Complicated Dreams..
 

The sleeping kind of dreams.
The ones that are so vivid and exhausting and, when remembered, complicate our lives.. (could be my overactive female brain [roll] [reference to a comment in another thread])
Anyone else out there go through this?


Last night I dreamt that I was in a department store with my mom. It was just after Christmas time in the dream, cause lots of red and festive things were on clearance. (Clearance sections are always my fave sections of stores, yay discounts!)
But the point is.. she was with me, and I was just SO happy. I clung to her, I laughed and cried with joy from being with her. I was a little kid again, so happy. And it felt so real.
But.. mama passed away in 2011. I've been so different ever since but haven't dreamt too much about her. Not like this, anyway.

When I woke up, I was confused. Where am I? I'm a grown up?! Where's mom..?
Seriously, confused. It lasted probably a handful of seconds but felt like a full minute of disorientation and shock. Then a wave of sadness realizing.. this is wakefulness, this is reality.


These get to me throughout the days, and when they recur. I'm a vivid and frequent dreamer, sleep lots of hours because I wake up so mentally tired no matter what. And there's no one I can call to talk about this now either. The family split in so many directions after she passed away. My friends usually brush it off as "they're only dreams" or "this doesn't make any sense, why worry about it?" or just seem.. bothered by hearing the awkward narrative of nonsensical flow that dreams so often take.

Anyway, if there's anyone else out there with complicated / vivid dreams or some other subconscious visions or whatever you'd like to get off your chest, here's a thread for us. I'll happily read what you have to say. And if you did read through mine, thanks..

Dreams happen for a reason.

Sometimes they are there to bring back memories.

Sometimes they are there to enjoy something that can't happen.

Sometimes they are there to prepare us for the future.

While dreams are simply just "dreams" they always have a message written in them somewhere.

I don't often have dreams anymore, most likely because I don't get a lot of sleep most days, but I have had a vivid dream or two in my day.

I'm a believer that dreams are messages from our subconscious. Dream dictionaries are bullshit, though. The only one that knows what your subconscious is tell you is you.

In this case, if you're a religious person at all, I would take it as a sign that your mother wanted you to know that she is fine, and she wanted you to feel loved. If you're not religious, then just look at it as missing your mother and your mind wistfully looking back on what once was.

Hmm.. either way.. yeah.
She used to say that if you have one extra-vivid and memorable dream about someone that has died, that's them coming to visit you to say goodbye..
Bah! But I don't feel ready for goodbye yet. Not like that.. ><;

Again last night there were more dreams but far less pleasant this time.
I looked through Dream Dictionaries years ago, and remember only one useful thing out of them, being:
If you dream of your teeth falling out, it often means you're regretting something you said.
That one seems to fit most of the time to me, and has sounded believable with some other friends who asked me what it meant that they dreamt about it happening.
Funny how many people with different life experiences can dream similar things..

I still have the occasional dream about my mom. Though they haven't been the vivid sort in a good while. She passed away ten years ago yesterday. :(

I think it's possible that your dreams about her are like a way to remember the times you shared with her.

Pretty much.

Aw, I hate the dreams where everything is going great and then you wake up and are disappointed to find that it wasn't real. :(

I wouldn't read much into their actual meanings though. As far as it is known right now, dreams are just a collection of things that have been floating around in our brain at some point or another. We have no idea how those neural connections assemble to form our dreams. There is no good reason to believe our dreams are "trying to tell us something".

Sometimes, though, they do bring up old memories that we haven't thought of in a long time and make us dwell on them once again. There is a particular individual who has come into and out of my life several times periodically over the last six years, and every once in a while, just when I think I have moved on, I suddenly have a dream about them that makes me miss them so much that I can't take my mind off it, and it starts to become unclear whether it is our on-and-off long distance relationship that is distracting me from real life or real life that is distracting me from the relationship. Very complicated indeed.

I've had a lot of dreams where my children are missing and I'm in a seemingly post apocalyptic world. I search for them frantically and endlessly. I know that they are alive, but I can't find them anywhere. If I have one with me and find the other, the one I had disappears or one turns into the other so I'm still left with only one of my children. It's a dream that actually makes me cry when I wake up.

I understand how a dream can confuse and upset you so much that the feelings linger when you're awake.