For some people, it’s being sorely unprepared for a final exam.
For others, showing up naked (or otherwise shamefully vunlnerable) in public.
For many, there’s nothing worse or more frequent than a work-stress dream — endless piles of paper, dissatisfied customers, botched projects.
I’ve had some of all of those.
In one memorable college exam scenario, I was handed a buebook with an F on the front.
And inside? I had apparently drawn countless woodland animals.
Nevermind that it was political science exam.
That was a bad dream.
So were the ones from my waitressing days where dozens of customers waited, but the kitchen didn’t turn out any food.
But my only real recurring nightmare involves an intruder and total disempowerment.
My limbs hang heavy so that I can’t run or wave or kick.
My voice grows either garbled or silent so that I can’t shout "No!" or "Help!"
Sometimes I can’t even control my eyelids.
The real horror of the dream is that.
Worse than the intruder (though that’s definately creepy) is the sense that I’m completely disabled by fear.
The sense that I have no body, no voice and no free will.
I’ve had this dream since adolescence, and I had a version of it last night.
This morning, feeling more lucid than I did at 3 a.m., I think about what I can do to shake this puppy once and for all.
On a practical level, in real life, I move and act and write.
I have body, voice and free will.
In spades.
On the Jungian level, not so much.
The cure?
I don’t have the foggiest.
Maybe I oughta see if I can go back to waiting tables, or drawing woodland animals in my bluebooks…
Mine is also a powerlessness/lack of control dream, but it involves driving. In real life, I have a bit of a fear of heights. In my dream I am usually driving in a strange and busy city on a very very high overpass with lots of complicated exits. I choose one, only to have that road take me even higher, sometimes so steeply that my car starts to slide backwards, sometimes to find that the ramp is not fully constructed and I’m about to sail off the edge, sometimes I’m just perpetually climbing higher and higher getting farther and farther from wherever it is I need to be — and always knowing that I cannot turn back.
I hate this dream and I always wake up heart pounding. I wish I knew how to rid myself of it, too, but for now I just see it as a sign that someplace in my real life I am feeling nudged or pressed to do something I’m not ready to do. It’s a useful reminder to take stock and slow down, I guess.
Do you know why yours show up?
Yikes, Linda. That is scary.
I don’t know where mine comes from, although it must be sort of the opposite impetus as your, don’t you think? Like I’m feeling held back or trapped or disempowered in some way???
Incidentally, did you ever read that short story (I have this inkling it was John Cheever but maybe not) about driving in a parking garage that just went up and up and up eternally? Totally freaky.
I’ve had all the nightmares you mentioned, and they tend to occur more frequently when I am really overtired or had too much sugar! I think the worst one is not being able to run from an intruder or defend myself, so I really sympathize.
Too much sugar? Really? Wow, I’ll have to pay attention to that…
I try to deal with this dream by reframing it as my mind waking up before my body does. I know that the paralysis may have all sorts of psychological significance, but if I give it a PHYSICAL explanation, it takes some of the terror out.
I have nightmares about doors that are supposed to be locked and shut but aren’t, and no matter what I do, I can’t find a safe place.
Scary, scary, Sara. How do you explain away that one???
Have you heard of the healing temple meditation? It’s from one of those books that, had I not encountered it in massage therapy, I would have rolled my eyes and kept walking to the fiction section. We did it to explore the whole emotional wounds being held in soft tissue thing, how energy changes matter and you carry everything that happens to you in your body.
Anyway- it’s powerful… or at least it was for me and a lot of my class. It can be rough, though. It tended to dig up things we weren’t prepared for, but it’s surprisingly good.
I have a copy if you’re interested.
-Kelsi
Nope — never heard of it but I’m all for healing temples, that’s for sure…
Recurring dreams/nightmares
I spoke to a scientist once who told me that while you are dreaming you have enough control over what you are dreaming to manipulate the results while you are in your dream. There is a level of consciousness where you are aware you are dreaming. And once you do that you can write your own script so-to-speak. I did a paper on this for college and it’s quite a fascinating field.
Good Luck
Re: Recurring dreams/nightmares
I love the idea of that. I’ve definately experienced it before — when a part of me has said, “I’m just dreaming” during a dream — but I don’t know that I’ve ever changed course. Gotta get cracking on that…
oh man. for me, it’s drowning. and not being able to get to the surface.
blech.
If I’m around, I’ll pull you up…