Help with dream analysis

[Mojambo]

I've been having a recurring dream for many, many years now and I don't know what it means.

In almost all of my dreams I have difficulty getting myself to move.

Like last night, I was standing in a parking lot and I knew I wanted to go to the other side but when I started walking I hardly moved. My steps were made with great effort and I almost felt like I was walking through molasses.

It's not as though I feel mentally like I can't walk, I feel physically restrained from walking.

The setting of the dream has changed through the years but it's always the same result.

Any ideas?

[havocmom]

1. When you dream, your brain normally shuts the body down so it cannot

move. Maybe you are uncomfortable with that 'paralysis' and it manifests in your dream?

[skygazer]

2. I've had similar dreams off and on

From what I understand, it means you are feeling trapped or indecisive over something in your life.

[Mojambo]

3. Yeah, I found this DreamDoctor website

and he says dreams like this

"are reflecting occasional feelings of powerlessness, and doubts about your ability to “keep up” with your friends and peers."

Makes sense since I've been unemployed for over a year and living with my parents. Meanwhile one of my better childhood friends just bought a home and is expecting a child.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. The DreamDoctor analysis sounds about right. Does it occur

at specific times/events in your life?

My most recurring dream is one where I'm enrolled in some college course, and either I haven't attended at all or was not even aware that I was enrolled in it, and am just discovering that final exams are a couple of days away. I never actually get to the point of actually taking the exam, but just experience the gnawing pit of stomach falling out fear.

Usually occurs when some stressful thing is happening to me. It doesn't help that I've actually lived this type of scenario, but that is a TALE FOR ANOTHER TIME.

[Mojambo]

5. I get that one quite a bit as well

It's usually either I've lost my class schedule and don't know where to go or haven't attended the class and realize I'm way behind.

These dreams never seem to be attributable to specific events in my life.

The other big one I get is being trapped on super tall stilts and not knowing how to get off them without just falling.

[LunaSea]

6. Forget dream anaysis by anyone

But YOU!
you are the only one who can interpret what the dream is about. It depends on what the symbols in the dream mean to you. One can generalize to a vague degree, such as "dark water means the unknown" which would probably be true for many. The answer is dependant on your own experience. The question to ask is "what in my life and current frame of mind would 'unable to move at normal speed" symbolize?

Based on the fact that you post here at DU might suggest that you have been waiting for a change in the political direction of our country for too many long years now. Your presence here might be telling of how strongly you feel about what has happened and that we've all had to get through this agonizing wait in the election cycle. That wait seems to become more intense in these last days for me.

The previous posters comment about how the brain governs the body during sleep might be relevant too. Ever woke yourself up kicking or punching at something with all your might in a dream, only to wake realizing your limb has barely moved a couple of inches?

What else are you waiting for in your life? what is it that you are not able to get to right now?

Figuring out what those symbols mean to you, will lead you to whatever your subconcious is trying to tell you or simply reflect from your waking mind.



Gee, I should work on the bad one I had the other night about groups of somnambulitory groups of people being "herded" around a football field in the middle of the night by small, bright blue creatures with giant heads while silent "things" glided around overhead.
Brrr...

[Mojambo]

7. Thanks for that

I've been thinking about it some...

The parking lot I was in was very similar to the parking lot of a bookstore I used to work at. It was a lefty, hippy bookstore where I pretty much grew into the political soul that I am today.

I think my desire (and inability) to return to that past, where I learned so much and felt so at home, is behind the near paralysis I suffer in the dream.

I really do miss it so much. I think back on how it was then, and how I thought I needed to get out and get a "real" job.

I now realize that I'll never be quite as content as I was then even if I wasn't successful by the standards set in this country.

Thanks again LunaSea.

[LunaSea]

9. You're welcome!

[James T. Kirk]

8. Don't mean a thing.

It's just a bunch of random stuff in your brain.

Either that, or you are being repeatedly abducted by aliens. Fifty-fifty chance of each.

[On the Road]

10. Some Dreams Refer to Physiological States

So havocmom's suggestion has some merit. You may have the dream when you're coming out of REM sleep, which inhibits muscle activity, but your body wants to move before you're all the way to the next stage.

Have you ever had morning paralysis -- waking up and being unable to move for a short time? That's the same sort of thing, except you're transitioning from REM sleep to a semi-awake state rather than completely waking up. In this case, there's no particular meaning to the dream.

The other possibility is that the dream is graphically representing something you feel in your life. For example, you feel like you should be taking action but can't seem to get started.

I have a recurring theme in my dreams of trying to fly but having difficulty getting aloft and staying off the ground. I'm sure this refers to feelings of a lack of energy and initiative. It could be something like that. But as LunaSea says, you're the ultimate judge of your own dreams' meanings.