Dreams!

[juv3nal]

I had a dream last night that I had discovered a cross-promotional easter egg buried in Gone Home where when you're playing Hate Plus and you're asked to bake a cake, you can go into the kitchen in Gone Home and do it and your Hate Plus game will recognize that you've done it. VIDEO GAEMZ.

[shammack]

I had a dream that I got paint on my jacket. That's all I can remember about it.

[clyde]

My wife had a dream where she finally beat level 65 of Candy Crush. In real life, she has been trying to beat this level for about a month. She says that she got fireworks on the screen and she showed it to me. She says "It was like the game was beat." She remembered all this when she started it up a moment ago. 

[Gormongous]

I envy all of you, even though I'm not the biggest fan of reading about others' dreams. Almost every one of my dreams is about getting in contact with someone to whom I haven't spoken for a decade or so. I wake up, all excited to get in touch again, and then I remember no, Liza still won't talk to me after six years. Oh well.

[syntheticgerbil]

For the past two weeks, the dreams I can vaguely remember have all involved various people trying to kill me, usually through stabbing. It's a bit upsetting.

[SecretAsianMan]

I had one a few nights ago that involved a car chase, wolves, TAS version of Batman, and Rock Band.  I don't remember the details, just that those things were in it somehow.

[Roswell47]

Dreamt I had lunch at the checkout of a grocery store with Jamie and Adam from Mythbusters.

[syntheticgerbil]

Were they busting any myths at the time?

[Roswell47]

Were they busting any myths at the time?

There was some "myth" about sausages that they were trying to solve as they ate and they had different methods on how to solve it i.e their plates had different sausage dishes. That's all I can remember.

 

Last night I had a dream where JP LeBreton was guiding me through an unofficial expansion for Doom 2. I was playing it with a VR headset that just looked like ski goggles.

[Zeusthecat]

I had an incredibly vivid dream last night that I pretty much remember every detail of.

 

I started out in some church that I was forced to go to with various members of my family. There was a giant pool in the middle of the church that I was spitting sunflower seed shells into hoping no one else would notice. At one point one of my sisters noticed me doing this and threw a big fuss making everyone in the church very angry at me for desecrating their pool. I told them I would clean it up but before I could these two acrobat guys from America's Got Talent jumped in the pool with a giant net and got all of the shells out of the pool. I offered to help and apologized but everyone was still mad and wouldn't talk to me.

 

Shortly after all that the sermon started and I was really bored and irritated because I'm an atheist and the last thing I wanted to hear was some religious sermon. Apparently, a nearby family noticed this and decided to kidnap me. They drove a couple hours south of Phoenix until they reached a dirt road (which doesn't exist in real life but it is a dirt road I've been on in one or two other dreams). They drove really far down past some remote town and into a sparse forest where there was an old rundown cabin on each side of the road. They brought me into one of the cabins where I saw a disconnected phone and just a bunch of old junk. I remember feeling very terrified at this point and thinking desperately about how I could maybe get the phone working again to call for help or do some other clever thing to make other people aware of where I was. 

 

The father was very stern and made it clear that I would be stuck there with them now and that there was no way I was escaping. I acted very courteously to gain favor with him but was secretly plotting to escape in any way possible. As time went on the cabin I was in started to transform. Suddenly, there was an old computer in the living room that the father was kind enough to give me access to and gave me all the passwords. So I went on the computer just pretending to do random, innocent things while in reality I was trying to get Outlook running so I could email my wife and tell her where I was. I kept having trouble and had to exit out eventually because I didn't want to raise suspicion. At this point there was suddenly a laptop available that the father also let me use. I continued my covert Outlook operation but kept having issues and eventually just ended up browsing the internet or something to make it appear that I was being well behaved.

 

At this point the family decided to send me into town in their car and gave me my cell phone back. I was ecstatic because I knew this would finally be my chance to escape. I got into town, which was a small village built into a forested hill, and drove up a random driveway where I parked the car and continued trying to email my wife. For some reason I just couldn't type her email address and the message kept coming out all jumbled. I kept trying but every time it was full of typos and I just couldn't get the message out. I became worried that I was taking too long and didn't want to upset the father so I grabbed the groceries they needed and headed back to the cabin.

 

When I got back the cabin had changed again significantly. There were now two flat panel tv's on the wall and it was beginning to look like a modern house. There were also multiple tablets throughout the house and I had access to all of them. I continued trying to covertly send an email out to my wife on the various devices but continued to have no luck. At one point I went into the bedroom where the daughter approached me and started telling me about how much she hated her family. Then she started screaming and getting really frustrated because she had a giant meth rock that she wasn't able to crush. I told her I couldn't help her and went back into the living room.

 

Apparently by now I had become a role model for the son, who was just a kid. He was following me everywhere and I was really uneasy about it because he looked really sickly but I also felt bad because he had such shitty parents. The mom was really supportive though and was thrilled that I had become his role model because she thought I was a good person. At one point though, the kid ran up and tried to plant a kiss on my cheek as if I was his father. At this point the mother screamed and told me to back away because the kid apparently had a severely contagious form of gangrene. I was mortified at this point and woke up shortly after.

 

This was one of those dreams that really affected me for some reason. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it today and it was just scary how vivid it was.

[SecretAsianMan]

Meanwhile, an extremely religious man wakes up in a cold sweat because in his dream, the man he kidnapped to convert ended up corrupting his family with his secular ways.

[Twig]

Damn, that's a lot of details. I remembered a dream last night, too, and I think you'll find it just as disturbing, if not MORE SO.

 

I was peeing and realized that EVERYTHING WAS BACKING UP the faucet the bathtub even the toilet, even though I hadn't flushed. But I had to finish peeing, so I kept doing so even as the peewater reached my ankles in depth. Then I flushed the toilet, which MADE THINGS A MILLION TIMES WORSE. I screamed to my mom, "Hey, everything's clogged!" After I washed my hands (???), I left the bathroom, and my brother (who in real life is younger than me, but in this dream was older than me) went in at KNEE-DEPTH to grab some clothes he'd left on the back of the toilet for some reason. Also none of the pisswater ever left the bathroom, even when the door was open.

 

THE. END.

 

what the fuck, brain

[syntheticgerbil]

Zeus, why didn't you just sign up for a Juno account?

[Zeusthecat]

Juno account?

 

Google doesn't want to help me understand.

[SecretAsianMan]

Last night I had a dream in which Sarah Argodale appeared.  I blame Nick Breckon.

[Gormongous]

Okay, remember how I said that all my dreams are about getting back in touch with people with whom I'm no longer on speaking terms? I've got a question to ask y'all, even though I know the answer.

 

So I have dreams about this old college friend/flame of mine, let's call her Lily, at least once a week. Last year around October, after finishing my doctoral comps but before starting my dissertation, I'd gotten in touch with her by chance. We ended up reconnecting in a deep and heavy way. Talked every day for hours, you know the drill. Only problem was that she was (and probably still is) suffering from severe clinical depression, the kind that mostly manifested as self-hate directed at anyone and everyone around her. It took maybe three months for our friendship/relationship to self-destruct from fight after fight about how I secretly thought I was better than her and how I was tearing her down behind her back, which I didn't always handle with due patience. In the end, I was the one who broke off contact, unfriended her on Facebook, the works. The dreams started almost immediately.

 

I honestly think that our relationship, brief though it was, was unworkable and maybe a little abusive. But I just had another dream last night about getting back in touch with Lily last night and woke up feeling amazing. So I should totally give her a call, right?

 

 

 

EDIT: Sorry if this is TMI or ought to be in the "Life" thread. It's just been really confusing to have my subconscious consistently giving me such terrible advice for over six months.

[SecretAsianMan]

I know how you feel in a way.  I was in a similar situation with my high school/college girlfriend.  We broke up because of religious reasons (she had a religion, I didn't).  There were other things too, but that was the main thing.  In my head, I knew we weren't right for each other.  But I repeatedly had dreams about her and thought about calling her for a long time.  Fortunately (?) for me, she ended up getting married so my problem kind of solved itself.  So I guess I don't really have any advice for you after all.

[Gormongous]

I know how you feel in a way.  I was in a similar situation with my high school/college girlfriend.  We broke up because of religious reasons (she had a religion, I didn't).  There were other things too, but that was the main thing.  In my head, I knew we weren't right for each other.  But I repeatedly had dreams about her and thought about calling her for a long time.  Fortunately (?) for me, she ended up getting married so my problem kind of solved itself.  So I guess I don't really have any advice for you after all.

 

Yeah, I'm under no illusions about it myself. If and when I try to reach out, I'm going to get shot down, maybe told something like, "Why are you calling me? Leave me alone." And you know, whatever. It's just the simplicity and clarity of these dreams that rattles me a little. They aren't even sexual, she just says that she misses me too.

[clyde]

Never take advice from a dream. Imagine the most selfish, soliptic version of your perception of Lily, that is her in your dream. That's not Lily. If it is this hard to separate your dream-vision of Lily from how she is in reality, imagine how awkward it will be when you are together and you are making assumptions about her based on how she is in your dreams.

I obviously have no idea what the reality of your relationship is, but I do know that before making any decisions about her, you should put a lot of effort towards destroying the image you have of her in your fantasy in order to see who she is actually like.

[Ben X]

My gut instinct is that your dream is your guilt manifesting. It's really fucking difficult to deal with someone in that situation, especially if you're not the person in their life who should be dragging them towards a possible solution, and sometimes you just have to cut yourself loose, but it still feels bad because you're the one doing it.

 

So, my advice would be to contact her via email/letter and let her know that you need to take a while off because of [be neutrally honest about the bullshit that caused you to step back]. Advise her, and let her know that when she's gone to therapy or done whatever is needed to get herself in a place where she 's ready to get back in touch with you without the bullshit, you'll be waiting.

 

If enough people say "I love you, but you're destructive right now", hopefully she'll realise she needs to do something about it.

 

EDIT - but be prepared to get ignored or chewed out, and just hope that if that happens, at some point down the line she'll realise she wants to get back in touch and will remember that you said you'd be ready when she is, with no emotional guilt-trip, and take you up on that offer.

 

NB - I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about. Everyone please feel free to point it out if I'm talking shit here.

[syntheticgerbil]

Only problem was that she was (and probably still is) suffering from severe clinical depression, the kind that mostly manifested as self-hate directed at anyone and everyone around her. It took maybe three months for our friendship/relationship to self-destruct from fight after fight about how I secretly thought I was better than her and how I was tearing her down behind her back, which I didn't always handle with due patience. In the end, I was the one who broke off contact, unfriended her on Facebook, the works. The dreams started almost immediately.

 

I honestly think that our relationship, brief though it was, was unworkable and maybe a little abusive. But I just had another dream last night about getting back in touch with Lily last night and woke up feeling amazing. So I should totally give her a call, right?

Besides the obvious advice that many will give you about getting out of an unhealthy situation for your own sake, I think you should not try to contact her again because you broke it off in the midst of her depression.

 

It's not exactly a bad thing or is it selfish, because that stuff can weigh you down when dealing with a person like that, but she's always going to remember this blotch on your relationship. I personally don't think that's something you can ever really get past without even more extra baggage. Really sucks she has clinical depression though, I know how it is to be a certain way with mental health issues and drag everyone down around you without meaning to.

[Gormongous]

Besides the obvious advice that many will give you about getting out of an unhealthy situation for your own sake, I think you should not try to contact her again because you broke it off in the midst of her depression.

 

It's not exactly a bad thing or is it selfish, because that stuff can weigh you down when dealing with a person like that, but she's always going to remember this blotch on your relationship. I personally don't think that's something you can ever really get past without even more extra baggage. Really sucks she has clinical depression though, I know how it is to be a certain way with mental health issues and drag everyone down around you without meaning to.

 

I think the fact that I broke it off instead of her would be more of a stumbling block. Her favorite threat during our many fights was that she would cut me out of her life, but then I was the one who did it in the end, for which I'm sure I'll never be forgiven.

 

Anyway, thanks for all the kind words, guys. I'll give it a few more days, spend some time around good people, and the feelings will fade again. I just wanted to indulge myself for a bit. My college reunion is in May, I might run into her then, and maybe I'll have something cordial to say, if she's willing to hear it.

[miffy495]

It's really hard to deal with that situation. I was talking to a friend yesterday who is suffering from that and somehow a fight happened from the fact I'd had a chance to buy an album I knew they wanted for less than $5 so I picked it up for them. I'm still not sure what the leaps of logic were that caused me to be framed as a jerk for that by them (thing about depression: it's not really logical), but I've known them long enough to know that all I could say to that was "I'm not going to fight you tonight. I'll talk to you later" and wait it out. This morning, I texted them back and we went on like nothing happened. This is how I've learned to deal after years of knowing this person, but if I didn't know them better and didn't know what they were going through, it would be really easy to cut it off altogether. Hell, there's still a big temptation to do that sometimes, but I value this person in my life too much for that. I do get frustrated much more easily now than I used to though, which troubles me. It's almost like now that I'm used to this person, it's easier for my brain to mistake it for them being a jerk. This is opposed to when they were new to my life and the fact that I didn't understand maybe made me pay more attention to the fact that it's beyond their control? I don't know, honestly. It's as irrational as anything else going on under the surface.

 

Man, this just became me venting too. Long story short: I grok. Depression doesn't just suck for the person suffering, it sucks for everyone who loves them too. I don't think you need to be feeling particularly guilty about recognizing that you didn't feel equipped to deal with that, and ultimately if you knew that it wasn't going to last it was better to cut it off after a short time than to draw it out and make it worse for everyone. While I get that you want to at least apologize (from the sounds of it), given the way that it ended that's probably not a good call. 

 

So how about them dreams, huh? I've noticed that I've been waking up in the night exactly in proportion to how prepared I am for the next day of school. If I have everything planned out, I sleep just fine. If I'm counting on another teacher to have a lesson ready that I'm assisting with, I wake up three or four times during the night. And god help me if I have to teach a phys ed class (I suck at gym). I don't remember my dreams at all as a result, because I always wake up before they really get going now. Fun!

[Zeusthecat]

I'll air out my dirty laundry too. I have had to deal with people very close to me having depression throughout my whole life. It is really fucking frustrating. The part that sucks most is that I am unable to complain or say anything negative because it will immediately be brought to my attention that I don't have any right to complain because I don't suffer from depression. So not only do I have to maintain a positive attitude 100% of the time, I also have to be an emotional punching bag during the lows. Good thing I'm such a happy fucking person.

 

Gormongous, the only advice I can give is to walk away when you find yourself in arguments of the type you mentioned. It is hard to do and I still fail at it sometimes but I have found that the best way to make progress is to just let them shout and say nasty things and do not respond to it. They will cool down later and that is usually the best time to have a calm conversation where they will be more receptive to what you have to say. Over time you can make a lot of progress but that element will most likely never go away entirely. I see no harm in reaching out to someone you care about if you are prepared for any of the negative stuff that might come along with it. I am very sympathetic to what you are going/have gone through and even though it might be unbearable for you at times, people that suffer from depression need good, understanding people in their lives more than anybody.

 

Also, I dreamed last night that I was sneaking out to a nearby bar on the beach to take tequila shots. I could taste the salt on the rim of the glass as I downed each one. I did one after another but I was never able to get drunk.

[Berzee]

Last night I tried to wake up my wife who had fallen asleep on the couch.

 

"Time to go to bed," says I.

 

"I can't..." mumbles she.

 

"YOU CAN AND YOU MUST."

 

"There's...no room."

 

"What? Yes there is, the dogs are in their cages," I reply, thinking she must be dreaming that the dogs wouldn't get off the bed or something.

 

"No, there's no...space. There's no room."

 

After a moment of confusion, realization struck me. "Are you talking about inventory space?"

 

"Um.......

...yes."

 

(Lord of the Rings Online, which we've been playing together the past few nights and which is her first MMORPG, is for the most part very good about making the f2p stuff feel like sparkly extra conveniences or bonus content, but the inventory space upgrades always felt like something that should be free. That my wife has begun to have troubled dreams about loot management further strengthens my opinion on this matter. )