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What Did You Dream Of Last Night?

A nocturnal kungfu class ...

For two nights in a row, I have been dreaming that some guy was teaching me Chinese martial arts, something I gave up practicing seriously several years ago, due to some minor health problems and to lack of time (and energy).

A typical feature of Chinese kungfu is the practice of "taolu" (more or less the same as the Japanese karate's "kata"), e.g codified sequences of linked movements.

In my first dream, I was taught the first four moves of an unkown "taolu" by an unknown teacher. The man demonstrated me the moves, and I tried to memorize and replicate them the best I could. Interestingly enough, as in a real class, the moves were shown to me several times, without any variation or fantasy.

Although rather awkward, each move, save the last one, made sense from a self defense point of view. It consisted of a lateral punch, followed by an elbow strike, and then a hand move aimed at covering my striking elbow from counter-attack, and then a kind of diagonal punch. Overall, the scene felt eerily realistic. And yet, I was conscious that I was dreaming, and thinking to myself "I must remember this and try it up tomorrow morning". Then I got lost into my dream and slept into unconsciousness.

The next morning, after breakfast, I attempted to replicate the dream sequence in my tiny living room. Hopefull I didn't break anything, and I could remember the first 3 moves, but the last one still did not make sense "mecanically" or anatomically speaking (although now that I am writing this down, I can figure out how I could make the last move feasible and meaningful by adjusting my steps ...).

That was weird.

Then, yesterday, after reading some random poetry, I went to bed, and again, I started dreaming that I was back into a kind of martial arts academy, listening to some theoretical speeches about power generation in martial arts. This time, I forgot almost completely the contents of my "class" and only remember wandering aimlessly in the garden around my dreamland academy.

Several things astonish me with these dreams :

1 - They don't bear any obvious relation with events having occurred during daylight hours : I haven't practiced any kind of martial arts recently, and my last incursion in this domain consisted in doing some harmless Taiji quan in a public park during my lunch time as a way to "oil" my joints. Neither did I watch any action movie or read about kungfu ... unless you consider Gildas' "De Excidio Britanniae" as a hidden Briton boxing manual, of course !

2 - The "taolu" teaching scene felt eerily realistic and although I was conscious of dreaming, I could almost feel the muscular effort and pain while replicating the moves taught to me.

3 - Although different in contents (more theory, less practice), the day 2 dream seemed to follow the context of the day 1 dream. I shall see if there is a day 3 continuation tonight, but three "kungfu class" dreams in a row would be quite a coincidence !

It was probably simply the product of my brain doing some "housework" and reorganizing previously acquired knowledge, but still, why this, instead of some culinary recipe ? I don't know ! Ordinary life is a mystery.
 
A long and weird one last night... in the dream I was in New York, staying at a friend's, and missing all the social cues and hints that I'd over-stayed my welcome and had been there for too long. She was perfectly "nice" about it, but I remember the sense of bright red shame when I finally realised it wasn't as peachy as it had seemed and I'd been over-presuming. Also - couldn't leave as quickly as I'd like in the circumstances, as I'd accumulated lots of awkward crap to pack up and remove, including some childhood toys... remembering the social embarrassment as I got it all together, while a lot of people were standing around trying not to say anything while making it clear they'd like me to go...

Woke up thinking "What the Hell was the point of that?" as you do.
 
Had a brilliant dream about how I'd for some reason decided to take both my cats to work. As my job entails commuting, at some point I had to get them on and off a train.

Can remember walking along the platform at some provincial station, possibly Stoke or Rugby, with one cat under each arm, heading for the train door. The cats wriggled free and ran off.

One climbed into some stranger's baby's pram and settled down for a nap, and the other jumped onto a crowded train, not the one we were supposed to catch, and began leaping between the tables. The passengers' reactions varied between hilarity and terror.

I eventually rounded them up, noticing that the sleepy one was not a current pet but instead my dear late Bagpuss.

Gave up the shift as a waste of time and went home. Woke up resigned to the expectation of a phone call from an indignantly spluttering manager. :chuckle:

All this is about how our beloved elderly tomcat Tim is becoming more feeble. I'm not expecting him to see out the summer and this morning, after the dream, I fully expected to find him dead. :(

Instead he greeted me enthusiastically and demanded a full sachet of sloppy food. :)
(They have the dry stuff out all the time but much prefer the wet sort.)
 
Last night - had a dream about ending up with thousands of pounds of gambling debts and that I was being pursued for the money by three large and serious-looking large Asian gentlemen who actually came round to the house to discuss the matter. Intimidating and perplexing as my involvement with any sort of gambling for cash has always been marginal - it's an addiction I never acquired! (it was a recurring dream of some sort that I kept dipping in and out of during the night)
 
It was sunny and I was on a relaxing walk in the countryside, reluctantly contemplating the two mile return journey. In the meadow was a river that I knew flowed right past the car-park, so I stepped in and floated downstream on my back. Water was warm and I was joined by a charming American lady going my way. Then things got dark (not totally) as the river went under a large hill and I began casually wondering how long I could hold my breath for.
 
I was in a house that I knew well - although it seemed to be a mash up of various places in real life. My children were there, only younger - secondary school age, and my late mother was overseeing my attempts to tidy up the house. The children were not helping at all (so, much like real life)! My eldest son was lying on the floor in his school uniform holding a letter from school and asking me what he had to do about it - I tried to explain that he was on holiday and didn't have to worry about it at the moment, and also that he didn't need to have his uniform on.In real life he just turned 35...

At one point I was digging around in a chest of drawers and found a whole set of knickers, which were kind of lace-up down the back (they looked a lot nicer than it sounds).

I was clearing up dishes and asking the kids and my mum to pass me plates - someone passed me a blue and white dish that proved to be the top of a casserole dish, and I had to explain that I didn't want that, I just wanted plates. I looked down and realised that my toenails needed cutting, which puzzled me a little because I knew I'd only just cut them (in real life) and my really long nails puzzled me.
 
Last night I dreamed that I had to knock on someone's door. It was a bedroom door, and it was very dark oak and panelled. When I woke up I was very impressed with the level of detail that my mind had created for that door. I knocked and talked to someone - who was very muffled - on the other side. I have no idea what it was about.

And then I dreamed I was pregnant. Not just pregnant, but in labour. A friend was with me, assisting me into the hospital, she was carrying my belongings with us in one of those old-fashioned metal shopping baskets. Even at the time I thought how practical that was. We walked through into a completely fully tiled room with light panels in the floor, those ones with the frosted glass over the top so the light is flush in the floor. I was crouching on all fours, I could feel contractions although they weren't painful, and the baby's head moving down into my pelvis ready for birth. My friend was talking to the doctor, who was male and very 'chummy' looking, in a dark jacket and spats(!). All of a sudden I could see them speaking but I couldn't hear anything, then the sound came back but I could only hear the man talking. And I was wondering how I was going to manage with a newborn baby at my age (oddly enough I didn't wonder where the ever-living hell its father had gone...).

The sensation of painless contractions was very real. I was slightly alarmed when I woke up, but I didn't have any kind of stomach disturbance or pain or anything. The 'talking without sound' was probably the ending of my audio book, and then man speaking would be the 'Audible hopes you've enjoyed this production' bit after the end of the book, but the rest I am a complete loss to explain!
 
I was dressed in a predominantly blue kilt and anxious about going to some sort of tribunal.
When the doors opened it was all decorated with the same tartan and everyone there was wearing it as well, including Robin Williams who welcomed me in.
 
I was with a group of mostly, if not all adult women. There was a leader/teacher and she was talking about experiences that historically marginalized minorities and we were to research the history of different peoples and discuss racism(?). She wasn't entirely clear on what the learning entailed but we assumed that it had to do with racism and our society.

Most people were white. I did see a couple of Asian people in the group.

We suddenly were in a library looking for reference materials. I grabbed a book on Rwanda and another on Ghana.

Then people started talking about incidents where people were treated unfairly. At first, they were relevant, but quickly it devolved into first world problems and obvious complaints involving entitlement:roll:. Then my alarm went off and up for work.
 
Another dream very similar to the one the other night.

I was with my eldest and youngest children. both much younger, schoolage. We were in my old childhood home, my eldest was again wearing his school uniform with a very clean white shirt and his whole uniform very pristine. I did have a moment of wondering how he was going to get to school (my old house was in Exeter, the children all went to school in Yorkshire), while trying to tidy up the living room which was covered in toys and general household detritus. My daughter had been doing a Maisie Mouse jigsaw and all the pieces were broken up and kind of spread around the floor. I was trying to clear up, when I suddenly realised that I had to get the children to school. I asked them what the time was, and looked at my watch (haven't worn a watch for at least thirty years) and it was 9.04, so I was hurrying to get dressed (!) and working on what excuse to use when the children were late for school.

So what's going on? That's twice in a week I've dreamed about my eldest in school uniform (there's nothing going on with him that I'm aware of, he's a 35 year old publican, running a business and living a normal life) which was very clean and cleaning and tidying up a house. I'm no more anxious than usual, no pressing worries or problems... yet my dreams are adamant that the kids have to go to school!
 
I was on a large metal detectoring Rally and felt socially-confident enough to show 'n' tell my modest finds to a field of strangers. It became apparent over introductions that about a 100 people were members of this forum - I don't know any of you by sight but recognised forum names (not just the usual suspects but names vaguely familiar over the past 5 years). Everyone was really friendly but it became harder to track the finds as they were passed around. Eventually they all disappeared (thieving buggers) along with all detecting gear, leaving us chatting in a field. I think my brain had finally sorted out the Forteana forum as being completely separate from my Detectoring forum.
 
I had three very vivid dreams last night, but only one has stayed with me long enough for me to get it down.

I was walking through an old house, a house that I'd known for a long time but which had had quite a lot of work done on it. There was one point where I walked along a landing where a very shiny painted black beam lay along the (horrible, swirly patterned) carpet and I knew that this marked the step into an old bedroom which had been changed into something else. I think it was meant to be my paternal aunt's very old house, and I have the feeling that she was there, leading me along.

We got upstairs, and there was my paternal grandfather, sitting down in a chair, smiling and very much as I remember him (he died in 1978). I recognised him immediately. Behind him, sitting on a windowseat was my dad (died in 2008). I was so happy to see him! I ran up and took his hand and crouched down on the floor in front of him. He sort of turned his head to one side as though he was very tired or trying to avoid looking at me, but I persisted, telling him that I loved him. I just wanted him to acknowledge my words, which, eventually he did. I kissed his hand and woke up.

I sometimes dream of my parents, but usually together, although I've been dreaming about my mum helping me tidy up lately (in my last couple of dreams on here). I don't remember EVER dreaming about my grandparents though. What's going on?
 
All of this that I remember was in a stark monochrome. I was sent up a stairwell to meet someone who was meant to be important in some way. Walls, floor and stairs all in stark but varied shades of grey. On a landing was this character in a long grey coat with elaborate very white, very styled long hair, which stood out against all the greys. He was standing facing he wall and with arms folded. I stood and said something but there was no response. Just before I woke up I remember saying "Can you stop all this pretentious crap and tell me what you want?"
 
I have been interested in UFOs since about the age of 10, but as far as I can remember I have never had a dream about any UFO subject until now.

My last night’s dream was about UFOs lurking about, nothing scary.

I don’t know if this dream belongs in this thread ?
 
A long and involved one this morning. The first part has faded quite rapidly (although I don't think I'm actually a lesbian), but in the end, I was living in my first student house in Plymouth, where I lodged with a family, and I think I got fairy-led; I was trying to get back into no. 5, and I was running up and down the row of houses (which did and didn't look like the real life terrace), unable to identify the right house. There was 5a, 5c (which don't exist in reality), 8... When I did finally locate the right house, my landlord was on the doorstep in his dressing gown, and as he turned round I realised he was Bryan Cranston from 'Breaking Bad'. No idea where that came from.
 
AND another one. I was with some people at a county show, or some such event. We'd gone to eat our lunches in an area reserved for certain people - I'm not sure whether they were religious fundamentalists or radical vegetarians, but I do remember feeling uneasy about being there, although it was a lovely grassy field with overhanging trees. At one point I looked to my right and my old boss (a pescatarian, as it happens) was sitting next to me, which almost qualifies it as a. nightmare. :) Then we were still eating but inside a candlelit great hall. Part of my unease was that Ihad delicious chicken sandwiches, made from the weekend's roast, in the midst of many vegetarians. And then Ben Affleck came along and snatched away my sandwich box. I chased after him. He dropped the box on a table but carried on running with the bag containing the sandwiches. I followed him into a dead-end corridor where he put the bag into a small chest but pretended he had thrown them in a bin nearby. At this point he turned into somebody I knew from work a few years ago, and so I slammed this chap into the wall and told him to stop being "a sanctimonious prig." Which is when I woke up.
 
Part of my dream was I and a friend, dressed as Vikings, appeared before a cohort of Ancient Roman soldiers - complete with a Signifer - and were trying to communicate with them. Ended up having a punch-up with two soldiers - they armed with a gladius each and us with bare hands. Woke myself up when I whacked my forearm against the bedside table.
 
I dreamed I found a curved sword lying half-buried in a field. Like in a metal-detectoring scenario.

I confidently asserted that this was a scimitar, as once used in the Middle East.

Dunno where that came from.
 
Another puzzling, short dream in which I was watching myself playing a piano.

I play no musical instruments.

I think this is the first time in a dream I have ever watched myself doing something.

Usually my dreams are me seeing other things and people.
 
charliebrown said:
Another puzzling, short dream in which I was watching myself playing a piano.

I play no musical instruments.

I think this is the first time in a dream I have ever watched myself doing something.

Usually my dreams are me seeing other things and people.
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I have dreams of playing piano. I did take lessons as a kid. Love the piano, but can't play worth sh*t. In them, the piano either has keys that won't play (which is, for some reason, foreboding and scary), or I play a beautiful melody that I can never remember when I wake.
 
Ran out of energy and crashed to bed for a few hours this evening. The dream was a long, intricate and internally consistent one that covered things like alien activity, abductions and government cover-ups (as dreams do). I want to get it on record before it fades - already the details are fading.

It began in the living room of this house, at night or at least in the dark. there were blue lights flashing on and off in the street and lots of noise, with muffled and distorted voices on loudspeakers. It was very obvious that there was some sort of police raid going on, or at least the street had been sealed off, and the general tone of the loudhailer calls was "We know you're in there. Give yourself up or we're coming in!" together with "Did you really think you could get away with it? We know you've been spreading those stories. You've been leaking secrets and passing information that we don't want to have in the public domain. Surrender now!"

It took a little while before I realised they meant me. And that somehow, this message board was implicated.

I explained to Herself that it might be as well if I went to speak to those bloody people - I felt a mixture of resignation and irritation rather than fear or worry - and opened the curtain to take a better look - outside were American-style coppers and police cars with flashing blue sirens and whooping alarms. I wondered what the Hell they were doing in Britain. Two grinning imps popped up and leered through the window pushing their faces against the glass - they were halfway between Warhammer orks and young teenagers, I invited them to go eff themselves, opened the door and went out. glimpsed the "orks" running off down the street, but was led to what looked like a typical American school bus by two of the coppers and told I was under arrest for spreading misinformation and betraying government secrets. I remember replying with a polite inquiry as to whether in that case all Government secrets were actually misinformation, and was pushed aboard the bus with other detainees.

Interrogation followed but I was more annoyed than fearful and made it clear I wasn't co-operating. This was odd - despite apppearances I felt I was the one in control, and at every stage of the way I kept saying "no", with a growing certainty that they only had power over me if I allowed this. I felt their authority was weakening and fading, until there were suddenly no coppers left at all and if this was any sort of abduction, it had failed. Remembering speaking to other detained people on board the bus and - damn - can't remember the details but we were having a profound conversation on the nature of things like power, authority, state control, and whether there were such things as aliens and if they really did abduct people.

EDIT - just remembered - every other detainee pulled in by the dream-police was also, in-dream, a member of this forum, although (vexingly) I didn't get any names...

Woke up... felt oddly empowered but also a sense of "you have some strange and weird dreams. And what was the significance of the two orks?"
 
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I was somewhere Europeanised in the Far East (Singapore?) on a tour. l separated from my fellow travellers to take a bus trip to an open-air covered market.

I was on a deadline, so l recall writing the number of the bus on the back of my hand using a malfunctioning blue biro: No.11. I discarded the crappy pen in a litter bin with an odd lid: it was conical and perforated like a pepper pot. l remember thinking, “That’s an impractical design.”

On the bus, a slightly spotty young Chinese woman sitting opposite me made a hand gesture towards me and said, “You’re eating too much”, or words to that effect. l got the hump with her and replied, saying something like, “You do things differently here!”

Cut.

l’m at the market. lt’s dark. I only have half an hour to see it. A couple come out of a bar in front of me. She is European: tall, skinny, and with very well-shaped and styled hair: dyed dark bronze-red in a fashionable short cut. There is obviously a tension between her and her partner; she’s angry with him, and he looks as though he’s going to become physical with her. l brace to intervene, but the moment passes.

Cut.

I’m in the market. l see a stall selling plastic model kits and think, “Ooh, l might get a bargain here to take home with me!” The stall is awkwardly-constructed with steps between levels. l select a promising-looking box, but a fat, bearded European man barges me to a lower step. Rude!

Old git bladder alarm.

:dunno:

maximus otter
 
Prince William and Harry are always on the gossip magazines in the U.S. so maybe this is why my wife had a dream about Prince William.

My wife said in her dream Prince William invited her to lunch and then proceeded to introduce my wife to his family.

My wife said this has never happen in a dream before.
 
The set up was that I'd just finished my exams, at the university where I'd been studying English as a mature student. I was discussing this with a young student who I knew in the university refectory. I described an idea I'd had for a novel set in multiple realities where the one constant is Mr Kumar's Convenience Store, which exists in all the realities, not as alternates, but as the same shop, as it is the Platonic form of Asian-owned corner shops. I said that I was going to record it in my dream diary, and took out my dream diary, which was in my backpack under my chair. Except it wasn't my dream diary it was an A4 200 page Jotta pad sure enough, but in unfamiliar handwriting, I realised that I was pulling in diaries from elsewhere and reached out across space for another; that one was also not my version as it had novelty stickers inside the covers. After a couple more attempts I found my version of the notepad and passed it to the student for him to look through.
"Don't read it in detail it's fairly tedious."
We're joined by three other students, who I also know. The first student explains to the others about the dream diary and passes it to one of them. The second student starts to flip through it and the other's peer over his shoulder.
"It's a bit of a mess, and a lot of it's meaningless except to me, I wouldn't bother going trough most of it", I say.writing
"Are we in it" the second student asks. He's looking at a page that's near the end that has a sketch of the firmament above the earth, underneath a block of my spidery writing.

The dream diary is quite real, but I've never had a dream before where the people in it seem to be aware that they're characters in my dream.
 
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Timble2 said:
The set up was that I'd just finished my exams, at the university where I'd been studying English as a mature student. I was discussing this with a young student who I knew in the university refectory. I described an idea idea I'd had for a novel set in multiple realities where the one constant is Mr Kumar's Convenience Store, which exists in all the realities, not as alternates, but as the same shop, as it is the Platonic form of Asian-owned corner shops. I said that I was going to record it in my dream diary, and took out my dream diary, which was in my backpack under my chair. Except it wasn't my dream diary it was an A4 200 page Jotta pad sure enough, but in unfamiliar handwriting, I realised that I was pulling in diaries from elsewhere and reached out across space for another; that one was also not my version as it had novelty stickers inside the covers. After a couple more attempts I found my version of the notepad and passed it to the student for him to look through.
"Don't read it in detail it's fairly tedious."
We're joined by three other students, who I also know. The first student explains to the others about the dream diary and passes it to one of them. The second student starts to flip through it and the other's peer over his shoulder.
"It's a bit of a mess, and a lot of it's meaningless except to me, I wouldn't bother going trough most of it", I say.writing
"Are we in it" the second student asks. He's looking at a page that's near the end that has a sketch of the firmament above the earth, underneath a block of my spidery.

The dream diary is quite real, but I've never had a dream before where the people in it seem to be aware that they're characters in my dream.
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Oh, I like that. Especially the Indian store being the meeting point of all the universes.
 
maximus otter said:
I was on a deadline, so l recall writing the number of the bus on the back of my hand using a malfunctioning blue biro: No.11. I discarded the crappy pen in a litter bin with an odd lid: it was conical and perforated like a pepper pot. l remember thinking, “That’s an impractical design.”


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I think it has been mentioned on here before that it often seems difficult or impossible to write or type in a dream. In a dream the other day I was trying to type on a very old typewriter but couldn't seem to hit the right keys.
I find it strange that in a dream I can conjure up whole new worlds, fly, create new people and so on and yet can't get my fingers to work!
 
On Sunday morning my wife told me she had dreamed that she had been made redundant at work and was really angry with her manager for not giving her any advance warning and that she was shouting at her in the dream.
She works in a small team of only 3 people and when she went in to work yesterday she didn't mention it to anyone. Later her colleague, during a coffee break, told her that she had had a dream at the weekend that she had been made redundant and was also angry with her manager in the dream! Lets hope this is just a coincidence!
 
Giant R said:
I think it has been mentioned on here before that it often seems difficult or impossible to write or type in a dream. In a dream the other day I was trying to type on a very old typewriter but couldn't seem to hit the right keys.
I find it strange that in a dream I can conjure up whole new worlds, fly, create new people and so on and yet can't get my fingers to work!
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There's also a belief that you can't use the telephone in a dream or switch a light on.
Dunno about this as I have certainly answered a dream house-phone, the sort with a handheld receiver.

It wa a call from a beloved late family member who asked if they could 'come back'.
I said 'Yes! Of course you can! Come now!' and woke up.
 
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