Persistent dreamscapes

Anyone else keep returning to the same fictional locations in your dreams?

I keep having dreams located in a city that's a composite of places I know and totally fictional places my mind has made up, but their location and structure are always the same in my dreams. It's become almost a second home, and I can draw a map of it just as easily as I can my hometown.

It's the only thing that ties my dreams together, because otherwise they are all over the place. Sometimes I live in a basement, sometimes I live in a house, sometimes I live with my parents in my childhood home. Sometimes I'm alone, sometimes I'm with friends, sometimes I'm with people I don't know. But the city...it's always the same.

It's got a megamall in the center, with like 12 different food courts that go up several levels. There's a grocery store at the entrance with a PC shop in the corner of it (kinda like how many Wal-Mart stores have a Subway or McDonalds). It all seems so familiar now, it's as vivid as anything IRL.

@korvus Look, I'm not hating. ;-)

I was actually considering making a thread asking if others had experienced stuff like this. It's always slightly different than the real world but it's always consistent. Like I'm entering a alternate universe.

I've always had recurring dreams of places I've lived before but they are all different, distorted in some fashion. But I did have a cool futuristic dream once, it was this huge Pyramid shaped framed structure that was an entire city within it. My most dreaded are the ones where I'm living back at home as being a failure is what makes it a nightmare, not so much living at home again though that's not a pleasant though either lol.

I had this very surreal dream once where I'm back at this house I lived in through middle school but it was haunted. It wasn't scary per say as I don't seem to feel fear in dreams that I can recall but was very surreal and the house was bigger in a sense. I used to have a lot of crazy dreams where I'm running super fast and pass up my destination but were kind of fun and there was a period of a few years where I would have sleep paralysis a couple times a month, those sucked. As soon as I'd fall asleep, I'd become aware and have to force myself to wake up. I usually would have to get up and watch tv for 30 minutes then I could fall asleep ok. When paralyzed there's this can't breath or trapt feeling and this sudden need to force myself to wake up...hated those.

*edit: Oh and I forgot to mention I had an out of body experience once in college. The only one I ever had but damn that was a crazy dream. I lived in a 1 bdrm apt. with a friend, I slept on the futon in the living room. One night I became aware and was floating above my body facing the ceiling. I turn my head and despite it was near pitch black in the room when I went to bed, I could see everything, all the details were there, the TV, stuff laying around..etc. Then this shadow entity came out of the corner, angrily came at me and grabbed me, I could feel the pressure of his grab. He flung me through the bedroom, I could see my room mate laying in bed, covers up to his head facing the other way as I just floated on by from the force. This dream had amazing detail. The momentum shoved me to the corner wall and my right arm went through the wall, I could feel the boards, the insulation and bricks on the other side. It was like I just got wedged into it as if it was water. I looked back from where I came, I could see my head on the futon with the covers over me and instantly I slammed into my body like a hammer and woke up instantly.....you haven't had a crazy dream till you had an OBE one.

Last night I dreamed the judge from Nothing but Trouble was trying to break in. I rammed a steel rod into his head but he regenerated. So I doused him in gasoline and set him on fire.

I rarely experience fear in my dreams, but when I do it is absolute.

I had a dream a month or so ago where I was in a friends real-life house, though it was distorted in the dream as it had a basement that was like many times the size of the house. There were three kitchens in this basement in different areas, and although most of the basement was stacked with junk that looked like it hand't been touched in 80 years, the milk in the fridges was fresh.

Anyway, this friend and I were walking through the basement and I'm thinking "I wouldn't mind renting this basement, it would fix up nicely and there'd be plenty of room". After we walked the whole round we came back to the room with the stairs going up to the house proper, and I looked into an adjacent room just in time to see a human silhouette rise up out of the floor and just stare at me.

I was looking at it and it was looking at me, and it was pure hatred. I froze, couldn't move, and I was trying to force myself to call out to my friend. I woke myself up actually muttering the most awful "uuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" I've ever heard. It was disturbing.

Yeah, most places I recognize from the real world in my dreams are somewhat distorted. Often it has to do with extra rooms, hidden passageways or extra floors.

I dream of high school a lot...despite being 30 years old LOL

Dreaming I'm in any way associated with that movie would be a horrible nightmare. Except for the Humpty song. That was a'ight.

To the Op, yes. Architecture is often an anchor point in my dreams. When I wake up, I'll often briefly remember a place from my last dream that I remember dreaming before but had previously forgotten, but it's hard to know if that's real or if I just dreamed that I dreamed it before and that the sense of Deja Vu is actually false.

-Byshop

Same

Has anyone ever made up music in their dreams where it was intricate and sounded amazing? I've had a few lucid dreams where it focused on that and I was able to control (at least it felt like I was in control) how the music flowed. Usually it was electric guitar work, often these long, beautiful solo's that sounded really complex. I'd wake up feeling like if I could keep that in my head and recreate it, that it would be a smash hit...or maybe it was just perceived that way when I awoke.

I wonder why this is so common? I've mentioned this to friends before and they too have had memorable dreams of extra rooms and hidden passages. I wonder if it has something to do with a human need to explore? Then again I also have heard some friends say they don't dream or don't ever remember their dreams. Though I forget much of them, some are very memorable for some reason but I always remember dreaming of something whenever I sleep even if I forget what it was.

All my HS dreams were usually focused around me forgetting my locker combination or unable to find my class. I figured maybe that used to be some oddball, subconscious fear of mine or something.

I'm not actually sure I've ever heard music in my dreams. Not that I recall, and I'm pretty good about recalling dreams.

I'm not sure why it's common, but if I could build a house like some in the dreams I've had I'd have to call it a lair and not a house. :-p

I often visit the same places in my dreams.

My favorite are the ones where I fly over them.

Not a fictional place in my case, sometimes I dream of my grandparents' old house (grandparents died long time ago and the house was sold). It was a big-creepy house, and that's why these dreams occasionally turn into nightmares... Dang, I guess I need some psychoanalysis or something.

Interesting thread!

EDIT: Seems like OP is having "open world" dreams... Careful with micro-transactions!

In my dreams I never visit the same place but rather different places.

And I always dream about travelling, to Mexico, the Caribbean, other parts of the U.S. and Europe.

When I'm awake I find myself daydreaming about it also.

I've had many recurring dreams set in places where I've lived, which do have a certain consistency when it comes to the layout of these dreamscapes, though they are very much distorted from the real world. I've been on long walks around them many times, though I do occasionally drive a car or hop on a train in these dreams. I've also had many dreams where I have traveled to far off places, different countries around the world, in spite of the fact I've never been abroad. Also a lot of dreams where I've been in a car, either as a passenger or driver, on the way to somewhere, which are oddly relaxing.

I won't go into some of the recurring nightmares I've experienced. *shudders*

Don't know about reoccurring dreams but I have had multiple dreams to where I am a dragon and its always the same dragon as well, I've also had multiple dreams to where I've been the same Pokemon as well ones that seem to be most frequent seem to be Yveltal, Articuno, Ninetales, Lugia, Reshiram, Dialga, Lycanroc, Latias and others.

Yveltal seems to be the most frequent though.

I've also been to the same planet before in my dreams but sometimes the same locations sometimes different that one I usually am always a dragon in. Always to the point to where it can seem like a reality of its own.

On the subject of dreams these would be some of the interesting ones I've I had that I've been a Dragon, Dialga or Articuno in

Couple of different dragon made attempts into crossing over from dreams into this reality

Azelf made an attempt on it as well and was going to bring me over while I was Primal Dialga

Moltres made an attempt to synchronize each reality I've been in and bring their destruction just to keep me in that reality that Moltres also seemed to be perfectly well aware of each life form I've been including this reality and he says that my original form was a dragon.

But yeah some of mine can get pretty crazy

Another interesting one I was like a crow or raven in was flying around in town and saw a clock in someones house on a different floor and it I ended waking up it also seemed to be raining at the exact same time in both this reality and the dream that and the wind speeds were going the same.


Here is another dream I've had I thought was fairly interesting this dream I was a Ninetales in some guy was chasing me down until I got trapped in a Tunnel then he sends out a Celebi I wasn't sure if his plan was to capture me or kill but instead of having Celebi attack me he has Celebi send me 200 years into the future on some desolated Island think his entire plan was to alter the past then everything in the future I was in would be erased along with everythin in it after a while that I thought about that island did look familiar and think it was part of a town in a previous dream I had when I was Dialga and Palkia tried to destroy the Island by creating distortions in Time. I did prevent that Town's destruction so I think this might be a prequel to that dream. That I also knew I was capable of becoming Dialga in that dream but I don't think that guy knew that so I could just negate that future's destruction regardless of whatever happens in the past.

Think all this Time Travel and messing with Time would probably just give me a headache I'm assuring tampering with any of it is a bad idea in the long run. Some things aren't meant to be mess with and this is one of them.

I had dreams that I was stuck in a coding world, and I had to solve advanced programming problems to get out. Sometimes I wake up from the dream, rush to the computer and try the code out.

@br0kenrabbit: So proud of you:P I knew you could do it ;)

As for the subject in question I don't think I have had any persistent setting in my dream since I started (and later stopped) having lucid dreams. Before that though, it happened quite a bit. That city was so messed up...

I do have recurring nightmares though, but the setting changes.

My dreams are almost always set in real places from memory and they usually revolve around anxiety. I think it just reflects what kind of person I am as it is with everyone.

One recurring dream I used to have was me running down the middle of the road that runs outside my house and being physically unable to move out of the way of oncoming cars.

The one I have the most often right now is of me missing college assignment due dates. That was one of my biggest fears at university - not getting my work done on time.

@Starshine_M2A2: I still have the college assignment dreams whenever I'm really stressed about work. I either forget I have an assignment or I'm late for an exam...