# Dreams, Visions, & Nightmares



## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Whether we remember them or not, we all dream each night. Dreams can be an inspiration to story creation. I often think upon waking that a fresh dream will make for a good story, but it rarely makes sense when I actually write it down. Still, they sometimes transform into great ideas.

What's your favorite dream? Worst nightmare? Share details here and maybe someone _else's _ dream will inspire you!


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## J Dean (Feb 9, 2009)

I once dreamed of helping Crocodile Dundee fight Robocop.  Beyond that, not too much that I remember, other than the classic Battlestar Galactica/Lost crossover dream.

Most of the time, when I have a nightmare, it's more of a disturbing scare than a "boo!" out of nowhere scare.  I don't know if other people have nightmares like that, but those are mine-and I like to forget them.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

J Dean, I think I know what you mean about your nightmares. They're not "Slasher" types, more situational? Mine typically put me in very awkward/uncomfortable situations i.e. I'm at the park and have to go to the bathroom really bad but there's nowhere to go and my exgirlfriend is there flirting with someone I don't like.


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## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

NoBull_Steve said:


> Whether we remember them or not, we all dream each night. Dreams can be an inspiration to story creation. I often think upon waking that a fresh dream will make for a good story, but it rarely makes sense when I actually write it down. Still, they sometimes transform into great ideas.
> 
> What's your favorite dream? Worst nightmare? Share details here and maybe someone _else's _ dream will inspire you!


I have 2 recurring dreams that I've been having for many years.

This one turned up in my book Island Life almost exactly as I dream it. The person in the dream is not me.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

He was in his old bed, back in his flat in Glasgow. In his dream he didn't see anything wrong with that. He was just coming up out of sleep, having been woken by some repeated noise. The room was dimly lit from outside by an orange street light which cast red shadows across the carpet. He was in that state between awake and asleep which causes the imagination to run riot and the heart to lurch at the slightest unexplainable noise.

And then the noise came again. Something was climbing the stairs -- no, not climbing as much as slumping, the noise like a wet fish being slapped on a fishmongers slab. He didn't know how he knew, but it was coming for him, and it was more than halfway up the stairs.

The shocks caused by its movements were jolting the room, the red shadows quivering in the mirror, making the reflected room shake.

The air in the room became damp and then damper still, he had the impression of water glistening on the carpet, droplets running down the walls, covering the ceiling and dripping, red and bloody from the light fitting.

There was a salt tang of sea water in the air. He tried to cower under the blankets, reverting to childhood, tucking his legs in under the covers to make sure that his ankles didn't get grabbed by a clammy frozen hand.

Whatever the thing outside was it had finished climbing the stairs and was dragging itself heavily across the landing towards his door. He was not really worried, he knew that it was a dream, vivid maybe but still just a dream and that he would almost certainly wake up before it got too frightening. It always had happened when he was a kid.

His radio alarm switched itself on, some unremarkable dance song spinning its bass run around the room, sending further tremors through the walls, dislodging a small shower of droplets from the ceiling and causing the light bulb to sway alarmingly. The whole room began to throb as the music got louder, then louder still.

Whatever was outside was now so close that he heard its heavy breathing, even over and above the now deafening music.

The door, behind his back and out of sight, opened slowly and it came into the room, bringing with it a stronger tang of sea and the thick decaying odour of rooting weed.

He felt something take hold of the duvet and pull it away from him. He resisted as hard as he could, pulling back and holding tightly but the pull was too much, dragging his body sideways across the bed and onto the floor which squelched wetly as his shoulder hit it and turned his head to face his attacker.

The Creature From The Black Lagoon stared back at him, a large blue-green scaled body topped by a big-maned head, green saucer-like eyes unblinkingly scrutinising him. The mouth seemed to be full of teeth, a razor sharp forest of them, and somewhere down there a thick black tongue slithered wetly.

The creature reached down, grabbing his shoulders tight, sinking small sharp claws into the flesh beneath shoulder blades, lifting him up to face the rows of teeth and breathing one word which woke him up.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The second is more peaceful -- I am wandering in a Greek landscape and come across a temple high in the mountains where there is a white winged horse waiting to talk to me.

I've been having that one since I was 4. It's yet to make it into a book -- but it will.


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## J Dean (Feb 9, 2009)

NoBull_Steve said:


> J Dean, I think I know what you mean about your nightmares. They're not "Slasher" types, more situational? Mine typically put me in very awkward/uncomfortable situations i.e. I'm at the park and have to go to the bathroom really bad but there's nowhere to go and my exgirlfriend is there flirting with someone I don't like.


Sometimes I have those as well. It's hard to explain, but the closest thing I can compare it to is akin to the situation found by the narrator in the book _The Third Policeman_, or maybe-not exactly, but similar to-Tim Robbins' character in the movie _Jacob's Ladder_. There's this strange, uncomfortable sense of foreboding: a suffocating surrealism that makes me want to run, but I can't run.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

William - thanks for sharing. I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't remade The Creature From The Black Lagoon yet. That thing is creepy!

J Dean - ahhh yes. I know that feeling.

BTW, here's the craziest dream story I've heard. It was told at a hypnosis conference by a guy who did a lot of dream therapy and dream work. I know he believed it to be a true story. I share it here somewhat third hand. It's long and complicated but I'll trim it down as best I can.

The dream therapist believed in having "Dream Guides" who would show you things in your lucid dreaming world. One lady doing the work (let's just call her "Joan") was led by a friend of hers who had passed away. One night in her dream, Joan and her dream guide were walking down a street talking. They approached a bum and the dream guide whispered to Joan, "remember this."

With that, the bum grabbed the dream guide, doused her with a large container of gasoline and lit her ablaze. 

Joan screamed, "Noooooo!" and woke up sweating and obviously freaked out. She could make neither heads nor tails what it meant....and this was a woman experienced in lucid dreaming and understanding the meanings behind her and other people's dreams.

A few days later Joan is driving along a winding road and sees a car in a ditch completely flipped over. The wheels of the car are still spinning and teenage kids are scrambling out of the vehicle. Joan pulls over to help and while there is no immediate danger, gas is leaking out of the car onto the ground. She assists in getting the last girl out of the car when all of a sudden she thinks of the bum lighting her friend on fire. Before she spins around, she's already screaming "NOOOOOOOO!"

Just behind her one of the teen boys had been, hands shaking and in obvious shock, attempting to light a cigarette. He dropped the as unlit lighter and a disaster was averted.

All these years after hearing this story, I get chills just thinking about it.


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## AuthorVStone (Feb 19, 2011)

NoBull_Steve said:


> William - thanks for sharing. I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't remade The Creature From The Black Lagoon yet. That thing is creepy!
> 
> J Dean - ahhh yes. I know that feeling.
> 
> ...


Jesus, that's freaky!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

AuthorVStone said:


> Jesus, that's freaky!


Tell me about it. Too creepy to be fiction!!!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

anyone else with dreams to share? Please!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

I can see that a lot have viewed this thread, so I figured I'd try one last push to encourage people to share some of their dreams and nightmares. I had this one last week. I found myself a character on the finale of LOST (which makes sense since I'd been in a discussion on these boards about the final show).

It came down to the three of us. What wasn’t exposed on LOST that my dream revealed to me was that it wasn’t a team contest, it was an individual contest. One of stamina, guts, intelligence. Locke (not sure if the real Locke or the smoke monster Locke) held a contest of elimination. The last person standing wins the island...but Locke’s “lost” it. He’d created so many rituals and things to do to maintain the island that no one person could do them all.

There were buttons on tops of hills that needed to be pressed at certain times. There were all kinds of crazy rituals that he wanted done. In my opinion not just one person could do it. Besides, we had a repopulation problem that Locke hadn’t looked at. We needed a man and a woman (I’ll not go into detail here as to why...ask your mommy). With there being just me, a vaguely familiar (ie partly a woman who was my college girlfriend) version of Kate (c’mon it couldn’t have surprised you too much that she’d be in my dream), and another guy (not Sawyer or Jack but kind of an amalgam of both).

So the three of us tried in vain to convince Locke that we all could live in peace on the island, but he’d have none of it. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I remembered that we could kill Locke by getting him off the island or by breaking and scattering his sacred symbol off the island....but I’d have to sacrifice myself and never return to the island...

The other two contestants tried to talk me out of it, but I got a knife, Locke’s symbol and broke the blade apart. Just as I’m about to step through a portal off the island—a series of streets and overpasses—I’m back on the Hawaiian-like island with Locke there. A fixed knife is in my hand. He’s trying to trick me, but I battle through the vision.

I’m back at the portal again. This time when I break the knife it splinters into many mechanical parts—tiny pieces of electrical components—metal rings and transistors. When I step out onto the barren city street and fling the components away, some stick to my fingers, but I hear Locke scream and I know that I’ve ended his reign of terror. The remaining two contestants are happy at the island.

I go home and go to bed. When I wake up (or not) I’ve been transported back to the island at the beginning of the games. At first I’ve forgotten that it’s all happened before, but it comes back to me through the series of games and tests designed to teach us how to deal with the island. I realize that I’m in line to win—that Kate and the other guy have redesigned the game and all I need to do is survive and complete the tests as I’ve already done.

During a hike through the overpassed streets, I share my insights/secret with a girl I went to grade school with (although can’t place exactly who...Shelia is the name I wrote down but no Shelia was mean to me in grade school), but she doesn’t believe me. Another girl from grade school joins her. We’re now not just on a hike but in a race. 

“Shelia” says I’m too fat to win the race or the contest. Which is odd cuz (at least in the dream) I’m not that fat. I race on unafraid. I’m pissed at the silly girls, but I am still confident that I will win the contest and relieve “Kate” and “Sawyer/Jack” as the island caretakers.

That's it....now YOU!


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## thejosh86 (Mar 1, 2011)

I have to admit that I'm one of those people that very rarely ever remembers their dreams, and they don't usually stay with me for any length of time. Perhaps, just perhaps, I am WITHOUT SOUL.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

I frequently dream about family members dying but those are dreams I try to forget. I'm not sure any of my better dreams are story-worthy though. For some reason, it's only my wildest nightmares that are interesting enough to remember.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Awww c'mon now Josh. I'm sure you have a soul!

Dara - I have the family members dying one too. You have to remember though that in your dreams _everyone _ is a symbol of some aspect of you! So when my brother dies in my dream, I can analize it and understand what aspect of myself I see in him that I'm afraid is "dying". Typically the meaning becomes clear and then it's not a scary nightmare, it's an important message from my subconscious!


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## bobavey (Sep 14, 2010)

I have many bizarre dreams. Here's one I had recently;

I'm walking down a hallway in a large, mansion-like house. When I come to a certain doorway, I am compelled to enter the room. Inside, I see a tall, slender lady with long black hair, standing beside an open window. I am immediately overcome with sadness and I realize I am picking up on the lady's emotions.

For reasons I do not understand, I walk over and kiss her. There is no denying that the dream had sexual overtones, but that was not the predominant feeling of it all. When I stepped back, the lady smiled and said, "Why did you do that?"

"You just seemed to need it," I said.

"It did help," she said, "but now I have an additional complication."

"What's that?" I ask

"Now I have to worry about our love triangle."

"No," I said, "It was just a brotherly thing."

At this point I wake up.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Bob,
That's a really interesting one!

I kept having very odd and upsetting dreams last night. The one I remember I was playing a sort of duck duck goose kids game with my siblings except we had to shift animals in various pens with us. There were those huge ugly hogs that were trying to bite us. Very odd.


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## Sandpiper (Oct 28, 2008)

Nice dream last night.  Nothing spectacular.  I think there was a lot of detail in my dream, but don't remember much details.  I got a puppy.  Had to choose one from a litter of three or four dachshunds.  They were cute.  I keep thinking about getting a dog, but dachshund has never been a breed I'd considered.  Maybe I should?  Is my dream telling me something?


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Mary, 
Thanks for sharing! I didn't mean for this thread to be a dream analysis one, but it's so fun!

The first thing is that almost everyone and everything in a dream is a symboly you have for you.... so what do dachshunds mean to you?


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Anyone else dreams to share?


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

I remember most of my dreams, and they don't bother me... what I do find weird though is:

I wake up EVERY SINGLE morning with some song or another running through my head. Yesterday was Ella Fitzgerald's "At Last", today was Creed's "Arms Wide Open", a few days ago it was Doris Day's "Que cera, cera".. Every single day. Full blown music and lyrics..

and no, I don't have a radio in my room.


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## NapCat (retired) (Jan 17, 2011)

I had two recurring nightmares in my youth. Both had to do with an impossible task.

1. Had to push a huge clay ball across a bottomless chasm on a piano wire....
2. Had to count the number of "fuzzy balls" on a pom-pom bedspread.....

In both, I solve the problem.....and then am told I must do it again. That was when I would wake up in terror.

I had a change of spirituality in my mid 40's...and the nightmares stopped. But I still remember them vividly !!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

BTackitt....how funny you say that! I've shared on FB the past week how I've woken up with ACDC's "Shoot to Thrill" running through my head. Again, no radio and I am constantly checking my dreams as I wake up. Imagine my shock when that song is in the opening scenes of Iron Man II this past weekend! Could be coincidence or maybe I subconsciously picked it up somewhere but that did freak me out.

I've also woken up with more songs in my head than normal lately. And random ones too.


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## Hedra Helix (Feb 17, 2011)

Back when Brad Pitt was smokin hot I had this dream where he and I were in this huge cavernous bathroom and he was showing me toilet after toilet, each one better (-Diamonds and seat warmers) than the one before it, trying to convince me, while giving me that grin from A River Runs Through It, ( Oh silly subconscious) to go ahead and just pee. 

I'm still shocked I didn't.


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## Hedra Helix (Feb 17, 2011)

NapCat said:


> I had two recurring nightmares in my youth. Both had to do with an impossible task.
> 
> 1. Had to push a huge clay ball across a bottomless chasm on a piano wire....
> 2. Had to count the number of "fuzzy balls" on a pom-pom bedspread.....
> ...


OMG, I used to have those too, I called them fever dreams. Both my sister and I would get them when we got sick. Thankfully it's been years since I had one. Mine involved weird distances, an impossible weight on a sharp tiny point, realizing something horrifying, but too late to stop it. And the walls felt weird like they were too far of too close. Gah, I used to wake up screaming. Freaky.

I'm glad your change stopped yours. That's great.


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## Ben White (Feb 11, 2011)

One dream I have often is of flying impossibly fast over an oceanscape, twisting spires of brightly coloured rock the only signs of solid land.  It's almost always sunset or night.  That's always fun.  Often I dream of things with human eyes, that's less fun--trees, dogs, dinosaur skeletons, it's pretty creepy.  Sometimes I dream I'm reading a book (one that doesn't exist), that's usually entertaining.

Here's what I wrote down about one wacky dream I had a while ago:

I had a brilliantly fun zombie apocalypse dream last night, it was mostly set in and around some kind of zoo (except without any animals), and my assistant was this unbelievably energetic and bouncy girl who wore stripy red and white stockings and a white dress-thing and a cool overcoat. She wielded twin giant ceramic candy canes, while I mostly used whatever I could pick up (there were a surprising number of swords around for a zoo). My weapons kept breaking, but this was less of a case of “Oh crap, my weapon’s broken!” than “Oh yay, what should I use next?”. At one point we came across a bunch of zombies standing around dancing and had a dance fight with them. Then there was a giant earthquake and more zombies kept coming out of the cracks. Eventually we got out of the zoo just as the ground beneath our feet cracked and a big chunk of asphalt formed a kind of ‘posing platform’. After that things kind of dissolved into dream-stuff but it was fun while it lasted.


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## Hedra Helix (Feb 17, 2011)

Ben White said:


> I had a brilliantly fun zombie apocalypse dream last night, it was mostly set in and around some kind of zoo (except without any animals), and my assistant was this unbelievably energetic and bouncy girl who wore stripy red and white stockings and a white dress-thing and a cool overcoat. She wielded twin giant ceramic candy canes, while I mostly used whatever I could pick up (there were a surprising number of swords around for a zoo). My weapons kept breaking, but this was less of a case of "Oh crap, my weapon's broken!" than "Oh yay, what should I use next?". At one point we came across a bunch of zombies standing around dancing and had a dance fight with them. Then there was a giant earthquake and more zombies kept coming out of the cracks. Eventually we got out of the zoo just as the ground beneath our feet cracked and a big chunk of asphalt formed a kind of 'posing platform'. After that things kind of dissolved into dream-stuff but it was fun while it lasted.


*Awesome*


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Alice Cooper's "Poison" today.


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## gryeates (Feb 28, 2011)

I've had a number of lucid nightmares over the years, one of which was the inspiration for my first novel - The Eyes of the Dead. The transcription runs as follows and also appears as a blog entry on my website. One of the reasons I became interested in the genre of horror through H.P. Lovecraft was after I read about his suffering from vivid nightmares that inspired his work.

-----

It is ice cold, wet and slippery when I awaken. Shivers pass through me as a rarefied electricity. Getting to my feet, I am naked, covered in a dripping layer of clear oily residue. My head hurts. My eyes burn. My tongue feels heavy, embalmed by bitumen and bitter mineral salts. Wiping clots of cloying substance from my eyes, I see where I am.

An undersea cathedral, stalactites depending from above weep long nacreous tears, grottoes and shadowy hollows create the echoes here. Giving sonorous voice to the most minute of disturbances, water falling, ancient stone finally crumbling, scattering in pieces to the ground. The striated sides of this colossal cavern are coated with sea slimes and fungal stains. Glistening fetid shades and febrile eidolons incarnate and dissipate in the aqueous light here, which seems to have no source. Nothing breathes in this place. Nothing lives. The only stirring comes from a whispering of salted air, a rich draught wafting out from adjoining networks of catacombs, no doubt.

I am not breathing though I am standing here, seemingly alive, in motion, at least. My heart and arteries are still. The surface underneath me is soft, uneven and pliant. It gives when I put my weight upon it, sometimes crackling, sometimes hissing as buried gases escape.

There are dead bodies everywhere.

Millions crushed together, somehow all brought to be interred in this deep abysmal place. For reasons I do not know, I have risen from amongst them, without memory of what went before. A black space exists where the past should be, sick and cold. Desolate is its emptiness, shut away within me. I drink the tears that try to run out from my eyes and down my dull cheeks. I am dead, a husk. I have no business mourning that which I do not remember. The pain is a ghost. The hurt is an echo.

I am walking across the slick backs of the lifeless many. The quiet down here suffocates and oppresses. The pressure in the freezing air is a tangible weight. I wonder how deep under the world this stately carven hall of nature is. How many fathoms press down upon this yawning space, on the time-sculpted vaults arching so high over my head?

The cavern, awesome in its scale, stretches on before me into a distance where a tinged particulate mist hangs as a veil over its farthest extremities. Being dead and strangely well-preserved, I fear no exhaustion and continue walking. Drawing nearer to the shifting greyish obscurity. I glimpse something shuddering there, hidden within. Its size is considerable, even from here. It is not human, nor of a form that I immediately recognise from the surface world.

I make my way towards it, oddly pausing as I catch further moments of clarity when the mists clears, drawing away, revealing an oozing chitinous bulk. I am a walking corpse and should not fear this thing. What can it do but tear me limb from limb, a sensation I will not experience being extinct of feeling.

What do the dead have to fear from further harm?

Nearer and nearer, I come to it. I am a maggot crawling over the backs of maggots before this ponderous goliath, this alien shape in the mist. I am in the presence of a true leviathan. A glimmering abyssal luminescence illumines the millions of motes polluting the air. Infinitesimal precious crystals of dirty ice and eldritch frost, cast from the creaking hide of this thing, forming into the precipitative shroud hanging over it. The source of the fuliginous light is a great eye, a tumour-hued bulb set in the charnel grey under-flesh of the titan.

I come to a halt before it. Unbidden, by unspoken command. I fall down on my knees and prostrate myself before it. That eye, a shining black moon, has given back to me that which was lost. The space within me is an old wound, brimming over with the bad blood of thought, feeling and memories. I shudder in the nauseating grasp of terrible remembrance. Some things are best left forgotten.

I know now what the dead have to fear. I know what follows on, the fate that cometh after extinction. When something becomes nothing.

When no-one remembers your name.

*© G.R. Yeates 2011*
------


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Hedra Helix said:


> Back when Brad Pitt was smokin hot I had this dream where he and I were in this huge cavernous bathroom and he was showing me toilet after toilet, each one better (-Diamonds and seat warmers) than the one before it, trying to convince me, while giving me that grin from A River Runs Through It, ( Oh silly subconscious) to go ahead and just pee.
> 
> I'm still shocked I didn't.


Oh my gosh, that's too funny. I have several bathroom dreams but it usually involves #2 and not being able to find a bathroom or get into one.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Ben White said:


> I had a brilliantly fun zombie apocalypse dream last night, it was mostly set in and around some kind of zoo (except without any animals), and my assistant was this unbelievably energetic and bouncy girl who wore stripy red and white stockings and a white dress-thing and a cool overcoat. She wielded twin giant ceramic candy canes, while I mostly used whatever I could pick up (there were a surprising number of swords around for a zoo). My weapons kept breaking, but this was less of a case of "Oh crap, my weapon's broken!" than "Oh yay, what should I use next?". At one point we came across a bunch of zombies standing around dancing and had a dance fight with them. Then there was a giant earthquake and more zombies kept coming out of the cracks. Eventually we got out of the zoo just as the ground beneath our feet cracked and a big chunk of asphalt formed a kind of 'posing platform'. After that things kind of dissolved into dream-stuff but it was fun while it lasted.


Sounds very cool. Reminds me a little of the ending of that recent Zombie movie Zombieland where they're in the theme park.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

Houses.

My most recurring dream, in it's original state, involves houses and buildings with three floors with the third floor being haunted. Sometimes it was a mall. Sometimes the basement counted as the first floor, but the third was always scary.

The dream has morphed to just living in different houses with endless rooms -- sometimes it's this house with suddenly more rooms. The third -- or now sometimes fourth -- floors still show up as places a little scarier, a little more dangerous, but the total terror is gone. In my dreams I'm better able to stare down the scariness, although my heart still pounds, and mostly they're good dreams, because in my dreams I have lots of rooms to decorate. 

In waking life, houses and buildings with three floors tend to fill me with a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. There are a couple buildings in town that figure into my dreams for that reason. Interestingly enough, one of them is in a painting of the town that I have.

As a matter of fact, this one: 









I think the whole scary aspect has something to do with a specific house I lived in as an infant to toddler. The basement there was pretty scary, but I don't recall knowing that until I was older -- family still lived there and so I'd visit. The second floor, which can be the third floor by dream standards, does seem scary to recall, meaning I get that dream feeling in my stomach when I think about it. Granted, I fell down those stairs once and was possibly unconscious for several seconds, but I don't think that was it. I suppose it's possible that something happened there that I can't recall on a conscious level. Maybe just something about the layout creeps me. There was also probably a lot of family turmoil and that might have sunk in, even if I can't remember it.

In the next couple houses, my preteens, I did have more than my share of nightmares involving a fear/sadness of flying (I had the power to fly, but I couldn't control when I took off or landed) and my house not really being my house, but almost like an malevolent -- not that I knew that word -- alternate universe. The more I type, the more I think I should talk out this house thing with someone. 

Other than that, I tend to have the high school dream where I can't remember my schedule or where the classes are and am failing miserably. Sometimes I go back to past jobs and feel overwhelmed and out of place.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

BTackitt said:


> I remember most of my dreams, and they don't bother me... what I do find weird though is:
> 
> I wake up EVERY SINGLE morning with some song or another running through my head. Yesterday was Ella Fitzgerald's "At Last", today was Creed's "Arms Wide Open", a few days ago it was Doris Day's "Que cera, cera".. Every single day. Full blown music and lyrics..
> 
> and no, I don't have a radio in my room.


I get that fairly often. The one I remember was waking up with Nights in White Satin in my head and staying there for days and days. There was one last week, but can't recall.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

> The dream has morphed to just living in different houses with endless rooms


CREEPY...this week I had a dream about buying my mom's best friend's house and her basement had endless rooms...they just kept going and going and going.

Michelle, it's a "simple" evaluation but one that's helped many people. Everyone and everything in your dreams is some symol of YOU. Thus, what part of YOU has three levels and which is the level that most terrifies you? Whatever it is, I bet it's in play every time you have that nightmare. Thanks for sharing!!!


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## metal134 (Sep 2, 2010)

J Dean said:


> I once dreamed of helping Crocodile Dundee fight Robocop.


I don't know why, but that made me bust a gut.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Last night's dream was interesting. It was a cross between my job taking place on Battlestar Galactica and Stephen King's The Stand. We came back to Earth and a plague had wiped out 99% of humanity. I was riding a bike through the streets of San Fran (mixed with the Chicago suburbs I grew up in) and only saw a handful of people. Very weird.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

I woke up to Enya's "Amarantine"....

Yesterday it was Santana's "Into the Night".


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> I woke up to Enya's "Amarantine"....
> 
> Yesterday it was Santana's "Into the Night".


This morning it was "To Be Real" -- the 70s song. The thing I associate with that is it's in Carlito's Way and Penelope Ann Miller is dancing in the club to it....otherwise I've no reason why I'd be thinking of that song.

Of course subliminally maybe the "To Be Real" is something my subconscious is trying to tell me


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

I had one of those apocalyptic dreams last night. Most of the population wiped out. I was back in Chicago and started seeing people at the top of the John Hancock building...which was unstable due to earthquakes. There was also a toddler walking around who could talk and acted a lot older than he was. His parents assured me he was capable. Very interesting dream.

Anyone else


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Would love to hear more people share their dreams and nightmares!


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Normally I dream in color.. and I often have what I guess you call lucid dreams.. I will dream about stuff, and my brain objectively starts picking apart the dreams. This is a fairly routine occurrance, so I thought everyone else did too until I brought it up in conversation with my DH & kids one night at dinner... They all looked at me like I was a freak.


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Last night I dreamed I looked in the mirror and my eyeballs were bleeding! The really disturbing thing was that I talked to several people in my dream and _nobody noticed_. All the time I'm running through my house in a panic thinking, "I gotta put some ice on my eyes. Cover them with towels. _Something_."


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Normally I dream in color.. and I often have what I guess you call lucid dreams.. I will dream about stuff, and my brain objectively starts picking apart the dreams. This is a fairly routine occurrance, so I thought everyone else did too until I brought it up in conversation with my DH & kids one night at dinner... They all looked at me like I was a freak.


I'd love to hear more about your lucid dreaming experiences. In other words you know that you're dreaming ie awake in your dreams? What kind of experiences do you have? I become lucid during my dreams every once in a while and tyically chose to fly.


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## Tippy (Dec 8, 2008)

The dreams I remember can be prophetic in nature.  Such as the dream about my bro & SIL having a baby girl.  Everyone laughed at me. . .three weeks later they are asking me how I knew. However they had a baby boy.  He is now 22 years old.  

My mother and brother also experience prophetic dreams.  Each of us pays attention to the dream.  My brother sold a car because of a dream he had about his daughters.

Other dreams can be warnings.  I dreamed of being chased up a ladder by a couple of really mean dinosaurs.  After they left a smaller dinosaur came to help me.  It was a warning about people I worked with.  I learned to become very careful around these people, but also to have a sense of charity about them and being respectful of their turf.   And yes, I was very glad when they went somewhere else to work.

My worst nightmare occurred when I was very small.  It was about a huge spider and getting caught in it's web.  The warning was about a significant person in my life, who can at times, be extremely manipulative (but greatly loved).  

Then there are the run-of-the-mill goofy dreams.  I try to put these dreams into perspective with my life.  However, it is sometimes difficult to gain any perspective or wisdom from these dreams.


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## Tippy (Dec 8, 2008)

I might add the prophetic dreams are very real, I can remember colors and sounds.  The dreams are very specific in nature and remain so in my memory.  Sometimes it is difficult to interpret the dream.  However, when it becomes reality, the scene is exactly as it was in the dream.


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

Stephen Prosapio said:


> Last night's dream was interesting. It was a cross between my job taking place on Battlestar Galactica and Stephen King's The Stand. We came back to Earth and a plague had wiped out 99% of humanity. I was riding a bike through the streets of San Fran (mixed with the Chicago suburbs I grew up in) and only saw a handful of people. Very weird.


My most vivid dream was really similar. Only the apocalypse was caused by vampires. From outer space. It was AWESOME. I'm totally going to write a novel about it.

I used to have a recurring nightmare as a kid. It started when I was in kindergarten. In my dream I'd be running through my kindergarten building, screaming my head off. The place would be entirely empty except for the witch and the polar bear who were chasing me. Since I was raised in an extremely religious home, witches were the epitome of evil and thus scary as heck. The polar bear? No idea.

A couple years ago I read the His Dark Materials series and thought how bizarre (You know, polar bear, witch.). Had the dream again. Surprisingly NOT scary as a grown up.


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## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

Earlier this week I had a dream where black cloud things were chasing me around and sucking everything up. A bit like the Nothing in The Neverending Story I guess, where it just obliterates everything it touches. People I loved refused to get away from it and kept getting eaten, though I kept telling them to run. I kept thinking that I wished someone would just run away with me, because I didn't want to be alone when it was done.

I used to have a recurring nightmare that horrified me when I was a kid about an Astronaut chasing me around the house in his spacesuit. He even managed to hide under my bed, which made no sense at all. No idea where that came from. 

I frequently have monster nightmares with scary things chasing me around in the dark, no idea why, maybe too many horror movies when I was little.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Thanks all for sharing!

Shea - "Only the apocalypse was caused by vampires.  From outer space.  It was AWESOME.  I'm totally going to write a novel about it."
-- I'd read that book! Sounds cool. As for the polar bears did you watch LOST? Something from that. What do polar bears remind you of? Christmas? They're in a lot of commercials?  Just a thought.

Loving this thread.


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

Stephen Prosapio said:


> Thanks all for sharing!
> 
> Shea - "Only the apocalypse was caused by vampires. From outer space. It was AWESOME. I'm totally going to write a novel about it."
> -- I'd read that book! Sounds cool. As for the polar bears did you watch LOST? Something from that. What do polar bears remind you of? Christmas? They're in a lot of commercials? Just a thought.
> ...


Stephen,

It was an INCREDIBLY cool dream and I've always meant to write a book about it. Obviously it went a little wonky toward the end, as dreams do, so I'll have to take poetic license with my own dream.  But it's definitely on the list after my current WIPs.

I was five or six when I first started the dream, so definitely NOT inspired by Lost. lol Though I did think that was interesting when I saw the show. I suppose it could have been Christmas, though Coke didn't start running that commercial until I was older. Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't Cylons! lol


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Cylons?!?! Don't get me started on Cylons!!!

At some point someone has to write about what happened to the Cylons that went off on their own at the end of the newer BSG!


Dream update:  Last night I dreampt that I got pulled over by the police for the registration on my car. Not so bizarre since my registration isn't current.....I'm taking this as a signal to GET THAT DONE tomorrow!  LOL


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

Cylons are awesome.  Well, the OLD Cylons are awesome.  The new Cylons are just very naughty and need a time out.  Maybe YOU should write that book!

I had several dreams last night, just can't remember any of them this morning.  I do remember having to hike up an embankment to a house only to find out we were on the wrong side of the river and in the wrong house.  Most annoying.


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## Lisa Scott (Apr 4, 2011)

I have a recurring dream where I have forgotten to feed my fish/pet rabbits/hamster etc. for years.  They are all just clinging to life and I'm always panicked to find them and scold myself to take better care of them.  "I've gotta remember to feed the bunnies."  Clearly, a psychologist could tease something out of that dream.  Probably that I worry I'm neglecting something, but what?  (Hopefully not my kids!  Although I'm not a good cook...)

I used to have very intense, difficult dreams in which I was always being chased, or someone was trying to kill or kidnap me.  I always woke up thinking, thank god that wasn't true.  (They were always quite interesting and would have had made great books.)  Those dreams stopped when I lost my job.  Hmm....


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## bobavey (Sep 14, 2010)

I had an unusual one not long ago, involving a train station and getting lost.


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

I had a dream this past week that I almost got a corgi puppy.  We were @ a flea market and I thought to puppy was free.  When I found out the dog cost $200, I put him back and told the breeders that no one would buy a puppy for that kind of money.  Then I walked away and questioned why I wanted such a high energy dog when pregnant, anyways.


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## caseyf6 (Mar 28, 2010)

I'm glad I'm not the only one with colorful, detailed dreams.  My husband and his family all look at me oddly when I mention dreams (so I don't do it very often, lol).  Mine have all of the five senses and sometimes I'm "someone else" entirely.  One time I was a rather overweight man and I could imagine how it felt to move around with that kind of extra weight.  Odd.


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

caseyf6 said:


> I'm glad I'm not the only one with colorful, detailed dreams. My husband and his family all look at me oddly when I mention dreams (so I don't do it very often, lol). Mine have all of the five senses and sometimes I'm "someone else" entirely. One time I was a rather overweight man and I could imagine how it felt to move around with that kind of extra weight. Odd.


Oh, my word! I do the same thing! I once dreamed I was having dinner at a restaurant with my parents and we ordered flourless chocolate cake for dessert. It came out in a nice wedge with a dusting of icing sugar and a raspberry on top. I literally could TASTE the cake in my mouth. I woke up still feeling like I'd eaten the thing! lol

I don't tell other people that much because they think it's freaky.


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## susan67 (Mar 18, 2011)

I don't seem to remember my dreams anymore. I used to when I was a kid....I sure wish I could though...I liked remembering what I dreamt.
There was one I had quite a few times as a child. 
There was a yellow house with white shutters and a white picket fence.
I would then be in the kitchen of the house and the table was set and had food on the plates....looked like 4 members of a family were in the middle of eating and just got up and left.
Then I find myself sitting in the back yard which is huge. And the grass is very, very green and there are dandelions all over and they are very, very yellow. That is pretty much all there was to it as far as I remember.


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## jherrick (Apr 1, 2011)

As a kid, maybe 5 years old, I was really scared of clowns. I used to have this recurring nightmare that there was something wrong and the doctor would say to my parents, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we're going to have to turn John into a clown." Freaked me out. Mom didn't know I was scared of them, and she'd bought a nice picture of a clown to hang up in my room--used to scare me every night falling asleep!  

As an adult, I had this weird dream years ago that I knew I was going to have to do something medically that would lead to my death, so the last 24 hours were sad, where I was maximizing the time I had left with my family. Very sad. Weaved it into a book a few years later, though!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

"Those dreams stopped when I lost my job.  Hmm...."

Soooo funny how dreams can mean things and be so important, and then when the thing which inspires them becomes moot, they disappear.

Alle - Very interesting!!!!! I can so see and relate to dreams like that. So much of my weird dreams are THINKING.

I took a nap today and know I had a very vivid dream but I woke up and couldn't remember it.

Thanks all for sharing your dreams. You never know which of these will inspire a writer!!!


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

"Those dreams stopped when I lost my job.  Hmm...."

I know the feeling.  Back when I was still living in the US I had this horrendously stressful job.  I had stress dreams constantly.  Usually involving me driving down the I84 freaking out because it was 3pm and I'd "forgotten" to go to work.  My boss would be on my cell shrieking at me.  Horrible.  Strangely, I've not had a single one of those dreams since I quit that job and moved to the Uk.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

"Strangely, I've not had a single one of those dreams since I quit that job and moved to the Uk."

-- And hopefully if you *do  * have it again, you'll be driving on the right side of the road!


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

LMAO!  

That reminds me.  Often now when I have a dream involving driving, it will also involve:
a) Me forgetting which side of the car to get into.
b) Me (or whoever is driving) randomly switching sides of the car while said car is in motion.  Usually on the Motorway/Freeway.

Yes, my poor brain is thoroughly confused!


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

Lisa Scott said:


> I have a recurring dream where I have forgotten to feed my fish/pet rabbits/hamster etc. for years. They are all just clinging to life and I'm always panicked to find them and scold myself to take better care of them. "I've gotta remember to feed the bunnies." Clearly, a psychologist could tease something out of that dream. Probably that I worry I'm neglecting something, but what? (Hopefully not my kids! Although I'm not a good cook...)


When I was a teen, maybe early twenties, I had a dream about a parakeet we'd had that had died. In the dream, it turns out he hadn't really died but had been forgotten about in his cage. The dream was so sad and lonely and I couldn't shake the memory of the dusty cage sitting in a dim room.


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

I used to have one even worse than the forgotten pet one.  When I was young, we lived next door to my grandma and grandpa.  My grandma died when I was seven and 18 months later my grandpa died.  I thought it was my fault that he died because I kept forgetting to go and visit him after grandma died.  So I would have these nightmares even when I was grown where I would suddenly remember that Grandpa was still living next door and I had been to see him in 20 years or 25 years or 30 years.  Eventually, I came to realize that I was holding this deep-seated guilt about his death and had to come to grips with the fact that he did not die because I didn't visit often enough.  I guess that was probably my worst experience with recurring dreams with meaning.
Recently, I retired from a job I had come to hate.  I used to dream about being at work even when I was off.  After I retired I stopped dreaming about it, but whenever I have a particularly stressful day, I dream that I am going to have to go back to work at the same place!  Awful.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

Wow, that's sad. I'm glad you were able to come to terms with it.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Oh my gosh.... I've never realized people dream of former pets. That's a great insight (and think how that could be symbolically used in fiction). Thanks you guys for sharing that!

And oh those jobs we hate...how they stay with us. I've only had one job I've truly hated and sometimes (as was said) I'd be in a stressful time and dream of having to go to work there....waking up was SUCH a relief!

The only thing that could be more of a relief I used in my novel. An addict (drugs/alcohol/whatever) relapsing/falling off the wagon....and then waking up realizing they're still clean and sober.


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

What about characters from TV shows or movies?  They frequently tromp through my dreams in weird ways.

Last night I dreamed I was still in high school and Ray Langston (Lawrence Fishbourne's character in CSI) was my teacher.  We were in my room with my parents calmly reading in the living room and Langston was holding my pink mobile and screaming I was a spy.  I was trying to convince him I was just using it to record lectures.  Since pink Blackberry wanna-bes did not exist in the dark ages, I can kind of understand why he thought I was a spy.    Though what he was doing in my bedroom (or as my teacher), I've no idea.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

SheaMacLeod said:


> What about characters from TV shows or movies? They frequently tromp through my dreams in weird ways.
> 
> Last night I dreamed I was still in high school and Ray Langston (Lawrence Fishbourne's character in CSI) was my teacher. We were in my room with my parents calmly reading in the living room and Langston was holding my pink mobile and screaming I was a spy. I was trying to convince him I was just using it to record lectures. Since pink Blackberry wanna-bes did not exist in the dark ages, I can kind of understand why he thought I was a spy.  Though what he was doing in my bedroom (or as my teacher), I've no idea.


Uh huh suuuuuure. I know why he was in your bedroom. LOL

Seriously, Lawrene Fishbourne is one that I'd connect to the Matrix which was very dreamlike to begin with. Maybe a subconscious hint to yourself? I do tend to dream of famous people and then later it annoys the heck out of me that I didn't realize I was dreaming. Also Shea, your earlier post about getting in the wrong side of the car reminds me that in that dream state electronic devices don't typically work etc.

One of the sure ways to tell if you're dreaming is to read something. Look away, and then read it again. In a dream, it will almost always change.

Happy Dreaming everyone!


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## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

I keep a dream journal because I can sometimes use them for a character.

My most repetitive dream is of walking First Street, which edges up to the beach, in Imperial Beach.  It's usually high tide with us clambering around trying to save ourselves from drowning.  Sometimes we are watching the surfers and sometimes we walk out on the pier.


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## susan67 (Mar 18, 2011)

I have dreams of driving while not being able to see. My eyes are open but I see nothing but blackness. I know I can't see but can't seem to stop the car or quit driving. And I know I will have to hit something because I can't see. I keep waiting and waiting to crash but that doesn't happen either. Very tense and scary dream. 

Sheesh, I just read that back to myself and scared myself more with the first thought I had about what the dream might mean. 
Wonder what you think the dream might mean...just to see if I think I figured it out! LOL.


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## Tippy (Dec 8, 2008)

I dreamed about the tv show Gunsmoke.  Weird.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

I used to dream I was a character on an ABC soap opera -- Laura on GH or Tina on OLTL.


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## AlmostRambo (May 18, 2011)

My dreams are usually mundanely boring or about crazy stuff like alien invasion.

Though, being the dreamer, you get a new appreciation for how serious something like that is when you're thrown in the middle of it. I've seen fireballs explode on the ground, tree lines toppled, weird beings, and all manner of different invasion scenarios all in my dreams.

Lets just say if it happens "panic" might be highly understated.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

@  EGranfors, you're in San Diego? Me too!

@ Susan, that is a creepy one. Especially when you consider at the time you really do believe it's happening!

@ Rambo - yes! Regarding the point made in your and Susan's posts, they say the human body doesn't differenciate between real and vividly imagined events. So the heart rate and other things associated with those traumatic events must take a toll on our bodies.

@ Tippy & Michelle - those random ones are particularly interesting no?


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

I heart San Diego.  Just sayin'.    

I had several dreams last night, mostly a bizarre muddle I can't remember now.  I do remember they were FUN!  And also when I woke up, my brain was going MAD with ideas.  I ended up adding some fantastic scenes to my current WIP.  Things I hadn't even thought of doing, but they just WORK.  

All because of some wild and crazy dreams.


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## MaryKingsley (Mar 26, 2011)

I dreamed a couple of weeks ago about a friend who's going to grad school out of the country, studying English lit.  I was supposed to drive her home, to a part of the city where she definitely didn't live, but first I had to go home.  Fine, she said, but she had to practice her clarinet, since she's a grad student.  (she does not play the clarinet).  OK, no problem there.  Then I'm washing dishes, with my mother somewhere in the house (mom's been dead 7 years), when my father comes to the door (dad's been dead 2).  At that point, we hear music (in real life, he wouldn't have heard it, because he was deaf).  Oh, that must be Kristen, I said.  So I looked out my kitchen window into the back yard - an impossibility - and there she was, playing the clarinet, with an orchestra backing her up.  But it was OK, because she was a graduate student of the clarinet.

My question is - why was I washing dishes?


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

When I met my ex-husband the first time, I had constant deja vu.  I have had a few deja vu experiences, but nothing like this.  We spent six hour together the first day and it was non stop. I have never experienced anything even close.  And of coarse we imploded almost immediately.


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

MaryKingsley said:


> My question is - why was I washing dishes?


Yes, that would be my first question, too.


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

I had a dream the other night about 2 gay werewolves who "mated" (think Twilight werewolves) w/ 2 lesbian werewolves (it made much more sense in my dream).  There was a fight (as the girls were from another pack) and then all 4 fell asleep in the same bed.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

KindleChickie said:


> When I met my ex-husband the first time, I had constant deja vu. I have had a few deja vu experiences, but nothing like this. We spent six hour together the first day and it was non stop. I have never experienced anything even close. And of coarse we imploded almost immediately.


That's awesome! I've always wondered/been suspicious of that whole "love at first site" thing because after the fact it's more likely to seem like it was fated. I did know someone personally though who saw a guy walk into our office one time and she got dizzy and almost fainted. I think it happened more than once when she was around him and she knew she was supposed to meet and marry him (she told people before she was introduced). The whole experience frightened her because she'd not really believed in that kind of thing. They did end up getting married not too long after meeting.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Alle Meine Entchen said:


> I had a dream the other night about 2 gay werewolves who "mated" (think Twilight werewolves) w/ 2 lesbian werewolves (it made much more sense in my dream). There was a fight (as the girls were from another pack) and then all 4 fell asleep in the same bed.


Are you sure that was a dream and not like book 4 or 5 in that series LOL I don't know if you're a writer Alle but Gay Erotica is like a HUGE seller right now.

@ Mary - that is funny about washing dishes.

& my odd dream experience happened this week and I almost forgot it...or would have except...well....

So I was walking outside with a bunch of friends and this bee (and later I think it was a wasp) came and landed on my head (as you can tell from my pictures, there's not a lot of hair to protect me...lol). I was freaked out but my friends assured me that if I just let it alone, it would be okay. Well it started boring into my head...drilling, and again they reassured me. Eventually the bee/wasp stinger tickled. I forgot about the 
s
s
s dream and went about my day. That evening I watched a movie "Stone" with Ed Norton and Robert DeNiro. It centers around a convict having a spiritual experience in a little known religion which centers on sounds and....yes sounds like bees! Could be coincidence but...


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## jherrick (Apr 1, 2011)

EGranfors said:


> I keep a dream journal because I can sometimes use them for a character.


What a great idea. Have you ever had a dream where half of a novel unfolded before you, and about 85% actually made sense, a pretty good rate for a dream?


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

jherrick said:


> What a great idea. Have you ever had a dream where half of a novel unfolded before you, and about 85% actually made sense, a pretty good rate for a dream?


Yeah, my vampires from outer space dream was like that. Dreamed the whole plot line, characters, even the back story! It was pretty cool.


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## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

Last night I had a double dream.  First I was handing back a really bad essay and looking for a gift bag to go with it. Then, I was the President's translator for French. He told me he'd rather use the ear buds.  I was crushed. My French is that bad?


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

EGranfors said:


> I was the President's translator for French. He told me he'd rather use the ear buds. I was crushed. My French is that bad?


That's an interesting one. Do you speak French then? I'd guess your dream has something to do with something that happened to you there?

Mine last night had to do with being on a bus with two former coworkers. The bus went out of control down a steep hill but I helped steer while one of the coworkers worked the breaks (don't ask me why it took both of us). After waking I realized that both coworkers' birthdays are tomorrow!


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

EGranfors said:


> Then, I was the President's translator for French. He told me he'd rather use the ear buds. I was crushed. My French is that bad?


I don't know why, but I find that really funny. I'm sure he'd tell me the same thing!



Stephen Prosapio said:


> Mine last night had to do with being on a bus with two former coworkers. The bus went out of control down a steep hill but I helped steer while one of the coworkers worked the breaks (don't ask me why it took both of us).


I've had similar dreams where I am steering and someone else works the pedals. There's never any particular reason for it. Very weird.

I can't remember my dream last night, but my coworker just walked in and told me she dreamt of the cover model on my book last night! lol


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

I had a lucid dream the other night that was, let's say, rather sexual in nature. Kind of freaky too because I couldn't control WHO I'd meet in it. Many of the women I was "presented with" were pretty horrid. 

Last night I listened to author Steve Volt on Coast to Coast last night...he spoke of focused lucid dreaming...meditation before sleep to bring on a particular dream setting so that one could wake up and use the lucid dream to benefit your lives and others.


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## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

I don't know what's with my sleep. Last night I had a dream about aliens that could subdivide and capture people, but then we had the ability to gain their weaponry and when I woke up, I was winning the war.


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## bobavey (Sep 14, 2010)

I had a rather bizarre dream last night. I was in some sort of park, built around a tunnel where a pirate was supposed to have hidden years ago. Everything looked artificial and cheesy. I asked one of the park attendants if anything was real and he said, "Yes, the tunnel was actually the pirates hideout." 

With that I purchase an additional ticket and go inside the tunnel. When I go through the door, I find myself in a 1940's era hotel. The hotel isn't used, but is for display. As I walk the hallways, I glance into various rooms when it dawns on me that the doors are open. I step into one of the rooms and begin to walk through it. The suite is composed of several rooms linked together by a sort of tunnel and everything is tiled, the floors, the walls, etc. When I reach the final room, something touches me on the shoulder and I wonder if the hotel is haunted. At this point, I become very uncomfortable so I leave the room. That's when I wake up.


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

EGranfors said:


> I don't know what's with my sleep. Last night I had a dream about aliens that could subdivide and capture people, but then we had the ability to gain their weaponry and when I woke up, I was winning the war.


That sounds like an excellent plot for a scifi!


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

And speaking of sci-fi ...

Last night I had a dream I was part of the crew of a space ship.  Suddenly it started flying wonky, wobbling around.  Next thing I knew we had a triage set up in the hallway (or whatever you call it on a space ship) to treat ... motion sickness!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Bob, thanks for sharing! That is an interesting one with potential for a fictional story.

Shea - thanks for being so generous and sharing yours!


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

Stephen - I really enjoy this thread!  I've always been fascinated by dreams.  Unfortunately I haven't been sleeping well lately, so no dreams to share.


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## bobavey (Sep 14, 2010)

I had a rather unusual one a few nights ago.

I was in some sort of park, that was supposed to have been the lair, or hideout of a pirate. Everything looked fake and cheesy, so I asked the tour guide if anything was real. She answered that, yes, the cave, where the pirate hid his treasure was the real-deal.

I go into the cave, and I am inside an old 1940's era hotel, which has been restored as part of the park, but not actually used as a hotel. As I walk along the hallway, I stop occasionally to peer inside a room. I come to one room, which isn't blocked by the red velvet rope, so I go inside. The room is incredibly large. When I reach the back bedroom, someone touches me on the shoulder, but when I turn around no one is there. I wonder if the hotel is haunted and I turn to leave the room. That's when I wake up.


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## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

Back in the days when "they" used ether for surgical anesthetic, I had ether-dreams of a kite bouncing on a string of balls.  So ever since then I sometimes dream of the smell of ether and immediately see the kite bouncing on the balls.

Just sayin....


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

bobavey said:


> I go into the cave, and I am inside an old 1940's era hotel, which has been restored as part of the park, but not actually used as a hotel. As I walk along the hallway, I stop occasionally to peer inside a room. I come to one room, which isn't blocked by the red velvet rope, so I go inside. The room is incredibly large. When I reach the back bedroom, someone touches me on the shoulder, but when I turn around no one is there. I wonder if the hotel is haunted and I turn to leave the room. That's when I wake up.


That is a REALLY cool dream!!! I could totally see making some sort of creepy short story like that!


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## hamerfan (Apr 24, 2011)

I had a pretty cool dream last night.
I dreamt of my first "serious relationship" girlfriend. We haven't seen each other since the early 1980s, and I haven't thought of her for at least 25 years. But she showed up in my dream last night. And not as I last saw her, but correctly aged. We had a good talk, and went on our separate ways. It was cool, to me anyway.


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## Tippy (Dec 8, 2008)

Love this dream thread.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

hamerfan said:


> I had a pretty cool dream last night.
> I dreamt of my first "serious relationship" girlfriend. We haven't seen each other since the early 1980s, and I haven't thought of her for at least 25 years. But she showed up in my dream last night. And not as I last saw her, but correctly aged. We had a good talk, and went on our separate ways. It was cool, to me anyway.


-- I wonder if maybe you subconsciously heard a song at some point that triggered that. It sounds like it was a relationship you felt safe it to talk things through with?

Thanks Tippy!!! Me too....and I had a doozy this morning!

Dreamt that, playing for the Yankees, I somehow managed to coax the team we were playing against to intentionaly walk Russell Martin...which for some reason put him at 2nd base and me at 3rd. There was a short fly pop up which I knew I couldn't score on...but tagged up anyway in order to draw the throw. I not only did that but apparently the other team forgot about me.....of course 3rd base was like 6 blocks away... then, when the elderly lady covering home errantly threw the ball away, I scored! Nice to know my imagination is such that I can still devise "realisitc" ways of contributing to the ball club. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

Lately I have been dreaming way too much about my dog dying.  She is 15-years-old this year and I worry about her a lot.  My girlfriend's 16-year-old dog died very suddenly earlier this year and it has made me worry about my dog.

I have recurring nightmares about going back to college and not being able to find classes, tornadoes and my teeth falling out.


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## Brem (Jun 29, 2011)

I don't seem to dream a lot anymore. I do get the occasional fun dreams where I'm being chased by zombies or something. I haven't had a nightmare in many years. 

There was one dream when I was a kid that I remember a little about. It was of me and my mother, traveling somewhere. Just the two of us. I actually remember crying and waking up. It was quite vivid.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Dreams of teeth falling out is supposed to symbolize guilt over saying something you can't take back.

Although my grandma supposedly had teeth dreams right before someone was going to die. Not sure how accurate that all turned out.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Dreamed twice of a former coworker last night. Indicative of how everyone in our dreams is symbolic of ourselves...she has the same initials as me, similar first name and an Italian last name. Now if I could just remember how she figured in the dream...

Who else has something to share?


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Gotta be SOME new dreams out there...share. Share!


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## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

I seem to dream about haunted houses a lot.  Not really scary but more like I would be in a large house and know what rooms I should avoid and which ones I could go in without any trouble.

One dream I had recently was odd but kind of neat too.  I was with a group of friends (made up in the dream as I only knew one of them) and we had been out for the evening.  They mentioned a party they had heard about so we all piled into this large van.  I didn't really want to go, but there wasn't much I could do.

When we got there, there were a bunch of people who were very welcoming and my friends were drinking and dancing and having a great time.  But I kept feeling uneasy and it kept looking to me like the people's faces were changing.  I kept telling my one friend that we should leave, there was something odd about these people.  He laughed it off, but my unease continued and I told myself to get ready as everyone was drunk and I might have to get us out of there myself. 

Sure enough, at the point where everyone was really intoxicated, the people suddenly put on these weird robes and their faces turned evil.  They were a cult of demons or something equally evil.  I started forming balls of energy with my hands and began throwing them at them as fast as I could.  It drove them back and knocked them down long enough for us all to escape.  LOL What a wacky dream.


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2011)

I've kept a dream journal for years. Looking back, I sometimes add notes about what my subconscious was trying to tell me at the time. This one, I still can't quite figure out, other than naturally worrying about people I love--that, and for some reason the old wreck that used to be my house in rural Nebraska totally creeps me out.

There was something bad happening to the city of Lincoln. Some darkness had fallen, placing all power in the hands of a very few, making it so we could not get jobs and were persecuted for not conforming.
A group of us went to a big trailer near west South Street, that had been converted into a church, where a rock band was playing. It was a concert especially for women. They were so joyful to have a place to gather, where they could have fun and not be punished. Women of all ages, cultures, and ethnicities were there, talking, laughing, and dancing among the wooden pews. I hoped they wouldn’t be caught. The band sucked.
I left and headed west, past Highway 77, to the bar and grill that used to be The Prospector. I went inside and there was the recurring dream theme of a dark bar, all wood inside, with elevated circular booths and a round food bar in the main room.
I sat down in a booth with four men who looked like the guys from the Sopranos. My husband was supposed to join us. We drank for a long time and got really hungry, but they were no longer serving food. So we went outside and followed a narrow sidewalk around back, where there was a sort of shack. A guy with long, scruffy blond hair was serving up several kinds of homemade stew. Starving, I ate a bowl of meatball stew that looked like lamb korma.
The guy behind the bar started chatting with me and I said, “Do I know you?” He grinned and said something about the “Freddies” or “Frankies” or something like that. I realized that was the name of the band I’d seen earlier, and he was in the band.
I kept wondering what had happened to my husband. It was after bar time.
Suddenly, I was in Mom’s old house, searching for something. There were some new DVDs that I had ordered, and I kept trying to fasten them to the soles of my shoes. I finally gave up and pushed them under the bed. A kitchen timer went off in the dank, collapsing kitchen. I ventured over the threshold and saw only a wall of dirty porcelain—nothing that could have made the noise.
I returned to the living/bedroom, and suddenly a large, rumpled, peach-colored cat leaped onto one of the moldering beds. It was mangy and smelled of mold, like in Pet Sematary. It was time to get the hell out of here. I hurried through the kitchen, and as I was opening the old dented screendoor, another cat appeared. This one’s fur was yellow, what was left of it, its body skeletal.
I leapt outside, feeling more than just a cat was coming. At the same time, a gray and white cat, this one quite normal-looking, came bounding up from the overgrown yard. The two cats hurried toward the narrowing doorway, the dead cat inside the dead house, the live one curious to get in. I slammed the door in their faces and hurried down the brick walk, which became the narrow sidewalk again, between the bar and the shack.
I had to find my husband. I thought maybe I should go look in the old house where I used to live, south of the Regional Center; it was close by, and my husband might have wandered up there by instinct. Then I remembered that my “husband” back then was K--my ex. My real husband, T, would not know about that house.
Coming up the walk were the four men I’d drunk with earlier. Together, we turned east and walked up the road, crossing Highway 77 and heading up Van Dorn. The air was still, damp, and cold. To the east, the horizon was faintly gray. I took out my cell phone to try to call T. I kept pressing “K” on the keypad, once again getting the names mixed up. For some reason, I thought if I pressed the Talk button, I could get the Lincoln Police Department, and they would help me find T.
The phone rang briefly; then, a voicemail message came on, the crusty, wheezing voice of an old woman: “Yeh’ve reached the shirriff’s office. Be advised all work is performed via contrack.”
As I snapped the phone closed, a high, whistling bird’s cry pierced the gloom.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

I can't remember my dreams anymore.


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## Guest (Sep 3, 2011)

Had another dream about puppies and kittens last night.
Most of the time, my dreams are these cinematic horror stories; but every once in awhile I just have these nice ones about cuddly little furry creatures. No idea why.


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

The other night I dreamed I changed my skull out.  It was a preventative maintenance thing.  In the dream I was worried about correctly aligning the base of my skull with my vertebrae.  It gave me pause to wonder if the risk was worth whatever benefit I thought I would get from a new skull.

No idea if there was any hidden anxiety or meaning to the dream.  

PS  I blame KB author Alex McLean for this dream.


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## Philip Chen (Aug 8, 2010)

I am very careful in discussing the origins of my book lest people think that I am trying to benefit from tragedy. However, this is a true story.

In 1990, I suffered through a series of vivid nightmares about gangs of what looked like ordinary citizens wreaking apocalyptic horror on their fellow citizens and on buildings. In these dreams, I saw skyscrapers crumble in flames and people dying the worst possible dreams. I carried a lightweight laptop for work and on the long red-eye flights between the US and England at the time. I started writing a story about foreign agents hiding in plain view for decades in the United States, marrying innocent Americans, raising children, holding down jobs, buying homes, stealing the identities of dead babies. I copyrighted this novel in 1991.

For twenty years, agents and publishers scoffed at my outrageous tale. It was preposterous to believe that such a thing could happen in our country; not in America. Of course, until it did in 2010, when Russian agents were found to be doing the exact thing that my fictional agents had been doing for twenty years. The only difference was that my spies did not grow hydrangeas. One of my fictional spies was even a gorgeous female who posed as a financial consultant. That was when I decided to self-publish on Amazon. Incidentally, for my detractors, I started posting excerpts to my novel on Scribd.com in May 2009. http://scribd.com/PhilC68

Paul Harvey would say in his broadcasts at this point, "Page Two."

There is a side of this true story that I do not talk about much. You see, I believe that the buildings I saw in my nightmares were the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. When the two towers came under attack by terrorists on September 11, 2001, I was dumbstruck. When it was revealed that the terrorists had lived amongst us as they plotted this attack, some for decades, I was floored.

One of the immediate things that I did was to change the office of Mike Liu, my principal character, from a floor above the 100th floor of Two World Trade to a nondescript office in lower Manhattan. If you read my book, you will see a description of Mike's office in great detail.

The reason it was easy for me to write that scene was I was describing my own office on the 106th floor of Two World Trade Center, where I was a managing director for Lehman Brothers. If I had stayed in that office until September 11, 2001, I would be dead.

"Now," as Paul Harvey always concluded, "You know the Rest of the Story."


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## SheaMacLeod (Apr 13, 2011)

Wow, Phil.  That's the kind of story that gives me goosebumps!

I've been having a lot of stress dreams lately.  You know, the kind of dreams where in the dream you are freaking out about some random thing and everything is going wrong.  You wake up and can't remember what you dreamed, but you feel tired stressed.  THOSE kinds of dreams. 

I need a new job. lol


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Phil,
I haven't checked in for a while. Your story is amazing. Truth is so often stranger than fiction. Thanks for sharing that. I lost my Kindle a couple months back and it hasn't turned up, so I'm going to get the $79 one here soon just to have something to tide me over. When I do, I'll get your book.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

C'mon now. There's gotta be some spooky dreams happening during Halloween!


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

I keep dreaming that my soon to be born son (due Nov 30th) is going to be born a redhead.  I have nothing against redheads (I'm one myself), but DH has black hair and a lot of Native American heritage, so I know, genetically, it's very unlikely to happen.  I just don't want to get my hopes up.  That and everytime I have this dream, I feel a little more crazy.


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Alle Meine Entchen said:


> I keep dreaming that my soon to be born son (due Nov 30th) is going to be born a redhead. I have nothing against redheads (I'm one myself), but DH has black hair and a lot of Native American heritage, so I know, genetically, it's very unlikely to happen. I just don't want to get my hopes up. That and everytime I have this dream, I feel a little more crazy.


Alle, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Expectant mothers are known to have some crazy dreams. When my mom was pregnant with my brother she had reoccuring dreams about giving birth to a cat! All worked out well. As far as I know he didn't even come out with a tail.


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## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

Alle Meine Entchen said:


> I keep dreaming that my soon to be born son (due Nov 30th) is going to be born a redhead. I have nothing against redheads (I'm one myself), but DH has black hair and a lot of Native American heritage, so I know, genetically, it's very unlikely to happen. I just don't want to get my hopes up. That and everytime I have this dream, I feel a little more crazy.


My mother has red hair and both her mom and dad had black hair. So you never know, Alle.

I dreamed that I almost met one of my characters, but I couldn't get an appointment to see him. I wanted to let him know that I created him. Geesh!


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## Meredith Sinclair (May 21, 2009)

I know a baby with olive skin, grreen eyes and BRIGHT red hair... she will be one in January and is BEE-Yuu-tee-full!


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## Meredith Sinclair (May 21, 2009)

Brendan Carroll said:


> My mother has red hair and both her mom and dad had black hair. So you never know, Alle.
> 
> I dreamed that I almost met one of my characters, but I couldn't get an appointment to see him. I wanted to let him know that I created him. Geesh!


I _knew_ you would be on here talking about that dream... so sad you couldn't meet him!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Brendan Carroll said:


> I dreamed that I almost met one of my characters, but I couldn't get an appointment to see him. I wanted to let him know that I created him. Geesh!


Brendan -- that's the ultimate in disrespectful creations! LOL

Methinks perhaps you're trying to tell yourself to make time for your writing?


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## Meredith Sinclair (May 21, 2009)

YEP! He dissed him!!!!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Meredith Sinclair said:


> YEP! He dissed him!!!!


LOL!


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Anyone out there with dreams in 2012 that they're willing to share?


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

I dreamed recently a long ago exgirlfriend. It was one of those complex "should I talk to her, should I diss her?" situations. Anyone have these?


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## Stephen Prosapio (Jul 13, 2010)

Stephen Prosapio said:


> Anyone out there with dreams in 2012 that they're willing to share?


Anyone? Anyone?


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