What is the most common thing you find in a dream?

My dreams tend to have my immediate social surroundings but all of the people that consist of it act very, very oddly.

I cannot describe it, they just act very differently.

The house of my best friend from elementary school and my dad’s first long-term girlfriend after my mom died.

Also, for some reason, shopping malls.

edited 12th Apr '12 12:24:20 PM by Bananaquit

After another dream last night where again I was flying (Unrelated but this time no matter what I couldn't fly directly upwards and I think that running movements in the air was really effective in going up and moving along) I realised something about my dreams as a whole, I don't think I ever have wind in my dreams, when flying and such, I couldn't feel wind at all, and I remember before hand no dreams have ever made me feel the force of the wind, even when I was jumping off a huge tower that reached space. (unrelated, I jumped off because it was a special tower that if you jumped off it, no matter what, you'd survive the fall unscathed, this tower went far into the atmosphere as well I think)

I'm usually in some kind of surreal scene where reality and time sort of jumps around; one moment I'm in one place that's familiar and the next moment I'm somewhere else, doing something else, but it all makes sense until I wake up and spot the continuity problems.

I forgot to mention earlier that the Internet and my band both show up surprisingly often in my dreams.

Depressingly often, I'm in some kind of setting where I'm supposed to have magic powers, but for some reason my dream can't actually follow through and show it. Like maybe my dream has no special effects budget or something. So I just kind of run around pointing at things and going BANG! BOOSH! and everyone else just kind of plays along. It's really fucking weird and awkward.

Being in pitch black and then waking up. My brain is awesome. :|

Utterly cracked-out what-the-fuckery. No joke. Motree herself said IRL that she loves hearing about my dreams because they make her want whatever it is I'm smoking before bed.

My late mother appears in most of my dreams too. The part that makes it weird is even in the dream I know she died and yet I never ask how she managed to come back.

Other times my dreams break the fourth wall. I and the other people in it sometimes know perfectly well we're in a dream.

Mainly my dreams involve water or the ocean in some fashion.

Discussions with random strangers. Usually followed after waking up by the realization that I was essentially arguing with myself.

Another thing that pops up occasionaly in my dreams is marrying my 27 year-old cousin and forgetting he's my cousin. What's especially weird is I hardly ever see or talk to him, but atleast on a less creepy note, he's not blood related, he's the step-son of my dads sister, but she took responsibility for him and his brother because their dad/her husband died and their birth mother was abusive and selective.

I have this dream from time to time involving the bane of my existence, a specific traffic light that always seems to turn red whenever I pull up to it. Last time it was just flashing yellow and I woke up happy?

Deja vu. I've always had this feeling of being here before, and sometimes I have been in the same place before.

There's this house, but it's only a house on the outside. It's painted yellow and wedged between other buildings in the inner city, and there's a blocky, beat-up old car out front next to the bins. A few concrete stairs raise you to the porch, and the door has white, peeling paint.

But inside, it's a castle and a mansion. You can go downstairs to the library, which is perfectly lit by natural light coming in from large glass windows on one side of the huge room. There's a tower that's kind of dangerous to traverse, but no-one's ever been injured there, and it's full of cosy beds, ladders and the sun always shines in if you don't close the drapes.

If you go out the back, it's like the Welsh countryside, and looking at where you came from, the city is nowhere to be found. Now you're looking at a castle, with towers, battlements, tapestries and more. The landscape ahead dives into a forested valley.

This place has been showing up for a while now in completely unrelated dreams. Usually good dreams, too.

I asked this before but nobody really answered, so... is everyone else usually the protagonist in their own dream? Or do people often become somebody else/watch somebody else as though reading a book?

I'm almost always myself in dreams - I've watched someone else a few times, but the thing is even then I'll generally start as myself watching some non-existent piece of media, then the dream will be the events of said piece of media. Sometimes a dream will even start out supposedly being a show I'm watching, then I end up in the show myself after a while.

I guess the most common thing would be variations on the whole "Oh no, I have a test in five minutes and I didn't study" thing. Not necessarily always tests, although school is involved a lot considering I'm not in it anymore. Just the kind of dream where you wake up, are still worried about getting something done, then realizing you had no such responsibility to begin with.

Other running themes:

Characters from any pop-culture I've been immersing myself in lately, particularly when I'm binging on a show.

Places other than my house and immediate neighborhood generally looking completely different from how they look in life, although I don't realize it till after.

Suddenly wearing whatever I was wearing to bed in my dream. Not necessarily exactly what I was wearing, but sometimes if I go to bed in a t-shirt and underwear I'll suddenly be pantsless in a dream, or if I'm wearing pajama pants same kind of thing. It's not really a "naked in the study hall" kind of thing, although I'm usually caught off guard and slightly embarassed. I guess I get subconsciously aware of my clothing mid-dream sometimes?

edited 23rd Apr '12 12:17:16 AM by MikeK

I've occasionally been an observer or side character, Loni.

Sometimes it seems like I'm somebody else more often than I am myself. The most recent dream I can remember I was a random guy with spiky red hair, for no apparent reason.

Crossdressing and videogames.

Whether it's in a videogame format or just has characters from a videogame, those seem to be the most common.

Though overall, most of my dreams have some sort of story structure to them, even if it makes no goddamn sense like Superman turning into a werewolf vampire every time he sees a stolen banana.

edited 23rd Apr '12 12:18:08 AM by AwesomeZombie22

Mine tend to involve swift genre shifts.

A more recent one involves me having a romance with one of my close RL friends; and then the zombie apocalypse (or some other disaster)happens and we have to try and stop it.

Usually me with something major important to do. Like "Do this within this amount of time or else bad thing happens".

edited 23rd Apr '12 10:24:00 AM by Ramus

I can't really say if I do have reoccurring elements to my dreams as I don't remember most of them. The one's I DO remember, though, are mostly anxiety dreams of some sort, or just randomly mixed sequences with no inherent meaning.

Video games and books in stores. I'm desperately looking for something, but I never find it...

Mostly my sister dating someone I hate/dislike.

It can get really distressing at times.

edited 24th Apr '12 8:45:47 PM by Falkon