MetaChat - I know it's obnoxious

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02 May 2007

I know it's obnoxious to post about dreams, but I'm still really bummed out about last night's one.→[More:] Very quickly - I'd been sentenced to death for something, I'm not sure what, and in my dream I was living out the final day. I wasn't in jail or anything - I was just expected to turn up for my execution. So I was trying to see people to say goodbye, and nobody really seemed to care that much. Like they were: "bummer, dude" but that's about it. And so I kept trying to reassure myself in my dream that it would be OK because it would only be a few seconds until I wasn't aware of anything anyway but it was really awful. The worst bit is I kept waking up and falling back into the same dream without really being aware it was a dream. I woke up for good at 7, shaking. Gah. Anyway, it's been playing on my mind, so I'm trying to purge it here.

post by: gaspode at: 09:43 | 20 comments

Ew, that's an awful one. I hate dreams like that that have a sense of dread, even though the apparent surroundings are normal (like here, where you were out living your normal life).

I like dream posts, btw!

posted by BoringPostcards 02 May | 09:47

Scary. I would definitely care!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 May | 09:49

People are more interested in your dreams, I find, if you write them in somewhere. "...and then you walked by brushing your teeth, and then..."

posted by StickyCarpet 02 May | 09:53

Are you feeling isolated in some way? Is there something you feel urgently about that others are slow to recognize as important?

posted by Miko 02 May | 09:58

and then metachat walked by, brushing its teeth?

I don't think so, Miko, no. I've been pondering where this might have come from, but I think it's just a fucked up dream. I did read an Economist column on the death penalty over the weekend, so maybe it's just some brain lint.

posted by gaspode 02 May | 10:01

I'D care!

(I had a bad dream last night too. Was out hiking and a tiger came out of the woods-and I realized I looked like prey. I hate those kinda dreams.)

posted by bunnyfire 02 May | 10:07

That's an awful dream 'pode. Sorry.

Mine were more straightforward last night. I dreamt I was off work today. Then I dreamt I was coming into work with a 7-11 big gulp of Scotch and Coke. (ewww!) Think maybe I need a break.

Night before that was Darfur, so that was awful.

Yes, yes you all were there, brushing your teeth or something.

posted by rainbaby 02 May | 10:10

Gaspode - ugh, I hate dreams like that, where no one cares about something important to you. Usually, I have to be somewhere, and I'm late, and no one else is getting ready! It's difficult to shake really emotionally bad dreams like yours. Maybe go out to lunch with some friends or the Mr. to cheer yourself up?

Two nights ago, I dreamed that I was visiting a house with a nasty Zombie infestation, but they only came out at night. I was really cowardly, so I mostly hid until daylight, although I did have to fight one off with a big shovel.

Last night, I dreamed my boss had quit, so we all went out to lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant. Today, my boss is out sick. Coincidence?

posted by muddgirl 02 May | 10:17

That is an awful dream gaspode. I've had those scary dreams that are hard to wake out of.

posted by LoriFLA 02 May | 10:34

pssst Gaspode... You're still dreaming. Wake Up!

I also like dream posts. But that sounded nasty. I wouldn't put too much into it though. If I were to do my Dr Freud thing I'd say that you're a bit worried that people don't listen to you, that you're also worried you're not important enough... Zees is All normal Ztuff.

bah.

posted by seanyboy 02 May | 10:40

"The worst bit is I kept waking up and falling back into the same dream"

Are you sure you were waking up, or were you having a waking dream, iow a dream about waking up? I have 3 or 4 waking dreams a month, and their one consistency is how waking up becomes tied to a plot element of equal finality. The main plot of yours would be a perfect example.

I have found too that the more existential the dream becomes, the more upsetting it can be, much moreso than any nightmare.

It gets really fun when in the dream, you hold the following conversation with yourself, "Is this reality?"
"No, because in reality, you know you are not in a dream."
"Then this is a dream."
"I didn't say that."

posted by mischief 02 May | 10:41

Ugh, gaspode. I had a dream a few years ago that I had just (accidentally?) swallowed a bunch of pills and was going to die, and no one (including my mother) would help me or say good-bye. It still wigs me out when I think of it.

*hugs*

posted by occhiblu 02 May | 10:45

Ooh, that is awful. I used to have dreams much like this as a kid. Haven't had one in a long time, fortunately.

posted by treepour 02 May | 11:00

Yucky one! But come on now, you know if you were on death row we'd go protest outside the prison!

I had a dream recently about dying on some kind of operating table. I heard them call time of death and everything but my mind was still alive a teensy bit. I could barely think and everything was getting black but I wasn't gone yet and people were going about their business as if I was no longer there... mortality dreams are creepy as all fuck!

posted by scarabic 02 May | 11:12

Eee gaspode! Paging eideteker.....

posted by brujita 02 May | 12:22

I had a dream last night I was making out with a friend of mine, in a hotel room in an airport (out the window were airplanes). And I'm scared that next time I see this person, I'm going to be tempted to tell them.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 02 May | 14:22

Wow. Great dream. Quite vivid.

The very first therapist I went to, who I adored (he had also been a psychology professor of mine at Michigan), used to write his patients' dreams down on large white index cards. He had quite a collection. He'd have loved this one. He taught a course on Dreams at Michigan, which I never got to take (I had him for Advanced Psychopathology). In terms of "analyzing" someone's dream, he'd simply ask, What comes to mind when you think of this dream? And, generally, the answers were surprisingly revealing.

Perhaps your recent surgery is on your mind? Being knocked out and all, and all the anxiety before and after?

*fixes bedtime cocoa for 'pode*

posted by Pips 02 May | 19:55

Uugh...I woke up shaking for a good five cigarettes this morning from a dream where I was still with my ex and our house was infested with poltergeists and ghosts. Since I don't see my Jungian therapist--who LOVES it when I remember my dreams--until Monday, I have self-analyzed my dreams as the ghosts being all the unspoken shit that never got brought up, which ultimately wrecked the marriage, coming out to play in my subconscious.

posted by Twiggy 02 May | 20:28

So I was trying to see people to say goodbye, and nobody really seemed to care that much.

Your unconscious was lying to you. I would care.

In terms of "analyzing" someone's dream, he'd simply ask, What comes to mind when you think of this dream? And, generally, the answers were surprisingly revealing.

Yeah, my shrink used the same method. No taking it apart symbol-by-symbol. She just asked me what I thought of it and what I had been experiencing the day before the dream.

posted by jason's_planet 02 May | 22:25

Perhaps your recent surgery is on your mind? Being knocked out and all, and all the anxiety before and after?

Wow Pips, I actually had just the same thought on my way home in the bus this evening. When I went in for my surgery I had worked myself up into such a state, convinced that I was going to die under anesthesia, that when I lay down on the surgery table and they put the iv in, I burst into tears and cried for about 5 minutes until they told me the anesthesia was starting. I still get really upset thinking about it. And the feelings of helplessness, and trying to convince myself that it wouldn't matter once I was unconscious because I wouldn't know if I'd died were just the same as in my dream.

How about that, huh?

posted by gaspode 02 May | 22:34

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