Weird Dreams

I've always admired people that have vivid dreams, sometimes full length movies in living color.  A friend of mine could even return to hers after waking up, go back to where she'd left off and continue the "movie."

My dreams are weird.  I dream in disconnected snapshots and usually in grayscale.  Most of the time, I do not remember my dreams.  Rarely do I dream of people I know, rather,  the people in my dreams are strangers.  Sometimes, a stranger will "feel" like he/she is really a particular person I know, but with a stranger's face. 

Supposedly, non-physical beings communicate with us in the dream state.  I wish I knew what they were trying to tell me!  I've tried giving myself suggestions before retiring to dream more clearly and to remember them in the morning... to no avail.

It would be interesting to know how other people dream... if you'd like to share.

Pleasant dreams,



UKFan1968's picture

My dreams are similar to yours...However they include some of my dead relatives.. Wish I could figure tem out also...sometimes I think we a not suppose to figure them out...I am starting to think we know each other from another incarnation....The awakening  as one connection maybe...Happy New Year..Love and Light to you my new beautiful friend......Billy

Wendy's picture

I also dream in short segments but I dream very symbolically. Some times I can figure them out, sometimes I can't. If I have color at all in a dream, it's usually very symbolic and brief.

Lately I've been dreaming about animals. I once dreamed about John Glen (hero symbol) also once dreamed of a sea serpent/dragon.

I don't get these type dreams very often but if I can remember it in the morning I try to write it down and think about it for the next few days. I can usually figure out what they mean in a few days time.

I would suggest that if a stranger feels like someone in your dream, then that's who it is. I once dreamed about 2 red cars. At the time I knew 2 women who were both involved in the organization of the church - they both drove red cars. In the dream, I was driving and I almost got into an accident as the red cars almost hit me. I realized later that it was time for me to leave the church - I think it was a warning dream that they were taking advantage of me in some way.

I hope you will post any snippets you can remember - I love to find the meaning of symbols found in dreams. I sometimes consult a dream dictionary.


Noa's picture

Dear Wendy:

Several years ago, I had dream that I was wading knee deep in a calm stream.  Two snakes slithered across my path.  I do not remember what was going on in my life at the time.  This is one dream I haven't figured out.

On a different subject... I wonder if anyone else has ever been visited by an incubus.  This used to happen to me quite frequently when I lived in an old house a block away from an old cemetary.  I could physically feel the pressure of something laying across my body.  I would struggle to regain consciousness to free myself from what I perceived to be a dark force.

Recently, the incubus sensation returned when I was living in an oppressive situation.  (Reference my post, "Why does crap keep happening?")  Something kept shaking my bed and waking me up.  This time, I turned on the light and told whatever it was to go into the Christ light.  It never returned.

Weird, huh?



Hi Noa,

I have never heard the term "incubus dream" before but I have had 2 of them. They were both the same, I couldn't move and was lying in bed and someone was walking around the house, in the dream my head was lifted and I was looking down my body through my open door at the hall way, I caught a couple of glimpses of "him" but really I was just listening super intensly as he moved through the house....I eventually got a finger to move which woke me up...they were really scary at the time and many years ago now.

I know people who have lived with spirits, my dad did for years. The funny part of this is that at the last house I was renting there was "something"...I would be in my bed room and hear someone moving around in the kitchen. The first few times I went and searched the house....after that I knew what it was...I welcomed it and asked if wanted never said? lol......

I think it was just there to be honest although I am not sure if you noticed but my incubus dream was "terrifying"...someone moving around the house and me unable to do anything about it... and years later it was sort of the same thing....I wasn't locked and unable to move but this "spirit" isn't physical so being able to move probably doesn't mean much anyway..I'm still "helpless" to it...if I choose to ever feel helpless that is....

I never noticed a connection between to the two things before...interesting, thanks!...Lol



ps...when I do remember my dreams...they have always been in color......

onesong's picture

Noa, this is from an old post of mine circa 2008, but since you've asked about dreams i'll repost it. This had alot of meaning to me and caused much thought about my life and spirit at the time. I was going through a period of loss and interpreting this was very helpful. Shortly after, I had another in which my grandmother appeared. She was the only person I have ever had a 'telepathic' ability with. She took me upstairs to a 'room' that had no ceiling and 12 hand carved wooden beds like you'd see in an old movie about Royals and dressers full of gems and jewelry and pearls. Her message was about my path and earthly choices. Also, a very 'telling' dream to me.

inner work can bring up much that we arent aware of while we suppose we are 'awake'. *smiles* 

i am alone in a purely white room. white bed, white walls, white shades, wearing white. nothing of any color at all. none. my whole world is white.
i hear something outside. an animal crying. a dog crying. a dog i used to have. the only one that was ever 'MY' dog- Buckwheat. i loved her very very much. 
i go outside. (now everything is extremely vividly coloured) everything green, the banks of a river flowing quickly by. she is standing there with a snapping turtle next to her as big as she is. they are both covered with blood. very vivid healing green and very bright red blood. i feel momentarily almost hysterical.
i am not afraid of the turtle, i am afraid for the dog. i pick her up and hold her wanting to help her. there is no time. i hold her in my arms as she dies.
i am heartbroken at the loss, i am angry at the turtle-but not afraid of it. as i'm wrestling with my anger and my knowing that animals react instinctually, i hear rustling in the brush. i am next to a riverbed where i have laid her down. i cry.
something - i cant say it was an alligator, no teeth like that, legless, wide but serpent-like (smiling like something out of a childrens cartoon) swallows the turtle whole, making me momentarily glad - feeling like it deserved to be swallowed up - i can see the outline of the turtle in it's belly.
then the serpentine thing ( i am not clear what to call it) turns and smiles at me, turns on itself, swallows its tail and vanishes into thin air. Namaste.

Noa's picture

Dear Onesong:

Thank you for kind and inspiring words.  My feeling as I was reading your dog dreams was that Buckwheat no doubt brought color and brightness to your world.  I feel the dream with the turtle and 'alligator' is a way of you processing your loss.

These are just my thoughts.  Only you know the real interpretation.

Thanks for sharing,


Brian's picture

 Larry Burkes (physician interviewed in the awesome video about 9/11 as a hypnotic trance inducement) mentioned a book he read to a group I attended last night. We were talking about dreams and their interpretation and Larry said Healing Dreams was maybe the best book he had ever read! Apparently it helps you to evaluate and sort out the meaning of dreams thru multiple techniques and is even used as a textbook in some college courses. Larry uses the techniques to help him use his dreams to his advantage. I found out he's writing a book about healing. He has been aggressively challenged by conservative doctors and others for his work to bring alternative healing techniques to bear within a clinical setting. He's a bit of a hero to me.

Onesong-your INCREDIBLE dream of the 'snake' makes me wonder if entities come and assist us in dreams! The smiling snake is just so helpful yet it's quick departure seems so mysterious.
With love-Brian

Wendy's picture

Here's my go at dream interpretation.

Noa - I have 2 ideas in mind for your dream. It could be sexual - water is a symbol for sex especially if it was warm and then there's the 2 snakes (2 men?). Or perhaps you were testing the waters and worried about potential problems that could arise (the snakes).

Kristy- I think your dream is very much about time. The turtle symbolizing the slow passage of time. Time only exists in this world of green and red (good and evil) but you came from a pure place of eternity (the white world). I think your dream indicated that you are upset that there is not enough time for love (or all the things you would like to love, or enough time with your dog?) in this world. But then you remembered that in reality you are pure spirit that exists in eternity (or infinity) symbolised by the snake that swallows the turtle and then it's own tail.

Sorry if I've got it all dead wrong - I just love to uncover hidden truths - it seems that what's happening when we figure out our dreams.




onesong's picture


Wendy, You come pretty close to my own interpretation. The turtle is also patience, I was unhappy at the pace things were happening (or not happening) in my life at the time. The white room, I was going through Ministerial training at the time and very involved in my own spiritual process, but also wanting to be sure I was doing what was 'right' for me as well as those close to me. The green fertile world seemed outside of myself, rather than part of me as a Whole divine being. My heart had been split wide open and I was coming out of a time of heartbreak-which I realize now was just my heart expanding to accept so much more love than I had ever dreamed of. I think Buckwheat's appearance (she's been gone since the late 70's) was just to remind me of what love and loss feel like, and yet we never really stop loving even when there is loss. The snake swallowing it's own tail is an Ouroboros, described in wikipedia as-



All in all, what seemed upon awakening a little upsetting, was actually quite life affirming and what I needed at the time. Dream on, my sisters!

Francis's picture

I had a couple very similar experiences with the incubus or dark force as you called it.  The one that stands out the most happened when I was about 23.  I was taking a nap in the early afternoon when I suddenly realized that there was a presence there with me.  It was one of those situations where you know you're still asleep yet it feels like you're awake.  I was lying there in my bed, on my back, and I could even see through my closed eyelids as I watched a dark mass accumulating in the upper corner of my room over the doorway.  I tried desperately to wake up, tried moving my fingers, yelling at my roommate in the other room, but nothing worked, I was just forced to lay there as this thing got bigger and bigger.  When it had grown to a hazy dark mass about the six feet around it slowly moved down to me until I could feel it pressing down upon me, almost cutting off my air supply as it's weight constricted my chest.  I tried to yell , to wake myself up, but for a good four or five seconds it had me pinned and I felt completely helpless and trapped under it's weight.  Finally I willed myself awake and it disappeared. Scared the living daylights out of me.

The other dream that stands out, and for some reason I think it's related, happened about four or five years later.  Now this was more your standard dream fare until the ending.  It started out I was in a forest at night, at first I think I was there with friends, but when my vivid memory kicks in I was suddenly alone and wondering where everyone went.  A creepy sensation came over me as I realized I was in a dark and unknown forest by myself.  I remember I was standing there looking around through the trees in disbelief and growing tension when I had the sinking suspicion that I was being watched.  Without realizing it I was suddenly running away from whatever it was that was watching me and then we were dashing through the trees at breakneck speed, the dark thing chasing me now no longer a suspicion but clearly in pursuit, I could here it but I never clearly saw it , it was just a dark being and it was gaining on me.  I remember experiencing real terror, as though if this thing caught up with me it was all over.  And then, as quickly as the pursuit had begun I suddenly turned a corner and fell to my knees, a large burning cross standing there before me.  It was raised in the air and about five feet in diameter, though all physical aspects seemed to be gone, it was just there, a cross of fire in the air like it had come through the fabric of space/time.  Suddenly the dark forest around me was lit up and I instinctively knew the dark thing was gone.  I stared and stared at the cross until it was as though I was almost a part of it.  I remember feeling extremely grateful and sitting there on my knees gasping with sighs of relief.  Then I woke up. 

Let me just say that I'd been battling the onset of depression stemming from a lack of purpose and meaning in my life when this incubus first attacked me.  I'd had these feelings throughout my lifetime for as long as I could remember, since childhood!, but at this point in my life they were rapidly increasing, and my heavy drinking wasn't helping.  Things got steadily worse after that so that by the time of the second dream I was almost suicidal and, though instinctively I knew that wasn't an option, I was getting closer nonetheless, for a life lived without purpose is not a life worth living.  And let me say that I had no religious leanings of any sort.  My mother never pushed me that way because she had been.  I'd tried to read the Bible all the way through at one point in my life, reading the Old and New Testaments together, but got so turned off by all the sacrifices, adulteries, murders and betrayals, everything I abhored about life being condoned and even demanded in the Old Testament that it turned me off to Christianity altogether.  So this cross in my dream came as a real surprise is my point here. 

I remember those dreams often because they were so vivid and the emotions I experienced were so real.  Just thought I'd share that with you Noa since you asked and since your incubus dream was so similar.   If anyone cares to interpret have fun!

Starmonkey's picture

it can be fun to try and interpret others' dreams.  ultimately, though, we can only make sense (or nonsense) of our own.  mainly because the subconscious doesn't use the same language and perceptions that we are used to in our every day technosphere existence.  confusion persists.  unless you really spend time and space on a day-to-day level interacting with the seen and unseen, the manifest and the not-so-much.  becoming CONSCIOUS of your thought and feeling processes and the resonances they perpetuate.  and then clearing them the hell out.

so, whatever it is we interact with in the dream-state, even if it's mainly our own persona and its myriad of faces and appearances in attempting to get us to look at ourselves and harmonize them.  you cannot take dreams literally.  it will drive you crazy or to attribute more meaning or weight to certain images (making you see them more by the power of attraction) or you become obsessed with interpreting...  usually it's unreleased stress or issues that haven't been worked out through living.  but i surely can't tell someone else how to balance their energies.

with that out of the way...  i have had a recurring weird dream in which i'll relate the main proponents (yes, i think that word fits here).  the setting is usually a large rambling structure like an old school or church or house, but like a sort of maze with no seeming right path through.  added on rooms or weird little routes through windows, across rooftops...  large staircases and doors to the outside.  now, there are two alternates as to the characters.  in one series, the setting may seem like a huge flop-house or party place with people camped or resisiding in all manner of areas.  one dream even had a huge yard where a concert was to take place.  the other set usually has me being chased by zombies or monsters of some kind, but not being in terror.  more like reasoning my way out of the mess/situation (while simultaneously fleeing).  had one like that last week, but the zombies seemed to be smarter/reasoning as well.  like hybrids or mutants, and in this dream they were definitely pursuing ME.  never been that specific before.  there's usually only one way out of these dreams which i don't seem to be aware of during the dream, but which pieces itself together as i weave my way through the landscape.  often there are others with me toward the beginning, but they are lost (or saved) during the adventure.  i have no fear in the dream of not escaping.  but it's almost like a part of me treats these entities/representations as a nuisance and that i can't get to the real story because of them.  that part is also waiting to see what the real story actually is.  so, that's my main scenario.  probably when i have more underlying/existential stress hanging about.

comments, anyone?  dreams of pursuit?  or "action" dreams of anxiety or directed purpose?  curiouser and curiouser...

Starmonkey's picture

just a fun little indiana jones reference there.  the most elaborate dream i can remember is from several years back.  i was in an impoverished african village in the savannah and it was deathly quiet.  the residents were all gathered around near me waiting for something.  then a sort-of drumming began which seemed to come from out of the earth.  and it was awakening large numbers of snakes which began crawling hither and yon, but then moving in a definite direction.  there was a little pond/puddle in the middle of the village with a little mound/island on it.  and a HUGE snake was beginning to surface.  i wanted to get out of its way (another recurrent theme of me and big snakes. not FEAR, per se, but respect) and went into a hut.  it had a wood floor (go figure) and the floorboards were being pushed up by the enormity of the approaching reptile.  i got out of there and noticed the entire village and surrounding fauna was doing the same.  stampede!  all of the animals were fleeing the approach of something LARGER.  these two horses then appeared for me to scramble aboard (there was no one else with me, but an implied "someone") and carried me along with the tide to safety behind a couple of trees as the wave passed us by.

in a less detailed one i had a couple of weeks ago...

i was cleaning out a house with someone else who was carrying out items to be saved or trashed that i would then commit to this pile or that.  i was standing at the base of a small set of stairs and he was carrying out a mini fridge to junk.  as he set it down and rolled it toward me, i noticed a large snake coming through the grass and bushes toward us.  i quickly changed the course of the fridge to avoid crushing the snake and then backed out of its way.  it also changed course and went toward what looked like a chicken roost.  my partner wanted to follow it and harass it and rather than disuade him, i went along.  still wanting to protect the snake or make sure it came to no harm, because i felt no malice or mischief in me.  in the roost, it became a very small snake, almost wormlike but with a slightly bigger head.  he began pestering it through the chicken wire and it became agitated and then angry like a hornet.  started to squeeze its head through the wire to get at us.  i ran off and at that point it got through and sprouted wings like one of del toro's fairies and came after me.  i swatted around at it a bit and then evaded it.


Starmonkey's picture

i spit the above comment about dream interpretation mainly from reaction to "dream dictionaries" and the like.  stewart swerdlow and his wife, janet among them.  those definitions don't hold for everyone and everything because we all perceive differently.  and there are LAYERS of interpretation.  and misunderstanding.  there is no inherent meaning, except in BEING.  with conviction, of course.

and really, dreams are attempting to get one to change something.  or notice something.  and be changed for the knowing.  so, i know what i'm supposed to do in these dreams of pursuit.  stop running.  get caught.  be poisoned or eaten and transmuted by the experience.  now i just need to convince myself of that while dreaming (and beyond?)...

Trish's picture

Interpreting dreams can be fun, I'll have a go at it!

My first question - do you do a lot of problem solving in your day-to-day and when these dreams occur, did you have caffeine or other stimulants in the afternoon/evening?

The reason I'm asking is I also often get dreams like this where I'm escaping pursuit, getting into adventure, figuring things out as I go along. I find it's usually when I'm working on a big project and/or had a lot of caffeine that day. My dream state mind gets into loops where it's like I'm trying to solve the same problem over and over, where I'm being endlessly chased, or I'm constantly travelling but not stopping for long.

Caffeine and stress aside, another possible interpretation I see is that the building represents a viewpoint on life - complex, always changing, busy, full of dangers to avoid, exciting, and elusive to find that 'one path' to the goal. :-)

My guess is that you might not need to let yourself get eaten by the zombies, but while in the dream, become lucid enough to realize that you are creating the zombies that are chasing you and you can just tell them to stop. Also that the goal might be just a shift in thought away (kind of Alice in wonderland-like). I've done stuff like that in my dreams before, and it's interesting how the dream can change instantly when that happens, or the dream characters stop, frozen and dumbfounded because I'm no longer 'pulling the strings.'

Cheers, Trish

Starmonkey's picture

honestly couldn't tell you about the possible chemical influence.  but a friend also suggested orientation of body while sleeping.  i usually try to orient the bed north and south, and we had our heads to the north for four years and just switched them to the south and have been having more vivid dreams.  also, different setting and surrounded by other energies/people, so i'm sure that had an affect.

i've had this weird desire to get bit by a snake for several years now.  as a cathartic or healing process.  almost stepped on a rattler a few years back, but sasha knew it was there and wouldn't go down the trail to the river to drink.  penelope stepped right past it and went several yards beyond, and as i started back i took about two steps and heard the warning and stopped my foot in mid-air a few feet from...  well, y'know.

had a friend who tested different venoms (wouldn't do gila monster ;)) and, after injuring the back of my hand out of a fit of anger and smacking a yucca plant (penelope removed a lot of dry leaf points from it) i wanted something to break down some of what was left in my skin.  we tracked down a bark scorpion (pregnant mommy who wanted nothing to do with us but get away) and put her on my hand and got her to sting the area right at the meat of the thumb connection.  ooooo.  had to sleep with my arm outside the sleeping bag that night because it was on fire up to the shoulder, but it worked.

and i understand about the taking charge of the dream.  i've had near-moments, but then lost it.  and, no i wasn't going to let the zombies catch me!  i meant the snakes.  but, you are right about the dream changing focus/direction once you make a different choice.  exciting to follow the trail of breadcrumbs!  i've heard it said that if you try to focus to hard on any one thing in the dream, you will lose it.  more like the WHOLE dream and setting/scenario is a packet of information meant to be taken in total, but if you look to close then you will see the facade and not what's behind it.

i'm going to try to co-create my dreams more.  go to bed with intention or focus on a certain something.  and then get up slower and before waking fully into this "reality", see where they overlap or try to carry something out of the dream world into this one.

thanks for playing, trish!  see you in wonderland!

Noa's picture

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your dreams.  Dreams give us cryptic insights we can't get anywhere else.  While we're at it, I'd like to know what other people experience as 'bad dreams'.

My nightmares usually take one of two forms.  Either I'm being chased or I can't get home.

When chased, it's usually by the police. I thought that meant I have a guilty conscience (though I'm a very honest person).  I never considered that caffeine or repetitive problem-solving during waking hours might be a factor in fleeing dreams.  I'll have to take note of it the next time it happens, Trish.  Not so sure about your repetition theory, though.  Usually, when I do something repetitive, (like bicycling for hours), I dream about doing that specific task; it makes for a rather literal dream, though sometimes the repetitive task morphs into something else.

My other recurring nightmare -- not being able to find my way home is often more disturbing than being chased because it's so unattainable, despite my efforts.  The dream usually starts out harmlessly enough... I'm walking home from somewhere, but then I keep meeting people along the way or get side-tracked or delayed in some way, or I've forgotten the way, or the distance gets longer... until I feel so frustrated that I wake up.  Frustrated isn't really the right word; it feels more intense than frustration.  I don't know what to call it.  I think this type of dream echos the loss and rejection themes in my waking hours.

Whether bad or sweet, dreams seem to be a way of working out our stuff and preserving our psyches.  [God or] whoever designed us this way is a Divine Architect.

GregH3000's picture

Noa, I'm starting to think we are psychically linked or something.  I have had those kind of dreams of not finding my way, too (although it doesn't necessarily have to be "home"), driving aimlessly, stopping somewhere, getting back on the highway.  Funny thing is, I haven't had one of those in many years, but in the late 80s when I was writing down all my dreams, I had about five of those over the span of as many years.

The Silva method has a glass of water technique for remembering dreams.  You drink a half a glass of water, then mentally or verbally say your intention to remember your dream, and then drink the other half glass of water.  I haven't played with it yet, but supposedly if you practice, you can get to the point of where your friend who interacted with her dreams as you described much earlier in this thread.

tscout's picture

     I had a dream like that,,,but only had it once....It was the night of my first fire ceremony. Somewhere in Massachussets, a big gathering with shamans from all around the world. The main event was a big fire ceremony,so big we had to have 5 fires, one in the center, and 4 more around it in the four directions.You cleanse yourself with fire, scooping your hands into the fire and washing yourself with it,and everyone there is singing the same song(a song calling the rain,actually).It doesn't stop for hours, until everyone has been to the fire,,,,,then it rained from a starlit sky!

     My dream that night was me,,,trying to find my mother's house. I knew exactly where it was, but,,,it wasn't there. I tried from every direction,,,,even trying to sneak up on it by cutting through the neighbors yards behind her and jumping their big fence,,,but it just wasn't there! She was my only family in that part of the country back then, and I hadn't lived there in a very long time, but I was intent on finding it.....Never did! LaterI interpeted it to be about our relationship.She and I had become close when I was in high school.  She had an awakening through her studies with a woman and group from the Cayce institute who taught astrology, did  relly interesting channelings, and opened her eyes to a whole new world. Her and my father grew apart, and divorced after we had all graduated school. Later, around the time of the dream, she had remarried, and lost interest in all those things, and her mind started closing up again. Her new husband was a great guy, but as uninformed as it gets, and she took on his crap. It was sad to see her reverting like that, but she seemed happy. So that dream signalled the end of the cycle we had enjoyed for many years, sharing interesting subjects and experiences,,,,and became the more common mother/son relationship.....Now she is over 80,,,and she is starting to ask questions again, but her husband just blames Obama for everything, and can't see anything  past that..I believe that,,,like many,,her clarity will return before she passes........L,,,,,T

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