A terrifying reoccurring nightmare...does it mean something?

[Zipzo]

Okay so I know this is a bit of a odd thread and really it could get any kind of response but I really am not in to visiting psycho-doctors who have money in their best interest towards any possible issue I may have...so I will ask mmo-champion!

I have what I would refer to as a "terrifying" reoccurring nightmare. This could be considered common, as I'm sure many people have reoccurring dreams, not all of them pleasant. Some people don't have very many dreams at all, and some just plain don't remember them. That's not me. I have dreams very often, and I remember them, and I remember getting them often. This is not the only case of reoccurring dreams for me, just the one that is most significant and...the only one that is a nightmare. So I'll explain the dream...

The setting is 100% of the time in the house I lived in while I went to elementary school. It was this peaceful neighborhood, and my best friend at the time lived directly to my left, my next door neighbor it was highly convenient. I moved from that house (in northern California, Folsom) to southern California going in to middle school and haven't been back since. The innards of the house do not ever reflect the way the house really was from the insides. It is usually a collage of many of the home sweet homes I've ever known (grandparents house most notably that I remember to reoccur most often). Sometimes there are parts of the house that are completely new and unrecognizable by me but in the dream it is of little importance. It's common that I'm alone but occasionally there will be a family member with me. It will be either my step father, or my mother. It's never been my little sister that I can recall. The dream follows a very strict format which I will now explain...

An exotic, wild (and angry) animal intrudes in to my house. It's been multiple different types of things, but one thing they all have in common is they are not normal. Usually they are oversized, like a giant ferocious Lion or something. I've also had a giant animal cat that I couldn't really identify as any sort of major species, just a giant..ferocious cat of some type. Never the domesticated kind. Anyways it gets in to my home somehow, the whole nightmare is generally me (or me and whichever parent I was setup with) narrowly (and I mean very narrowly) escaping this angry animal. It will involve treks down to the basement, hiding in small corners or closets, everything you can think of that you think would happen in some kind of movie based off of the same premise.

The dream always ends the exact same way. I end up finding a way to narrowly exit my house. If I'm with one of my parents, what usually happens is we find an extremely good hiding spot, and the parent will tell me to go get help while they wait there, so I leave. Once I exit the home, my first instinct is to run to my next door neighbor's house : my best friend. Then that's it. I wake up. I always wake up after my friend or his little brother or his mom opens the door to me. 100% of the time I snap awake at that exact moment. Sometimes that's in the middle of the night, or not even yet at the hour I usually need to wake up for work.

So I've theorized so many different things about this. I'm not afraid of cats or animals (or at least ones that don't intend on eating me obviously). I just can't figure out why I have this nightmare so often. The strange thing is, it's not that the premise behind the nightmare is so intensely scary, it's not like demons are invading my home or I'm being attacked by oompa loompa's, some kind of big furry animal is roaring around my house, but I wake up with an intense feeling of dread and fright. It's a really intense fear, built up from trying to survive, and when it's the case, the protectiveness of the family member involved. Especially during the part where they tell me to get out of the house and find help. I always do it, but the choice is always so difficult for me. The dream also never lasts long enough for me to know if I ever get help and go back to save them, in turn making me feel absolutely disappointed with myself when I wake up, like I let them down.

I appreciate any and all theories to this, and hope it leads to good discussion. What do you think of reoccurring dreams/nightmares? Do they mean anything? If so, what do you think mine means?

[Sarcasm]

I won't pretend I can analyse your dream, because I can't, but I can give you advice on how I dealth with the same thing. For about three years when I was around 5-8 years old I had a recurring nightmare that I eventually learnt to deal with.

Does your dream start with you in danger? Mine never did. So when I started having the dream, the most important part was that I realised I was having that dream. When I first started having the dream I could never do this, so I started playing it out as it always went and eventually I'd hit the danger point and the dream would be over once it had played out. Eventually I started being able to identify that I was dreaming, and would tell myself to wake up, because I knew where the dream was going if I didn't. Sometimes I could do this, sometimes I couldn't, it all depended on practise. Eventually I mastered it and whenever the dream came up, I would just wake myself up. Eventually I stopped having the dream all together.

If your dream does start with you in danger, what I would do in a "dangerous" dream once I had identified that I was dreaming was curl up in a ball, close my eyes (in the dream), and tell myself over and over "wake up, I'm dreaming, nothing here will hurt me, wake up". It's scary and hard to deal with, but if you can snap yourself out of it at your own will, you'll find eventually that you become less scared of it, and they will stop coming.

As for my recurring nightmare, I know exactly what caused the dream (don't know why it was recurring though), so that answers a question for me that you can't answer for yourself. That part I can't help you with sorry.

This whole concept hinges on the idea of you being able to identify when you are dreaming and reacting accordingly. I suggest you do some research in to lucid dreaming if you haven't already, and try to master some of the techniques for identifying when you're in a dream. What I essentially did when I was young was develop my own ways of doing this without even knowing what lucid dreaming was. It all takes time and practise.

[Kifimbo]

dont go to sleep anymore??


seriously though, i used to have a recurring dream(not a nightmare, i think at least), but mine was i couldnt find my way out of a building. the strange thing about mine was, i always woke up in the livingroom/diningroom, sitting in a chair.

im not gonna try to figure out what it means, but from what i remember reading from dream books, the type of animal is a huge clue, also, who opens the door means something. every part of the dream means something, you just need to do research( not sure how much it will help), and try to figure it out on your own if therapists are of no help.

[Taros]

One, two, Freddy's coming for you....

[Sarcasm]

im not gonna try to figure out what it means, but from what i remember reading from dream books, the type of animal is a huge clue, also, who opens the door means something. every part of the dream means something, you just need to do research( not sure how much it will help), and try to figure it out on your own if therapists are of no help.

If you're going to do that, just make sure you're doing research out of well documented and researched journals, rather than most of the spiritual "fact" (read: hokus) books.

[Lilyana]

The great beast... is your dreams telling you of your fears of nerfs. You wouldn't happen to have a survival hunter would you?

[Teps]

You should see a shrink or someone qualified to analyze the dream to help you figure it out.

As mentioned above you could also try to realize that you're dreaming, the easiest way to realize this and thus taking control of the dream is lucid dreaming, it takes practice though.
http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid-Dream, I'd learn it anyways because being able to control dreams is awesome inceptionstyle. I havent managed it myself yet because i fail getting my body to fall asleep before my mind.

[imtehrogue]

It's a big kitty...relax

[jmann]

I have the same problem. Almost once every week I have this one nightmare, ever since I was about 7 (I'm 15 now). In all of them I am in a shark cage underwater and then a swarm of sharks come and bite through the cage and there is blood and gore everywhere. After having this nightmare for about a year or two I started to realize I was dreaming whenever I had it. So now when I have it I just wake up then go back to sleep.

[Herecius]

Mastering how to tell when you are dreaming is pretty helpful thing if you're plagued by nightmares. I had nightmares (not just recurring, but of all different sorts) for a long time, but eventually, once I was able to immedietely recognize that I was dreaming, my mind would take control over a nightmare, and I would 'rewind' it in my head, and then force the nightmare to replay in a much more pleasant way, pretty much alleviating any fear it was causing.

As a result, I haven't had a nightmare that actually woke me up out of fright in almost 7 years.

[Hanto]

I remember, when I was little, that I would always have some weird half asleep/half awake type dream when I was going to bed.... I could hear the faint sound of the TV in the living room where my parents were but whenever they talked, they seemed extremely audible. It eventually lead into a full-fledged dream where my parents were arguing. I used to hate it so much but eventually came to realize when it was happening and I would focus my thoughts to something else (usually a fan, probably why I sleep with a fan on currently) and that would stop it.

It didn't happen for years, then I remembered it and wondered what it would be like to have it again after not going through it for a few years. Well, sure enough, it happened that night and freaked me the hell out. Never had it since. But... idk how many psychiatrists play WoW, or even look on these forums... I can't really think of what yours would mean, lol.

I remember when I used to have "the falling dream," where you'd just start falling then wake up when you hit the bottom of whatever you're falling in, with the bed kinda shaking as if you had actually fallen onto it. Many of my friends I've spoken with have had this dream too. o.O It eventually got replaced with flying which I thought was pretty badass (I blame seeing Pokemon: The First Movie for that, curse you psychic Pokemon....)

[jmann]

I remember when I used to have "the falling dream," where you'd just start falling then wake up when you hit the bottom of whatever you're falling in, with the bed kinda shaking as if you had actually fallen onto it. Many of my friends I've spoken with have had this dream too. o.O It eventually got replaced with flying which I thought was pretty badass (I blame seeing Pokemon: The First Movie for that, curse you psychic Pokemon....)

I always used to have these falling dreams as well, but when I wake up id find myself lying on the floor instead of the bed. And after these stops I also started to have flying dreams where I would have all the powers of Astoboy and show off in-front of my friends.

[Acidd06]

The more you think about it the more you will dream about it.

[CotA]

I am well pretty skilled at unraveling the human psyche. Most of it isn't as perplexing as most people make it out to be, short of rainman type people. But otherwise it's pretty simple. Now, unfortunately, no one can truly create a hypothesis from this because of the fact that; 1) We don't know you. We would have to know personal extent of your life, family, and environment to know what exactly these images you remember clearly from your dreams mean. You said you moved from one place to another, I'm assuming your first major move. I am also going to assume you never heard from/seen your neighbor since then.

2) Now, this large creature that appears you are narrowly escaping, this can be construed as something you feared in real life. When you sleep, your subconscious manifests into your dreams. So let's say for example you have a fear of flying. You may correlate that in a dream by sky diving, or in most cases, have the falling dream. So this large creature could be a manifestation of a fear you once had in the time you lived at or moved from your old house til now. Your parents being in the dream could imply that at some point and time that your parents may have helped or protected you in some way from this fear.

3) The relation to the ever changing environment of the house in the dream could be a representation of multiple changes occurring in your life. Sometimes places you said you didn't recognize could potentially be places you go to. Lets say, the den in this house was some unknown room, but 3 months from now you go to an interview and sit in the same room you had in that dream. This is known as deja vu. Last thing in regards to the shifting of the rooms is that, not to freak you out, but the manifestation of this fear may end up appearing again in one of these rooms you do not know yet, being a future event relating to this fear.

I know that was lengthy and may not make sense, but in relation to the human psyche and the human subconscious the key figures have a huge potential to relate to real life past, present, and future situations.

[Deleted]

It could mean any number of things depending on your experiences and feelings at that time in your childhood and beyond. Please don't listen to the above poster who claims that these matters are 'simple', when they're actually insanely complicated - for the most part I don't think Jungian analysis and half baked symbolism can account for dreams - particularly not the aforementioned suggestions. Just think about if any experience at that point in your life can relate to the nature and tone of the dream, or any issues between you and your family / friends that occurred around the time you started having this recurring nightmare. I don't think the randomness of the house interior - the 'collage of rooms' is particularly pertinent, if you think about any dream, locations shift and change in very strange ways, because of the fragmented nature of these memories.

Really, though, you won't get any decent answer on a WoW forum, I wouldn't bother discussing it here

[DarthDonut]

Honestly, it's okay that it's a big cat. You can roots them now.

[Belize]

gathering what little knowledge i have from psychology and dreams, having dreams about large being overall means that somewhere somehow you feel crushed and overwhelmed. Does anything stress you? I would pull out that Psychology book about dreams i have but i dunno where it went >.>

But yes everything in a dream has a meaning you should look it up under "dreams and their meaning"

Also, would i recommend youthberry and wild orange blossom tea before sleeping? It helps me a lot lol ^.^

[zshikara]

I will admit that I have only read the OP's post so far, but it sounds to me like something in your life or in your past needs to be escaped from. Basically from what I have gathered from these kinds of dreams in my past is that some event in your life needs to happen to change things. What that is I don't know, but I highly doubt it has anything to do with southern california or a cat.

I had a recurring dream (a couple in fact) that stopped once I figured their meaning out and changed what needed to be changed.

Don't look for a literal interpretation, it won't work. Look for a metaphorical one. Like what I get from the dream that you described is that you feel trapped and helpless against some force. Once you escape this force you feel safe and are no longer concerned with it.

[dragonix]

I have had problems with nightmares for aproximately 3 years now. I'm talking about dreams that invoke the same sense of dread and fright that you were talking about. I have gone and seen 2 profesionally licensed doctors about this problem and the only thing helpful that i have figured out from them is my sleep cycle and how it works. there are two majar sleep stages, NREM(non rapid eye movement) and REM(rapid eye movement). dreams happen during the REM cycle which happens latest in the sleep process. The majority of your actual rest though occurs during the NREM cycyle. I have literally been sleeping less to stop all dreams cold.Though due to most rest happening in the NREM cycle you can still get a good nights sleep. The REM cycle becomes more prominent just before natural waking and a simple way to exclude it from your sleep cycle is to simply wake up earlier(set an alarm) than your body normally would, or try and go to sleep later.
And sleep theory is pointless if you ask me. It is a THEORY. you will not find any professional in the world who can tell you what it means because they dont know. the brain is the most mysterious and complex structure on this planet.

[Zipzo]

I am well pretty skilled at unraveling the human psyche. Most of it isn't as perplexing as most people make it out to be, short of rainman type people. But otherwise it's pretty simple. Now, unfortunately, no one can truly create a hypothesis from this because of the fact that; 1) We don't know you. We would have to know personal extent of your life, family, and environment to know what exactly these images you remember clearly from your dreams mean. You said you moved from one place to another, I'm assuming your first major move. I am also going to assume you never heard from/seen your neighbor since then.

2) Now, this large creature that appears you are narrowly escaping, this can be construed as something you feared in real life. When you sleep, your subconscious manifests into your dreams. So let's say for example you have a fear of flying. You may correlate that in a dream by sky diving, or in most cases, have the falling dream. So this large creature could be a manifestation of a fear you once had in the time you lived at or moved from your old house til now. Your parents being in the dream could imply that at some point and time that your parents may have helped or protected you in some way from this fear.

3) The relation to the ever changing environment of the house in the dream could be a representation of multiple changes occurring in your life. Sometimes places you said you didn't recognize could potentially be places you go to. Lets say, the den in this house was some unknown room, but 3 months from now you go to an interview and sit in the same room you had in that dream. This is known as deja vu. Last thing in regards to the shifting of the rooms is that, not to freak you out, but the manifestation of this fear may end up appearing again in one of these rooms you do not know yet, being a future event relating to this fear.

I know that was lengthy and may not make sense, but in relation to the human psyche and the human subconscious the key figures have a huge potential to relate to real life past, present, and future situations.

A few things here are very accurate. I've moved around quite a lot in my life. Not to different states but just different homes around California.

It is also true that I've yet to really hang out with that friend since I moved away. I met my current best friend shortly after moving in to town while I was in middle school.

It's not necessarily always a big cat but a big cat seems to be a reoccurring theme and what I can recall best because I had the dream earlier today while taking a nap.

It's not so much that I wake up frightened, sweating pools all over my sheets and screaming or something. Like I said it's more that I wake up dreadfully disappointed. During the "chase" section of the dream I feel frightened within the dream, yes, but I always end up escaping (sometimes I don't even remember how I escape) and going over to my neighbor for help. Then I wake up and I feel disappointed and cross that I didn't get to complete my goal of finding help for my own flesh in blood I left trapped. It's harder to explain than this...but that's the idea. I feel as if there were some kind of dangerous animal in my home, I wouldn't be as frightened as the dream makes me feel, I'd be more in control and analytical of the situation, so to me that's another strange factor, the feelings I feel during the dream are unlike what I think I would truly feel if it were really happening. I'm generally pretty fearless.