that dream for a long time before 2004. I hate it, although I always wake up before I die. The worst thing about this dream is that I always fail to save the people that are with me (Parents, friends).

Yeah, dreams can be weird, recurring ones even more so. Sometimes I can explain a dream, but sometimes I have no idea what could have triggered it or what my brain is trying to process.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing and nah, that's not weird. Different, with the goldfish, but I have lots of dreams like that. I swear they are a product of your mind when your stressed, feeling helpless or powerless, or unable to do something.

I have those dreams too.