Recurring Dreams

As far as I can remember, I have always been a vivid dreamer. The majority of nights, I find myself falling into the weird and fantastical world of slumber, only to wake up feeling briefly confused about what is actually real life. I have lots of strange and wonderful dreams but without a doubt, the most memorable ones are those which aren’t so nice.

Around the time when I started my A-levels, I began to have various recurring dreams which I found very new and unusual. Since that time I have noticed that whenever I am experiencing stress in waking life, unfortunately that stress also manifests in my sleeping life. Don’t get me wrong, in my experience this isn’t a serious problem, nor is it ruining my life by any means. If anything, I find the whole concept pretty interesting. But as something that affects me and probably many others, I thought I’d share some of my main recurring ‘stress dreams’. Mainly for your amusement if nothing else.

The Dental Disaster

This one is an absolute classic, the OG of stress dreams, and the one that made itself particularly prominent during my A-levels. I remember how during exam season I would go into school and joke about my (almost nightly) teeth-related dreams with my psychology teacher, trying to figure out what they actually meant. These dreams can range from all of my teeth crumbling and falling out…to my mouth being completely filled up with masses and masses of new teeth. Whether it’s a crumbling canine, or an insecure incisor, you name it, I’ve dreamt it.

Stars in Your Eyes

Even as an adult, I still have a vivid memory of being elbowed in the eye when I was in primary school. Although this obviously wasn’t a traumatising event in my life, for some reason the exact feeling of my watery eyes in the bright sunlight translates into my  dreams. Perhaps one of the most frustrating ones, this dream usually involves me trying to look up / look at something, and being unable open my eyes because of a bright light. All in all this usually ends up in the dream version of me rolling her eyes around uncontrollably and becoming a dizzy mess, I wonder if I am doing it in real life as well…

Against the Clock

For someone who is running late the majority of the time, you wouldn’t think that being late in a dream wouldn’t bother me all that much. But apparently this is also one of my main recurring nightmares. Imagine that you need to leave to go somewhere important like school or work, and as soon as you get out of the house, you realise you’ve forgotten something and have to go back. Now, imagine that happening at least twenty times in a row and voilà, you have a stress dream. These dreams are always laughable once I have woken up but let me tell you that whilst I am in my slumber there is nothing more frustrating! I just wish I could apply a touch of this stress to improve my real-life time keeping skills.

There you have my three main recurring dreams. I usually have at least one of these types of dreams during stressful times in my life. Believe it or not, I once even had a mash up of all of three of them, creating the ultimate ‘super stress dream’!! However, that experience is yet to be recreated.

Despite them being stressful at the time, I usually wake up and laugh when I think about the concept of these unusual nightmares. All the same, I am actually really interested in what their specific meanings are, so if anyone reading this happens to know a little something about dreams then let me know!