What is the most profound impact a dream has had on you?

At 3 or 4 I had a dream my dad got sucked into a toilet in an evil carnival that led to me running from flushing toilets for the next decade. I don't get it, but finally broke it when I was a teenager.

At 12 I jad a dream the Rapture came, and my practicing pagan dad wasn't able to board the bus to heaven with us. That actually led me to leave religion because I felt my dad was the better of my two parents, and he somehow was condemned for not being in the right religion. It shook loose a lot of philosophical stuff I had grappled with for the previous eight years, and led to three more years of internal conflict about the religion I was raised in (Evangelical Christianity). It all worked out eventually, after a 6-month flirt with Internet Atheism at 18..

I have a lot of dreams that stick with me. One in particular might have altered by life trajectory.

In my late teens/early 20's I had a dream about a big aquarium of dead fish. Somehow I was responsible. I looked up some dream meaning stuff and mostly saw "unfinished business" coming up as an interpretation. I had dropped out of community college a couple years previously. That prompted me to set returning and finishing school as a goal. It took several years before I was back in community college, but ten years later I earned my doctorate.

Had a coworker pass away from COVID complications at the start of 2021. Sometime later that year after vaccines were made available, we had to go into the office at least once a week (small team, everyone had the entire office to themselves on their chosen day).

On one morning of a day I would be going in, I had a dream where I was talking to the office gang like it was pre-pandemic days, including the coworker who had passed. Except in the dream I and the other folks "knew" that it wasn't really her; it was a doppelganger who was brought on to take her name and face so that we wouldn't feel sad about her being gone. We'd try to coax this doppelganger to drop the act because we didn't need them to pretend to be our old coworker and we accepted that she was gone.

Woke from that dream and while driving to the office, felt for some inexplicable reason that I couldn't go in that day. I didn't have any meetings scheduled so I just took the day off without telling anyone.

I have very vivid dreams, and I also have a lot of semi-conscious dreams (lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and some other things along those lines that I don't know any terms for). My dreams have given me quite a few creative ideas and I think have generally made me a more imaginative person. I like having them and remembering them.

However, I have never felt like any one dream has ever imparted any real meaning or insight. They're just dreams to me.

Instead, I think the meta experience of dreaming is where I have gotten the greatest value. Over the years, I have really been able to change the way that I dream, even though that feels like it should be impossible. Some examples of the ways I have changed my dreams:

• I was racked with intense nightmares as a kid. Over the years, I learned how to counter my scariest dreams and turn them into my absolute favorite dreams. Getting chased by a monster now grants me the ability to fly, jump over buildings, disguise myself as any object — and soon I'm having so much fun doing those things that I forget all about the monster.
• I used to have lucid dreams almost every morning that I was not woken by an alarm. They were just a normal part of my natural waking process. However, I don't actually like lucid dreams; they are way less immersive and spectacular than genuine dreams, and they get in the way of remembering my most interesting dreams. Over the years, I have learned how to recognize the first signs of lucidity without actually being fully conscious of them, and then lull myself back into deeper unconsciousness. This has not only improved my dreams, but I think it has also greatly improved my sleep quality by letting me stay in REM for longer.
• I started getting sleep paralysis in my 20s, and it was horrible. It would make me panic like nothing in real life does, and I would be completely unable to move; I couldn't even control my eyes. At first, my strategy was to try to wake up, but this was extremely hard to do (the best I could muster was to use the one thing I could control — my rate of breath — and breathe as fast as I could in the hope that it would wake my partner up, so that he could recognize that I was in a sleep paralysis attack and wake me out of it). But even when that startegy worked, sleep paralysis would come right back as soon as I started falling asleep again. I became very anxious about falling sleep and it started having some pretty serious knock-on effects for my mental and physical health. So instead I gradually learned the trickier, but ultimately more effective, strategy of giving in to the hallucinations and letting them evolve into full dreams — because once I was truly dreaming, I would lose awareness of my real body and stop feeling trapped in place. Today, sleep paralysis doesn't even feel scary anymore because I know that I can just push myself into true sleep whenever I want, and so I often intentionally linger in it just to explore how weird it is.

These experiences have shown me that, even when progress feels impossible, it does still happen — even if it has to happen fully subconsciously. It has caused me to realize that I have a lot more control over my mind that it feels like I do, and my unconscious self is actually still a part of me and trying its best to reach the same goals.

My successes — slow that they are — have generally made me more confident in other aspects of my life. I can conquer trauma. I can learn any skill. I can become the best version of myself, if I just keep trying and trust myself.

I had a precognitive dream once. The situation was unique enough that I’m certain that I dreamed of that specific event. For a few moments I could even predict what the person in front of me was going to do. It’s never happened again, and I’ve never figured out what to make of it, other than that clearly such things are possible.

I had a nightmare as a child, and now as a 41-year-old man I still hate ants.

I am highly skeptical of spirituality and have never experienced anything paranormal in waking life. I’m open to vague beliefs about „energy“ and spirits but I have serious doubts and give these things almost zero thought in daily life. I also hardly ever remember my dreams, making them all the more impactful when I actually do.

I was having a lot of anxiety attacks in my mid twenties and anxiety was not something that I suffered from at the time. It was generalized anxiety and to this day I have no idea what was triggering it, could have been as simple as chronic stress. My father passed away when I was a teenager and was never an emotionally available person. One night in the depths of my anxiety I had a dream that my father came to me and told me that everything was going to be okay and then he gave me the most heart warming hug. The dream was intensely vivid although extremely short.

I never had an anxiety attack again after that dream. Whether my father really did come to me in that dream to somehow shield me from my anxiety or my subconscious totally invented it, it’s exactly what I needed at that point in my life and somehow spontaneously „healed“ me. I’ve never experienced anything like that before or since

I dreamt of meeting the spore king. A twisted blackened entity who's face crumbled away to dust when it turned around to greet me.

Now I live in anxiousness not knowing if this might happen in real life, down some darkened alley or something.

I had a dream I was going up and down a flight of stairs over and over, always on the wrong side. Each step had a letter and the stairs spelled "transformation."

When I woke, I searched what a staircase meant as a dream symbol (I'd use dreammoods). It said, "You will go through a transformation or change" or something along those lines, but it used the word "transformation," and it freaked me out.

Made me believe that yes, our dreams do mean something, but I don't take it very seriously, though. I hardly dream at all nowadays anyway.

It's not so much a single dream as a type of dream I think. Whenever I'm in a really stressed out state, feeling hopeless/pissed/etc, I have nightmares about my teeth. The worst one I can remember happened when I was in the tail end of a deteriorating relationship. In the dream I was at a restaurant, eating egg rolls. I bit into an egg roll and my teeth crunched and broke apart like the fried skin of the egg roll, as though they were made of the same thing. Usually when I have dreams I have a sort of half-lucidity going on, where there's this dim awareness that what's there isn't real, and when shit goes wrong like that it's like I lean into that to get myself out. Except this time it didn't happen, so I was sitting at this table with my crunched up teeth freaking the hell out for what felt like forever, thinking my whole mouth was ruined and screaming at myself to wake up. Eventually the lucid bit won out and I woke up, in a cold sweat, and realized I could not continue the way I was going. Just about every time I've made a decision like that, the point in time when it hit me to do it was a teeth dream like that one. It's like a barometer of how screwed the situation is, if I'm having those dreams they tend to have a profound effect by way of being the catalyst for a big change.

Best dreams have been about flying but haven't had them since I was a kid! Even if they were running away from stuff when I'm flying they're still THE BEST EVER FEELING!

Worst are def the wave DREAMS (basically a tsunami dream!) that are a reoccurring constant for me (like probably at least twice a month min!).

However, because of their frequency I have sort of 'learned' that when am having a wave dream that I'm like oh it's another one... And where I can try redirect it but doesn't always work!

I always seem to have crazy vivid dreams and usually for the most part remeber them but I don't think I've had any impact me as such?

Maybe I'll just always be chasing the high of the flying dreams in real life though? 🤔

The dreams where I get to see and talk to my deceased parents always leave me feeling weird for a couple days. They all follow the same format. I walk up to my mom or dad in the back yard and they turn around smiling. I tell them about something that happened recently, usually about my kids. After a little bit something clicks in my brain and I remember they're gone, so this must be a dream. It's then that I wake up.

I generally can't get back to sleep, so I usually do some exercise while I think about the dream. The next day or so I feel a combination of happiness that I got to talk to them again but also sadness that it wasn't real. The best ones are where I get to hug them.

As a very young woman, dreaming of being pregnant and being at that stage when you feel kicks and movement on a consistent basis throughout every day.

Woke up with hand on lower belly, feeling so empty and at a loss. It stayed with me for days. The child I "lost".

I had not even had an intimate relationship at that point, yet having had children later; what I felt back then was exactly how it feels at the later stages.

It felt like such a deep, instictual knowledge coming out in my dreams even when it happened. I am even more conviced now that is what happened.

My first novel started as a recurring dream about a person I didn't know. It didn't take long for me to find his name in my mind, and I can see the first moment he appears in the dream even now. What I didn't know was why he kept intruding into my thoughts, and I decided I had to learn more about him and what he was trying to tell me.

The first novel turned into a trilogy, and though he isn't the main character in the latter two books, he plays an important role in all of them.

My Dad was diagnosed with cancer 14 years ago (he's doing well), and at the time I was really struggling with my expectations around the grad school program I was in. The combination sent me into a serious depressive episode. I started having frequent, vivid nightmares and have had them ever since.

My psychiatrist says that using SSRIs makes dreams more vivid, but the nightmares started before I was using them. I've tried a few medications used to treat PTSD and nothing has helped with the nightmares. I've mostly made my peace with the idea that they are here to stay.

Most of them are futility dreams. I'm trying to do something and I can't do it or am constantly thwarted. I usually wake up feeling spent, like I didn't really rest but was working/running/whatever all night.

A common one is that I'm somewhere with people whose opinion matters to me (school, work, etc) and I am not wearing any pants or underwear. I can't figure out where they've gone, and people don't seem to notice, but I am preoccupied with trying to keep people from noticing while I try to figure out where they've gone.

Once I had one where I was in the jungle in a house made out of an old airplane fuselage. There were tigers trying to get in, so I was running around holding the doors closed. There was no way to lock or even latch the doors, so I had to just keep holding them. My family was inside with me. The dreams where my daughter is there and I can't keep her safe are the worst.

A few nights ago, I had a very realistic one where I was trying to keep my mom from committing suicide and couldn't. Though I had immense relief once I woke up and realized it was a dream, it pretty much trashed my day.

On the brighter side, veeery occasionally, I will have a vivid "good" dream. Sometimes these are romantic encounters or just other good/fun things. That can be really amazing, but they are pretty rare, so in the balance I'd rather be rid of them altogether.

Almost every time I take a nap during the day I have little dreams about things that make me incredibly sad, usually related to mortality--how my parents are really old now, and I'll never have the same kind of relationship with them that I did when I was a kid and we lived together; how my own kids are never going to be toddlers again, meaning I've already experienced everything I ever will with them at that age; how much I miss my previous dogs, and how my current dogs are getting on in age; how I'll never get to experience what it was like to be in high school or college again; and just random little memories of the past that bring up depressing thoughts like that.

I kind of avoid naps now even if I feel like I could really use one because it ends up that way so often. Weirdly (and thankfully), I don't have that issue when I'm sleeping at night.

When I was young I once dreamed I was given a key that opened passages to other peoples dreams. Moving through each passage put me in the life of a different person. I was a business man late for work, then I was a small child looking for a toy, then a soldier marching up a mountain. It was thrilling but scary since I barely understood where their feelings were coming from. It all felt so foreign to life as I knew it.

Eventually I found my way back and looked up at the night sky and somehow knew each star was a different person and they all started branching towards each other like neurons. I wanted to find another passage and see what was happening but I had lost my key.

Then I woke up and spent a long time wondering if minds really could connect dreams together somehow in another dimension.

I don't dream, pretty much ever, but one time on a steroid for a weird skin thing I had a kind of sleep paralysis waking dream where I was being pulled by hands into my buddy's car seats while I was waiting for him at a medical appointment.

One, I don't like leather seats. Like, I can sit on them but I won't buy a car with them.

Two, if I'm awake, I don't like to 'lay around.' Gotta get out of bed, even if it just takes me to the couch.

This likely wasn’t the expected response to the prompt, but it’s a doozy nonetheless.

I had a dream a few years ago, the specifics actually evade me due to the nature of dreams but I vaguely remember searching/digging for something in the woods/brush. What hit me next had me floored.

I literally woke up on the floor after having fallen while sleep walking. I could feel blood starting to pour down my face and I knew something bad had just happened. After going to the bathroom to clean myself up I realized I couldn’t control the bleeding and had to go to the hospital.

Fast forward a series of doctor evaluations and a 2 hour ambulance ride later and I’m getting facial reconstructive surgery because I had shattered my skull. I got two plates put in my head, and my eyelid had to be stitched back together. It would be another month before I could even open my eye to know if it was damaged.

It turns out that my fall had landed my head onto the sharp corner of a wooden desk next to my bed. Due to how I had semi-instinctually caught myself, I aggravated an already damaged shoulder and had to get surgery for that, too.

I spent 1/3 of the year with some sort of a disability, and the near death experience took months to process/recover from. After talking to a doctor friend, I believe the worst case scenario wouldn’t have been losing my eye, or even dying, but having broke my neck and live the remainder of my years a quadriplegic. Spending a majority of my life knowing what once was, and having zero answers for why it got taken away so abruptly.

Thankfully I made a full recovery with minimal scarring, but it did cause me to question a lot of my perceived complacency at the time. My job had stagnated and I felt like a leech on society, only consuming and never giving back.

It caused me to turn a new leaf: I got a better job working to protect the data privacy rights of others, I invested in my hobbies of playing music and cycling, I made a conscientious choice to stop dating around and settle down (just moved in with my gf 2 months ago). I tackled nearly every part of Maslow’s hierarchy I had reached the nebulous self-actualization in a matter of months.

It was/is super empowering: to be granted a new lease on life. I realized a lot of barriers were self-imposed, and I managed to take the risk of venturing into the unknown because I didn’t feel like I had anything to lose. What’s the worst that could happen, I could die (again)? Hah, I already struck the lottery once with a relatively good life in America, now I was in the bonus round and everything is a cherry on top. Life became a gift, which turned around my generally pessimistic/cynical attitude I had for all of my previous life. I’m not making irrational bets that have real risks involved (like gambling), but I’m definitely more willing to talk to the stranger at the bar because I don’t hold my own pride/introverted comfort level on a pedestal. I try new foods. I try experiences. I embrace life.

Now, none of these changes are wholly specific to my NDE: I had already become a more open minded social butterfly due to college. Rather, I had realized that I could embrace who I had become and double down on the things that make me unique, the things that make me driven.

Many people after hearing my story immediately ask if I normally sleep walk: no, I have no real history. I do have a long history of lucid dreaming, somewhat more recent sleep paralysis, and a general temperament of a night owl. After seeing a sleep doctor and describing everything that happened to me and my history his response was basically “shit happens” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I know a lot of people in this thread are potentially searching for some interpretation of their dreams, but I think they’re a little more closer to a virtual reality space we regularly play in than some deeper allegory. That being said, I think they provide a good insight into our subconscious psyche and are valuable to analyze to the extent that they can provide positive direction in someone’s life. I don’t think people need a NDE to improve their life, but it certainly helps.

My best theory for my sleep walking incident: it was the night of Jan 6th.

The dreams that stick with me most are the dreams where I'm helpless to save something I love from an external force. I couldn't help my long-deceased deaf dog from bigger dog bullies; or bunnies in my care from a paralyzing disease that did horrible things to them. But the one that has most affected my life is the one I had of being in a rowboat, and my dad being in another one. My brother was there, too, but I can't remember in which boat. In the dream, orcas used their tails to propel the boats underwater, and I watched my family become snacks before it was my turn. This has always struck me as a semi-realistic fear (fisherman's daughter in the PNW), and now I'm super avoidant of orca and orca imagery. Of course, living where I do, I'm confronted with it a lot, but... whatever. A license plate with an orca isn't going to kill me, it's just annoying to look at.

Needless to say, I was NOT surprised when they started bonking on boats on the other side of the Atlantic.