Some people remember exactly what they dreamed the night before, detail by detail. I’ve never been one of those people. Except for a select few cases, the moment I wake up the dreams slips away, and all I recall is foggy emotions and voices. It’s like its right there, just out of my reach, but however hard I try, I can’t grasp what I was dreaming about. I do retain emotions pretty strongly after I wake up, and I have to keep myself from panicking or crying or getting too excited, depending on what the dream was about.
I have two recurring dreams that I’ve had for the longest time. They always happen in different situations, with different details, but the same problem. I’m not sure why I get them, but I think they have to do with underlying fears/memories I have.
- Falling down a hill. One of the recurring dreams I have is that I’m falling or slipping down a hill into a rushing river (one time it was even lava). I honestly can’t remember any specific dream super clearly, but in most of them, it has just rained a lot, and the hillside is super slippery and muddy. The water is also normally brown and moving super fast because of the rain. It is also always in the woods with lots of trees. One dream, there was super large basin thing that I fell into. The sides where really steep slippery slopes, and the water at the bottom was restless and moving a lot. I think I even died in one of them, but these dreams overall never feel really scary.
(This doesn’t look a lot like the hills in my dreams, because they’re a lot muddier and uglier but they are this steep. I couldn’t really find one that looked like my dream)
2. Not being able to run. The other recurring dream I have, which I honestly think is worse, is not being able to run. There’s a variety of situations that this happens in. Sometimes I’m being chased, other times I’m chasing someone or escaping something or racing someone. It feels like there are brake pedals on my legs, and they either just won’t move, or they go very, very, slow, as if I’m in slow motion. I’ve always taken pride and comfort in the fact that I’m a fast runner, and because of the flexibility and strength I’ve gained from gymnastics, I have a lot more control and agility with my body. So when I have these dreams where I’ve lost all of that, it really freaks me out. I wake up feeling anxious and then relieved when I realize it was just a dream. Even though I’ve never felt that feeling of not being able to run in real life, I feel quite familiar with it because of my dreams.
Picture taken from http://www.scenicusa.net/021810.html