Realistic Dreams

[omniboy]

Has anyone ever had a dream that was so realistic that, on waking, you weren't even sure it was a dream? That maybe it had actually happened?

I had a series of dreams a few years ago in which I dreamed of perfectly normal events happening (things like getting assigned a new project at work that was completely ordinary and in the realm of the possible). Nothing weird, fantastic or dreamlike ever happened in these dreams.

Some of them were so convincing I had to double check to see if the event was real or not.

I guess this isn't really Fortean, but it was damn annoying for a while. Honestly, my dreams kept trying to fool me by masquerading as real life!

 

[Mythopoeika]

A guy I work with has dreams that are so realistic and look real down to the last detail (or so he tells me).
He has to pinch himself to establish whether or not it is a dream. 8)

 

[Mouldy13]

My friend's wife Angie died of cancer a few years ago, some of us went to the hospice to say goodbye. we sat and chatted and laughed and cried and then kissed her and went to leave. As we got to the door she said "Phil will you come back here I want to talk to you alone"

This phased me a little because although we were friends, there were people in our circle who were closer to her.

I sat down and she said "Make sure Martin is ok, make sure he gets on with his life and keep an eye on him and the kids for me"

I said I would and left, she died later that evening.

about 6 months later I had a dream that I was in their living room, it was the most powerfully lucid dream I've ever had. I could smell the individual smell that house had, I was sat on the sttee and could even feel the lump on the wooden handle where a chunk of it had been taken out when it was brought into the house. Angie was sitting opposite me in the the chair she always sat in, looking fit and healthy again.

I said "You can't be here, you're dead" and she replied, "yes dead but not dead. How is Martin? Are the kids ok?" I told her yes they were and that all her friends missed her.

We chatted aout inconsequential things, the weather and football I told her how angry Martin was at the constant poor showing of the local team.

She nodded at this then got up and walked through into the kitchen. At the door she stopped and said "thanks Phil, we won't see each other again, live a good life" before walking through the doorway

I woke up at that point, to this day I'm still convinced I was there actually in that room. How I don't know.

Still haven't told Martin, mainly because the time has never seemed right.

 

[Mythopoeika]

That's amazing, Mouldy. Thanks for sharing that.

 

[GNC]

Quite a story, Mouldy, thanks. This reminds me of a documentary on dreams from the 1980s (maybe QED?) where a woman described waking up for school, eating breakfast, going to the school, sitting through lessons until there was a fire alarm and she woke up.

Understandably baffled, she got up again, went through her usual routine until lunchtime where she told her friend about her weirdly convincing dream, and asked her to pinch her to make sure she wasn't asleep. The friend pinched her and she woke up again!

It took until teatime that evening for the woman to be sure she wasn't still asleep...

 

[omniboy]

It took until teatime that evening for the woman to be sure she wasn't still asleep...

That's almost exactly what would happen to me. It wouldn't keep happening over and over like that, though. But so normal and convincing I couldn't be sure it wasn't just a dream.

Also Mouldy, I've had dreams similar to yours about my folks (they've both passed on). Several times they felt so real I would wake up thinking I had better give them a call to make sure they were ok. :cry:

 

[special_farces]

I go through phases of very vivid dreams. Generally they are positive, even happy dreams. But four years ago I dreamt I had murdered someone. I was so totally convinced this was real I spent over an hour after waking panicking about the consequences of my crime. It took time for 'reality' to assert itself.

Almost as interesting are dream sequences stretching over weeks or even months. I've had several of these; some of the most vivid and totally convincing were at the start of 1995. The previous year had been tough. I had a series of dreams over three months where I took a train journey. Early dreams were about trying to get to the train station, these were replaced by getting to the station, then boarding the train, a number of journeys and finally arrival. A number of times I woke up wondering why I wasn't on the train, or still at home.

 

[omniboy]

I go through phases of very vivid dreams. Generally they are positive, even happy dreams. But four years ago I dreamt I had murdered someone. I was so totally convinced this was real I spent over an hour after waking panicking about the consequences of my crime. It took time for 'reality' to assert itself.

Almost as interesting are dream sequences stretching over weeks or even months. I've had several of these; some of the most vivid and totally convincing were at the start of 1995. The previous year had been tough. I had a series of dreams over three months where I took a train journey. Early dreams were about trying to get to the train station, these were replaced by getting to the station, then boarding the train, a number of journeys and finally arrival. A number of times I woke up wondering why I wasn't on the train, or still at home.

Amazing - I've had the exact same kinds of dreams as well! Mine weren't especially realistic, though. Still, for the last year or two I've been having recurring dreams about frantic travel (trying to get to the airport, board the flight, renting cars and battling Byzantine highway systems, catching trains, etc). I never seem to wind up getting anywhere, always having to catch one last flight. :x

 

[Sergeant_Pluck]

There's a whole field dedicated to the study (and practice) of 'Lucid Dreaming' (and the related 'Out of Body' experiences). Check out the work of Stephen LaBerge. I don't know if it's necessarily Fortean, but it seems to be an area that modern psychology has been - for some reason - largely ignored. It has, however, been a staple in Spiritualist study for aeons.

For those of you that do have them (as I have done on occasion in the past), LaBerge's work on how to induce, recognise and control such dreams is useful and fascinating.

 

[Timble2]

I Lucid Dreamed before I even knew what the term meant. I get the serial dreams too, at the moment I'm in a series of workplace based dreams, not anywhere real, but a composite that is very stable and realistic - these type tend to be stress related.

I've found keeping a dream diary helps with the lucid dreams.

 

[Iris]

I used to dream about another house we lived in during the dream. When I woke up ,for a few minutes I was worried about whether I had paid various bills until I remembered it was just a dream.

 

[omniboy]

I used to dream about another house we lived in during the dream. When I woke up ,for a few minutes I was worried about whether I had paid various bills until I remembered it was just a dream.

That's the essence of the kind of phenomena I'm talking about - when you get reality mixed up because of a believable, realistic dream.

I wonder if there's a term for that? I read somewhere that if the subconscious runs out of 'dream material', the conscious mind takes over and starts your day (getting out of bed, taking a shower, etc). even though you're still dreaming. I've had experiences like that as well.

 

[special_farces]

I'm currently in a quiet spell with my dreams, so if true to form I'll start getting more vivid dreams in a week or so. Another interesting thing about my dreams is that occasionally, just as I'm getting very near falling asleep I will suddenly remember a dream from years ago. The dream might seem nondescript, or of no relevance, but I will recall it in (what seems like) exact detail.

 

[Iris]

My friend and her husband were staying at a caravan park the past week. Sunday night I had a vivid dream that I was helping her lift down things from a high shelf in an opshop. I even caught something she knocked down. Very banal type of stuff for a dream.
Anyway later in the day she rang and said she had been wishing that I had been able to go down and stay with them and had visited the local opshop and seen a lot of her late aunt's things she had donated.

 

[krakenten]

Sounds like False Awakening to me, a dream where you dream you woke up.

Next you can have sleep paralysis, which just plain stinks! Alien Abduction experiences are very like sleep paralysis(and probably are the explanation)

I've had them both, and some lucid dreams I still remember.

I also had a similar 'goodbye' dream about my late wife. Many people have a dream in which a telephone call comes to reveal that the deceased is not really dead.

Grief reactions? Who can tell?

 

[krakenten]

Had another odd one.

I sometimes have dreams about objects, won't bore you with all of them, but many have been very strange.

I dreamed about those lithographed tin alligators, I have no idea what they might be used for, but they appear in stores, time to time.

Yep, dreamed of the tin 'gators, kinda missed them, went to a book store, and there they were.

First sighting in a decade!

 

[mr_macabre]

I also had lucid dreams before I'd ever heard the term.

From my late teenage years on about once a month I'd just "know" that I was dreaming, and at that instant the dream would take on a hyper-reality where things were very much 3D - I could physically touch and feel the environment around me and to some extent control what was happening (being a teenage boy at the time I probably don't need to go into too much detail about what I conjoured up in my lucid state!).

These dreams were, I'm sure, connected to a bout of sleep paralysis I went through at the same time, where I knew I was asleep but for the life of me I couldn't wake myself up or move so much as a fingertip. When in this particular state I would have a weird buzzing noise, just like an electrical "zap" in my head.

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but whilst it is true that you can train yourself to recognise you're dreaming and enter a lucid state, I made a concious effort to de-train myself because it left me physically drained and I would (properly) wake up exhausted, like my brain hadn't had its full quota of rest.

Or maybe it was just those dream-state nymphos that left me knackered...

 

[mr_macabre]

I've just remembered a couple of specific incidents that happened whilst I was lucid dreaming which were disturbing and which still freak me out a bit today.

The first happened when I was living at my parents', and in my dream state instead of being in an unknown location I was actually there in my bedroom.

I looked around my room, everything looked exactly like my real world room: posters on the wall, books/comics scattered on the floor etc, but when I looked out the window it was a completely alien landscape.

I then left my room, walked past my parents' bedroom and down the stairs. I distinctly remember feeling the solidity of the top of the bannisters. In the hallway though, I started to feel something close to terror, but couldn't think why.

I opened the door to the living room and was now petrified by what I would find there - I just knew there was something very wrong that I would encounter. As soon as I got in I realised what it was that was scaring me so much: my parents had a massive mirror above the fireplace, and I knew that whatever I saw in that mirror wasn't going to be my own reflection.

Now I know this is a bit of a cop out, but truly the details of what I actually saw get a bit hazy at this point. I remember looking into the massive, full length mirror, and initially I saw myself staring back, but that image immediately, ummmm, disolved I guess would be the right word, and something else was looking back at me.

I kind of freaked at this point and forced myself awake. Lucid dreams I can deal with, lucid nightmares not so much!

 

[decipheringscars]

Next you can have sleep paralysis, which just plain stinks! Alien Abduction experiences are very like sleep paralysis(and probably are the explanation)

I know it's not what you meant, but the way you've worded this suggests that alien abductions are probably the explanation for sleep paralysis!


I mostly had the dreams where I "woke up" and started going through my daily routine when I was a teenager. I was always mad when I woke up to find I had to do it all over again.

Nowadays my dreams are rarely anything remotely like realistic!

 

[decipheringscars]

but for the life of me I couldn't wake myself up or move so much as a fingertip. When in this particular state I would have a weird buzzing noise, just like an electrical "zap" in my head.

That happened to me once as a teenager when I took an overdose of pills to get to sleep (to try to escape my depression). In the dream, I was lying on the bed I was actually lying on, but my arms and legs were floating parallel to the bed (as if disjointed somehow - I could feel this, but not see it), and the room was filled with a buzzing that reminded me of muscle tension. I was in a room at the top of a staircase in a house with a front door whose insulation strip at the bottom, when it brushed across the tiles in the entryway, made a very distinct sound. I started hearing that sound, and steps coming about halfway up the stairs and then disappearing, and the door again, and the steps, over and over - and I couldn't break out of the loop even though I felt really, really scared!

 

[krakenten]

Sounds like the sleep paralysis I have known and loathed.

The sleep aid Trazadone seems to moderate my bad dreams, and the night terrors. I also take Atavins for the restless leg and even arms that tormented me for years.

Combat service in Vietnam, twenty five years in law enforcement, stress adds up, and now,retired, I don't know how to deal with the lack of stress.

 

[tamyu]

My five or so experiences with sleep paralysis have all been quite relaxing(?) really. At the least, not terrifying. As soon as I figured out what was going on and that the weight was my own body just pressing down on to the bed, it was just a strange awe of being awake while being asleep... And then I go back to sleep normally.

When it comes to very vivid and real dreams, I have them quite often. Quite often, the most realistic will not be "me" - so it isn`t hard to distinguish between the dream and reality when I wake up. It feels very disturbing, as if I just either lived a very specific moment in someone else`s life, or at least observed it in real time.

Some of these have left me feeling disjointed from reality for days afterward. A couple have been so very real that I have spent hours trying to see if I can find some record of it really happening somewhere in the past.

I have to admit I never have lucid dreams. The moment I realize it is a dream, I seem to automatically wake myself up. Recently though, I have become more aware of drifting off to sleep - I can notice when I start to see things that are not real, and can focus my eyes on them. It is fascinating to be drifting off, catch myself but not wake myself up, and then focus on the beginning of a scene.

I also never have nightmares. I have not had a dream where I felt afraid for almost 20 years. Even if the dream should be terrifying, I just never feel afraid or threatened at all.

 

[gattino]

There are so many dream threads I didn't want to start a new one , and wasn't sure which existing one to plonk this in. But this morning drifting in and out of sleep I was lying in bed on my side and felt/believed/dreamed a female hand drawing or marking with a finger tip a cross sign on my back between my shoulder blades. It wasn't painful but it felt real enough that the awake part of me opened my eyes and checked back over my shoulder to see if it was actually happening.

Later when fully awake I googled the words and found the cross between the shoulder blades is a fairly popular tattoo idea. I haven't noticed that it any specific ascribed meaning.

 

[Tempest63]

Me and the War Office were tossing and turning at 2am this morning. I got up and made us both a cup of tea, let the dogs out for a whizz then settled down and plugged into a podcast. Must have just been dropping off when, out of the blackscape in front of my eyes, it went bright light and a large black snake was jumping at me. I screamed, in real life, like the biggest ever Jessie Girly of all time. She hasn’t let me forget all day. I took her out for lunch and she was grinning and taking the piss throughout.
I’m going to record her snoring and play it to all and sundry to get my own back!

 

[brownmane]

I can't relay any but one at this time. My dreams that leave me questioning if it was real or not are usually very short snippets that I may remember at an odd time later in day. I once had to question myself if I owed my mom $20.00 as I could vaguely remember a conversation. Only because I don't borrow money from my mom, did I realize that it was a dream.

 

[escargot]

Angie was sitting opposite me in the the chair she always sat in, looking fit and healthy again.

I said "You can't be here, you're dead" and she replied, "yes dead but not dead. How is Martin? Are the kids ok?" I told her yes they were and that all her friends missed her.

Reminds me of the Dreams of the Dead threads we have, where the deceased appears alive and well and disagrees about how dead they are!