Some of my dreaming is lucid, I like to tell people in my dreams that I am dreaming and none of it is real, including them. I rarely have scary dreams and few are recurring.

I could repeat what you said, Rhizo, except my experiences with lucid dreaming have occurred here and there rather than reliably, and although my dreams have sometimes restarted after waking, it wasn't due to anything I did. I don't exactly have the technique nailed down. :-)

I used to keep a dream journal, and I'd like to start that again. Dreams always interest me, although I can't say I'm all that skilled at interpretation.

I've also had lots of visions (eyes closed) and auditory experiences in the hypnagogic state before sleep.

Many of my dreams are so strange that I will them to disappear quickly. Some are the kind that make me NOT want to go back to sleep. Thus, 3:00 a.m. is a common get-up time for me!

Recently, I have been dreaming of people who I worked with more than 20 years ago. I have no idea what triggers those things in my mind. It's not as though I had recently talked with them or talked about them.

I even manage some strange dreams when I take a short nap in the afternoon.

Jim

I do not normally remember my dreams but I have had one dream more than once over the years. In my dream, I am milking the cows with my mom (my parents had a dairy farm when I grew up). A huge tornado is coming and in the dream I keep telling my mom there's a huge tornado coming but my mom just keeps milking the cows. I keep yelling that there's a tornado and my mom keeps milking telling me that this will pass. In the next instant, I wake up and go about my day. But my day isn't going so good. I wake up in the wrong bed, my furniture in the house isn't in the right place, I go to make coffee and brew something that isn't coffee. It all seems normal, but not normal. It's then that I actually wake up. So I have a dream within a dream. Strange indeed.

After the dream within a dream with my mom, I remember I woke up feeling very calm. I can't help but thinking my mom was coming back to tell me something. She has been gone for 15 years now. This strange dream started about 15 years ago. By the way, I don't always have the same dream with a tornado coming but the dream within a dream always includes my mom.

Fascinating!

My recurring dreams are never repeated exactly, but the 'story line' is the same. I'm lost. I may be inside a building, outside, driving around a small town or on an interstate.....but I'm always lost.

There are places that I know don't exist in reality, but are repeated so often in my dreams that I 'recognize' them time after time. Same with people.

Sometimes, my X shows up and those dreams are decidedly dark. I'm often stalked by growling panthers or cougars in dreams so vivid that I can smell the cats. Back when I was married to him, the nightmares were so real that I would jump out of bed to make sure the door was closed. HA! it's not too difficult to figure those dreams out, lol.

I'm enjoying reading about everyone's dreams.

I'm a big dreamer and can sometimes associate them with things going on in my life but several different things are all together in one dream.

The only recurring dream I had was when I worked and had lots of responsibilities, I would dream I had so much to do and worked so hard but never could get it all done. It was always different situations but the same principal.

I have been able to return to a dream but not very often.

I meant to add that I've had dream visits from some loved ones passed on. I've also simply dreamed about them, but that's different.

I have a recurring theme in many of my dreams. In those I am running or rushing around and my feet aren't really touching on any surface, like I am moving in place in thin air, not really getting anywhere. The story line is always different, like in a recent one I was in a grocery store very upset because I couldnt find what I wanted.

A dream I had more than 50 years ago is still so vivid in my mind. In it I had come out of my bedroom into the hall and found my Dad (who had died about 5 years before this dream) lying in the hall covered in blood. He had been slashed many times by the kitchen knife which was laying beside him. In the dream, I suddenly realize that I am the one who killed him, and I set about to drag him into a closet in my room. The dream ends as I am shutting the closet door, satisfied that all will be ok.

Why I would dream such a thing still haunts me. I had a wonderful relationship with my Dad.

I have the recurring "College Final Exam" nightmare. It is never exactly the same, but the theme is consistent. End of semester and final exam time.
Several variations:
Meant to drop a class, so I never went...but forgot to drop
Realize I am enrolled in a class I never attended
Can't find the right building
Can't find the classroom for the exam
Never bought the text book
The list goes on...

I guess we all have one of the 'anxiety' dreams, with the theme coinciding with our age and place in life. Like a few of you, my school-related one was not remembering my locker combination and not being able to find the room my class was in. As I got older the surroundings changed, like not being able to drive where I wanted to go.

I love my odd dreams and frequently remember one of them during the day, although most are lost. Last night I dreamed that my (now deceased) husband, without telling me, had rented out our house during the day to football tailgaters (appropriate since I live in a college town) and when I woke up at 4 a.m. (in the dream) I looked outside and saw a man grilling hamburgers.

Very rarely do I have nightmares, than goodness. But when I do I hate that feeling of trying to scream and can't.

I have a recurring dream also although it seems to occur less and less in the past few years. The constant theme is my ex and I are breaking up; sometimes our kids are young, other times they are older but he and I are always the same age. We are always in a house but I usually have never seen it before. I am glad to wake up and know it's something in my past!

I am sometimes the Director in my dreams -- changing the action or focus while also being an Actor in the scene.

The "can't find it, do it, finish it", school-anxiety dreams have dwindled. I have lately had a recurring dream in which I am driving, only to discover that I can steer, but am unable to stop or control the speed because...I'm driving from the back seat! (Control issues, anyone?)

I believe some of the 'wandering/seeking' dreams are a person looking for the true Self -- something the unconscious 'protects' you from finding while you are awake.

A memorable dream from my teens was walking to the rail of a sailing ship to look out over the sea. In the morning I realized I had sleepwalked out of my bedroom and into our upper hall. The 'ship's rail' I had felt was the (somewhat creaky) railing over the lower foyer. I don't believe I ever sleepwalked before or since.

Funny you should ask. I had the most vivid dream last night and have been reviewing it in my mind since. I dreamed of a distant relative that I've always been attracted to, even though I'm happily married, and the activities in my dream (*ahem*) seemed very real.

I haven't seen him in 5 years or so and don't correspond with him in any way. I don't know why he popped into my dreams, unless it's because I saw his sister yesterday. He lives about 500 miles away.

Sigh.

Very interesting reading.....

Just a question, do you dream in technicolor or black & white?.....I think I do both.....some colors are so vivid & other dreams are definitely black & white.....

A couple of nights ago, I dreamt that I was completely rearranging a room in a house I didn't recognize. The room was completely bare and never seemed to improve with my hard work. Someone was helping, but I don't know who.

Last night, I was in a home of some friends that I know....only it wasn't their real home. I was rearranging their huge pantry, lol. I even remember the items!

I'll often give people from my past starring roles in my dreams, but some will be from my childhood and others will be from here and there. Everybody seems to get along! :-)

I seldom remember my dreams now, unless I wake early and fall back asleep. Then I can recall what I dream.
Long ago I had a recurring dream of standing at the foot of a long stairway leading to a college. Problem was that the steps were just a couple of inches wide and I couldn't go up.
Not hard to trace that dream! When I graduated from high school I had several scholarships but could not afford the "extras" that were needed so I didn't use them. The dream relived my disappointment. This was before the days of student loans, etc.

Kanooka, I've never had a dream in black and white.

I had a real nightmare in college. It was finals week of my senior year. I would be graduating. The graduation ceremony was to be held the weekend after finals and I would be staying in the residence hall until graduation.

The first night after finals, I woke up in a sweat. I dreamed that I had forgotten to attend a class. I had started the class during the first week of the semester and then failed to attend for the reaminder of the semester. It meant that I could not graduate - there was nothing I could do at this late date. I awoke in a panic and could not shake the reality of that missing course. I searched my book shelf for books that pertained to that course. Unfortunately, there was a textbook on the shelf for that course. I was still not fully awake and my mind was spinning. My stomach was tied in knots. It took me almost an hour to convince myself that course had been removed at the begining of the semester.

It was a horrible feeling.

Later, much later in life, I had another dream that I remember to this day. My wife and I had a serious problem with the behavor of our first born son. A therapist had pushed us to the limit to where we questioned ourselves about our marriage. I began to worry that maybe I did not love all of my children, and then one night I had a dream that My problem child was about to tumble over an embankment into a roaring, flooded river. Instinctively made a diving grab, rolled, and shoved that child to safety away from the brink. It happened so quickly that I did not have time to think about the situation - I acted without thought - and then I awoke.

It was an amazing feeling that washed over me; It was calming; I knew for certain that I cared for my children. From that day forward no matter what happen in my son's troubled life, I was certain about myself and that I would always care. I became a 'seasoned' parent at that moment and have never looked back.

I rolled over and fell into a deep sleep for another hour. My psychological concern evaporated and never returned. The tussle within myself had been resolved.

This was the most powerful dream I that have ever had. It happened 50 years ago and I still remember it.

Wow! That is an amazing story.....truly. Thanks for sharing it.

I don't remember most of my dreams. I tend to remember them more when I'm stressed or anxious. Then I dream about whatever it is that's causing my stress - my mom when she was sick, situations at work, my dad's dementia, etc.

My husband has very vivid dreams about snakes & spiders sometimes. He'll wake me up telling me to not move so I don't get bitten.

I never have nightmares but I have had some odd dreams. I took care of an old man for 8 years. He had been one of my best friends, and when he got sick (emphysema), and got so he couldn't take care of himself, I took care of him. I promised him I would take care of him, so his family wouldn't put him in a nursing home. He had family that lived all around him, but no one had anything to do with him. They waited for him to die so they could get his money....which he left to me, by the way. In the last months, he knew he was dying. I was there every day, sometimes as many as four times a day. For a couple of weeks, I slept on his floor in order to be with him if he needed me. Almost every day we talked about him dying. He seemed to want to talk about it. I asked him if he would contact me in some way, if he could. He said he would, but I know he didn't believe any of that. He said "when you are dead, you are dead. That's it. Nothing more."

After he died, I have dreamed about him several times. It is almost like he is there because the things he says are exactly how he would say them. In the dreams, he is much younger and healthy.

In one of the dreams, I dreamed I was in the hospital. I was dying and I knew it and I felt okay with that. People were standing around the bed and he was at the foot of the bed. He walked out of the room. In the next scene of my dream, I am walking down my driveway, which is fairly long. He had given me his truck and when I walked past the truck, there was a folded up piece of paper stuck between the side mirror and the door. It was 3 sheets of paper, folded in half, written in pencil. He used to write things to me....stuff he wanted to tell me when I wasn't there. So I knew the letter was from him and I started reading it. It said he was sorry he left when I was in the hospital but he couldn't stand to see me like that. He said I was very brave. And then I woke up....I didn't get to finish reading the letter. Darn it!

Then I dreamed that I got a phone call from him. He said, "Why don't you come see me any more?" I didn't want to come right out and tell him because he was dead, so I said, "Because you don't live where you used to live." I also didn't want to tell him that his niece that he didn't like was now living in his house. He said, "What?!" I said, "Kenneth, you died." He said "Are you sure about that?" Which is so funny because that is something he often said to me....if he doubted what I had to say about something.

I have only dreamed about him once since then. I was beginning to think that once I told him he was dead, he went on and wouldn't come back in my dreams. I always like to dream about him though, because he is just like he was in real life....so it is almost like a visit with him.