It was weird, because in reality, I was always pretty well prepped for college exams and I did well. It's apparently a pretty common occurrence.

and I still have exam dreams. In fact, I had one last night where I dreamed I'd fallen asleep during a timed exam and woke up with most of the exam uncompleted (it was something complicated and technical), and the time ran out and I flunked the test and the course, so I wouldn't graduate. Exam dreams don't go away....

years, in addition to THOSE lovely things, there have been the type of recurring or *repetitive* TASKS - obsessive tasks and situations that replay (in the same dream), some troublesome thing you can't get out of. Take a filing cabinet drawer with files/folders that have to be in some kind of unattainable order, ending up stymied and then repeating until finally waking up.

Like trying to make a phone call and mis-dialing over and over, or, in another one I had recently, I was supposed to go somewhere and forgot the address, so I tried to look it up on my iPhone but there was no internet service where I was. Then I went outside and there was no cell service. I get those sorts of dreams all the time and I don't know why.

See the other thread (Taylor SWIFT's "Out of the Woods&quot :

"Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods out of the woods out of the woods? Are we in the clear yet in the clear in the clear in the clear in the clear GOOD."

Or hiding from an occupying or oppressive military/police force. Sometimes I'm running from them in the woods or watching a large air battle take place overhead.

I'm sure a psychologist would have a field day with THAT recurring dream, lol.

It was pretty easy to figure out....

I was an alcoholic & I was mostly un dateable...

My dream was I would be in a crawl space or basement-somewhere that had not been opened in years. I would find baby animals-kittens or puppies mostly.

I would be sad & amazed they were alive after all those years...

I just celebrated 20 years sober...I also got married & had a family. Something I had longed for-and the dreams have stopped.

Jim Anders: "All Drinking Aside." (Amazon)

http://alldrinkingaside.blogspot.com/

found a way to get back there. Congratulations!

It is time to move and nothing is packed. I'm doing all the work and my roommates aren't helping. No one ordered a moving van, etc. It is a very annoying dream.

I frequently have the "exam" dream too. Also the "stolen car" dream.... I come out of some place and the car is gone. I go around with the remote to sound the horn. I call the police to report it. I never find out if they recover it though!

I hate to dream. I wish I could just get a decent night's sleep instead.

and I can't get there.

The situation (people, places) is different every dream but it always involves a tornado.

Almost invariably, I had either missed a final English exam, or failed to write a term paper for English class. Sometimes high school, sometimes college.

I'm in a house that is under construction -- walls down, debris and lumber scattered around, saws, hammers, you get the picture. But in the middle of the house is a room that is perfect -- like an old English study; interesting with lots of books, a large upholstered chair with a reading lamp and table beside it and lovely paintings on the walls.

It first started when my husband walked out on me. I was in shock, in grief, and some fear of the future, so took my troubles to a counselor. I told her about this recurring dream. She said she thought it meant that although my life was in chaos at the time, there was a solid core inside of me that will come out just fine.

So now, when under stress, I welcome the dream. It comforts me and gives me strength.

P.S. Haven't had the dream for quite a while.

Recurring theme, but random locations (but always indoors with a group of people in a windowed room). Thankfully the frequency of recurrence has markedly dropped off.

In the dream things are normal until at some point I'm in a position where everybody in the room is behind me for a moment. At that moment silence takes over, then I get a tremendous feeling that someone is standing very close behind me. After an indeterminate amount of time I hear a window smash, then a woman scream (always in that order). I force myself to turn around and find that everyone's faces are melting/dripping off. Cue waking up.

Fun times.

Unfinished business.

In the first, there are dozens of airplanes flying overhead. Inevitably, there is a midair collision.

In the second, I'm standing in a large city and buildings begin collapsing towards me in a domino fashion.

A third not so disastrous theme which is ongoing: I'm lost in a gigantic campus with lengthy hallways and Escherian stairwells and not able to navigate out.

Seems I got to have a change of scene
Every night I have the strangest dream
Imprisoned by the way it could have been
Left you on my own or so it seemed
I got to leave before I start to scream
But someone locked the door and took the keys

and wrote Feelin' Alright. But we do miss Ray Charles, who we think must have written it.

He sang the hell out of that song - my all time favorite!
Guess I never knew who actually wrote it.

Around early 2000s, before Dawn of the Dead came out, I started getting Zombie dreams.
Probably a little after the first Resident Evil movie...

The first time around, it was recurring very frequently, maybe every other day. First time around was being in a store, climbing like a monkey to go in between the floor and the roof. Moving from store to store and helping people when I could.

It progresses to other times where I got around to getting the scuba gear from when you go swimming with sharks.
Getting swords and other gear, and finding my brothers and sisters. I'm a notorious sword snob, especially back then.

At some points, there were "bosses" which were much harder to take out.

Months pass, and I'd get them again, but with time lapses, just about the same amount of time as real life I think.

Each dream would have a different sort of scenario and goal.

Few years afterwards, I manage to obtain large ships! Made hydroponic gardens and some livestock. Mostly chicken.

Three ships, two near enough to the shore for habitat, and one that is used for an interim to check out those that go to shore to make sure they are not going to turn.

A few years back, I stopped having Zombie dreams. I think my dream counterpart may have died...

That makes me kinda unhappy.

often wondering when and where my finals are.

And when I'm back in New Orleans, there are often hills. Go figure.

I can never figure out how I went broke. The dream always just thrusts me into my parents house with no clue as to how it happened but I'm aware that I had had my own home.

Oddly, when I wake up from a tornado dream I'm always cold, somehow being cold must trigger them. My weirdest recurring dream hasn't happened since my 20s, but it was about Canada Dry gingerale. Strange, yes.

and as I wander through, I keep finding additional rooms that I didn't know were there.

It's never the same house, but whenever I dream about moving into a new residence, all these hidden rooms keep revealing themselves.

I wonder what the heck that means . . .

That and I've completely blown off classes the entire semester and I just realize that. I don't know why that's such a universally common dream for so many people but apparently it is. Maybe it's just the fear of being unprepared for whatever life might bring.

One that I've had more recently on numerous occasions that's somewhat related is simply that it's my first day of college and I'm getting situated. Usually it's nothing good or bad. I don't know what it means, but maybe it's just about anticipating something new in your life.

I sometimes have the dream that I'm in charge of taking care numerous pets (usually cats, sometimes dogs) but I get worried as to whether or not I've kept track of all of them, whether they've had enough to eat, whether they've run off somewhere, etc.

Every once in a while I dream I'm swimming with or nearby alligators. What's interesting about this dream is that the alligators never attack me. I'm always a little apprehensive about being so close to the alligators but I'm not freaking out about it.

On edit, I'd just like to add I actually had a real life exam dream situation in college, once. It was a Monday or a Tuesday and I thought the exam that was scheduled was for later on in the week (and being a procrastinating senior, I was planning on studying the night before), but I was wrong and it was that day. Thankfully, it was for a class where I was one of the few people who always participated in classroom discussions so the professor seemed to like me. So he was gracious enough to let me take it the next class. I think I ended up with a lucky C in that class, which beats the F I would have otherwise gotten. But that sudden rush of anxiety of realizing you were having a test where you hadn't studied.....it was very real that one time.

I had one of those 3.5" disks croak on me and take a paper I had been working on along with it. I managed to re-create the paper in time though as I had a backup copy, but it was still a bit of work to get it back to where I had been.

also had disturbing and apparently universal school-related ones.

The first dream is being in college and having no idea where my exam is. This actually happened to me with an English final! I had skipped the class where the change in room had been announced. I found it a half-hour late (no time adjustment!) by peeking into classrooms!

The second is being a teacher (I was) and being completely baffled as to in which room I was supposed to teach, what I was to teach, when, etc.!

When I was a kid, it was that I was walking in a playground, and there were pits in it. At first, they were widely separated and then they got closer and closer together and I was walking on a narrow ridge between two pits. In the end, I would fall in and be terrified and then wake up. In at least, one of the dreams, there were helpful notices on the walls of the pit: 'WARNING: THIS PIT HAS NO BOTTOM'.

More recently, the recurring themes have tended to be:

I am travelling somewhere by train or on foot and manage both to get lost and to lose one or both of my shoes.

I am in a stationary car, and it suddenly starts moving with me in it and I don't know how to stop it (I do not drive IRL). In one of these dreams, the owner of the car, who had ordered me to sit in the car and mind it for him, was the Australian politician Tony Abbott - whom I never liked even BEFORE having that dream about his car!

During the college, because of the great pressure, I often had "exam dream". After graduating from the college, I have seldom.

I've been an ex-smoker for 3.5 years now, but I still have dreams where I start smoking again. I feel terrible about it and when I wake up and realize it was a dream I feel so relieved.

I've been having a lot of the "late" dreams, lately. I'll have to be at work or I'll need to be at some meeting and I'm running late. The thing is that, no matter how hard I try, I can't get myself going to get to where I need to be. There are all these distractions of things that make me feel like I'm getting nowhere.

The thing is that I'm very punctual in my waking life. I am never late to anything. I've been at my current job for almost five years now and I have not been late one time.

just much less frequently now.

There is absolutely no better feeling than waking up and realizing I'm no longer hooked on those damned things!

Then I had a talk with myself before going to sleep one night:

Listen, you've been giving me this dream for many many years. Stop with the stupid imagery and tell me exactly what it is you're trying to say, because it's obvious I just don't get it. Or let it go. I do NOT want any more of these dreams. Ever.

...in the early to mid 1960s, I had recurring dreams of being chased by flying saucers, shooting death-rays at me, as I ran up onto a suspension bridge, which terminated half-way through its span as I fell into oblivion.

That's when I woke up.

I blame it all on Rod Serling.

places - trying to find stuff - despairing and frustrated because Ive left stuff behind - clothes, books, home furnishings etc. - and don't remember how or where to find it.

Oddly... now that I'm semi-retired and returning to some creative projects Im not having that dream anymore. Its like Im getting my life back after a long miserable stint as a member of the work force. Actually the jobs weren't so bad it was just having to be there 40 hrs + every week plus all the hours commuting, preparing for work etc

There was a time when it was that same damn dream literally all night, every night.

Oh I had one funny variation after I semi-retired. I'm just sitting around not stressing when all of a sudden I notice that all my missing stuff is reappearing via some space-warp portal under my bed - LOL! l All this stuff is coming back and its kind like pushing my bed away from the wall and pouring out from under it.

I love dreams - the metaphors can be so concise and meaningful

or losing something. I had a really terrifying one a couple nights ago where somebody stole our truck with all my expensive lenses inside and I spent the rest of the night trying to find it or get in touch with my insurance agent who wouldn't answer his phone.

I have another recurring dream where I'm wandering around in a big city that looks vaguely like San Francisco, unable to find my way back to my apartment. This one is especially weird since I haven't lived in the City since 1971.


My husband is a retired marine engineer - he retired in the '90s - and to this day, if he's stressed about something or trying to figure something out, he has engine room ship dreams.

and I would get a loud buzzing noise inside of my head. I learned to overcome my fear of it and defeat it by laughing and swearing at it in my thoughts.

That was a long time ago. It returns every few years but I just ask it where it's been and what its been up to but it never answers and after a bit, fades away.

I was a science teacher from '81 to '90. I still have dreams that I haven't graded my papers or done my lesson plans.

I also dream that I float from one place to another. I'll be walking and find I not getting to where I want to be, so I just float up above all obstacles and move through space.

And that I'm topless and no one notices. LOL

I graduated from college in the early 80s lol. It is such a relief to wake up. Still.

I am not sure I can describe them without having an anxiety attack, so I'll leave it at that.

and until recently I taught college classes in government and history.
In one I would be on my way to a class which I have not been to for weeks and I don't know where the class is.

Then there's the one in which I am naked

I have a very heavy hand on these humans. I rule over them with an iron fist. Some humans form a resistance against me and manage to take my robot head. But soon, they realize they cannot live without the high tech I brought with me. So they fashion a new robot head for me,
complete with more human friendly programming. There is another group of humans who miss the old, cruel robot head and are nostalgic for the good old days when a facist robot runs everything. They kidnap me, take me to the mountains where my evil old robot head is encased in giant boulders. They reinstall my old robot head and set me about to do my previous tasks. This is my recurring dream. Sometimes the situations vary and/or are extended.

I'm not in the plane, but either see it crash or collide with another plane. IRL, when I was in jr. high, a large twin engine passenger plane crash landed near our house (fortunately, everyone walked away uninjured). I had to pass that plane everyday on the way to school. So I guess that's why I've had those dreams. Additionally, after college I worked at NAS Pensacola, at one point my desk looked out on a landing field and I got to watch student pilots do touch landings in T34s all day, so there was that too.

I've also had the exam dream. And the dream where I'm back in high school, but at my current age, and my chances in the whole dating scene seems pretty bleak.

I've been dreaming it my whole life and I'm in my 60's. Sometimes a couple years in between but eventually it comes back.

During my late teens / early 20s I worked at a cafeteria restaurant attached to the local mall.

Every so often I dream about being back at work there, with all of the tables were piled high with dirty dishes after a Sunday lunchtime rush. We were trying to bus the tables but no matter what we couldn't seem to put a dent in the amount of dirty dishes on the tables. Plus the dishwashers were horribly backed up, with tubs of dirty dishes on the conveyor belt all the way back to the flight type dishwasher and the drop off room full of dirty dishes.

In April of 2017 it'll be 20 years since I worked there and the restaurant was closed at the end of 2012. The mall tore the restaurant down and completely rebuilt the space. And yet I still have that dream.