Dreams of autism

[Mia]

Recently had a dream where I encountered people, who seemed just like me. They understood me, and we were all trapped in a large building the size of a city. Everyone wanted to find a way out, even a border collie I found running in a snowy area. I was carrying my cat, so she wouldn't get lost there. I met another woman who had a orange cat hidden in her clothing, while she worked an inside flying machine, looking for a way out. We could go up on the roofs and see the outside world, but it seemed we could not reach it without years of traveling. I woke up before I found a way out. This dream is familiar, I've had it probably many times before in different versions.

Have you had dreams like this? Where you are trapped somewhere? What are your dreams usually about if you recall them?

 

[inkfingers]

I usually have dreams where I am exploring a weird place, sometimes inside a strange building, with staircases that lead to dark creepy rooms, sometimes a library with odd passages that lead to rooms filled with entomology projects, sometimes a giant rock climbing gym with different twisty and turny routes. I have maybe three different places that I revisit time and time again in my dreams. The basic layout of these areas stays the same, but sometimes new rooms will pop up, or other little additions. Also, most of my dreams (that I can remember) follow this storyline: I am exploring a strange place, and trying to get somewhere. Then I usually end up getting lost or stuck some where, and someone starts chasing me. Sometimes I can fly a little, and I'll try to fly away, but I'm still running away from that person. I do a lot of running away from people in my dreams.

 

[tlc]

Most of my dreams are about being in old buildings, or traveling old roads. The building dreams are usually full of halls, walls, doors, staircases, rarely an actual room. Like you get to a landing, and might see 3 more doors or 3 more sets of stairs. They are usually made completely of old slabs of wood sloppily nailed together like an old barn. Never any windows. They usually go many floors up, or down into the ground. Often I don't know why I'm there, I just am. Like one of the last ones, I was in this small house I knew of in town, but never been in it. I think it was for sale in my dream. Went in the door and it was a monstrous array of stairs and halls that went back and forth and up and down and around. I spent like a half hour following these paths, and eventually came to a tiny bedroom at the end, maybe 6 ft square. That was it, there was nothing else in the house. Then I had to spend all that time getting back out.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I have a few repeated themes in my dreams:

* Showing up to a college final exam having never attended the class or studied for the test.
* Being able to do something no one else can (e.g. fly, levitate, alter reality), and showing off, though everyone around me is nonplussed.
* Trying to find my way around a new house that seems to have a never-ending maze of halls and rooms.

Dreams operate in the part of our brain responsible for Primary Process Thinking. In Primary Process Thinking, negatives don’t compute but analogies do. Generally, I find that my dreams are analogies for the emotions behind a current real-life scenario. The college test dream occurs when I am feeling anxious about an upcoming task. The flying one occurs when I feel like I’ve accomplished something (that I think is) cool. I haven’t figured out the house one - maybe that relates to new situations?

For almost 20 years after high school, I would have dreams of being back in high school. I was a full-grown adult, but everyone I remembered hadn’t changed. I gradually began to question the situation. Finally, in one of the dreams, I stood up and said, “I graduated high school, and I graduated college. I don’t belong here.” And I walked out. That was the last time I had that dream.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I just read the other replies and I see two other people’s dreams of exploring twisting, maze-like places (like my “new house” dream). Soooo... if anyone figures out what it means, let me know!

 

[Gracey]

I'm usually trying to drive, sprint or help 'sheep' escape.

I don't mean sheep in a "Hello Clarice" actual lamb saving, Silence of the Lambs type scenario.

Clueless people type 'sheep'
I wonder why they don't know or aren't aware of what's about to happen.


My car rarely moves fast enough.
Might have to dream up a better performance vehicle

I can't sprint because I'm weightless - not floating - I can see my feet but can't feel them striking the ground to push off and increase momentum.

The amusing (and awesome) thing about it is,
I somehow know I'm not likely to feel my weight on the ground, accept it and stop trying to sprint (in my dream)

 

[SusanLR]

I remember reading the dream of a exploring a maze type house with many halls and rooms in college
psychology usually represented the exploration of self with the many facets of
your own psyche. I guess it is a very common dream.

I used to have a recurrent dream of being in a university and never being able to complete my classes
or graduate. And most of the time I was late, or couldn't find the classroom and my books and papers
were always a mess.
I always thought it might represent my constant desire to learn and gain new information.
But, the difficulties I have in the dream could represent disorganization, procrastination and not finding the
time to study.
Haven't had that dream in a few years. Maybe I've learned my lesson?

The only dream of being trapped that I had was shortly after moving to the city here at age 22.
I was driving a car with my parents in it on those elevated freeways and was trying to get off.
Every exit had something wrong with it so I couldn't . Underconstruction, closed, dead end drop off,
barricaded, something. I couldn't get off.
I knew when I woke up what it meant.
I didn't like the city area we had moved to and the dream meant I would never be able to leave it.
Now after 40 years and the situation I am in, I know I never will leave this area.

Most of my dreams though have always been just like everyday life. Shopping, eating, watching TV.
Often being different places all around the world I know I'll never see in person.
And the people in the dreams are not people I know from my life.

 

[Tom]

I used to have a recurring similar dream on and off for decades. Being trapped in a collapsed building. Mine would translate to a type of sleepwalking (and sometimes sleep talking) and I would try and escape my bed and make for a light at which point I would wake up. Once I nearly castrated myself trying to back off a concrete slab in my dream, which was actually the top bunk in a military dorm. I thought my room mate had heard me because he started talking and I was really embarrassed, until I realized he was announcing a baseball game in his sleep.

 

[onlything]

Not exactly trapped in a traditional sense, mostly travelling and looking for something. Sometimes it's a dessert, sometimes a forest but it's always about walking, moving forward and searching. I never seem to get wherever it is I'm supposed to go, so you could say it's a bit like being trapped. It started when I was still a little kid.

 

[tlc]

I often have dreams of houses or buildings I've been in, but of rooms that I wasn't allowed to go in, or rooms that didn't exist. For example I've had countless dreams about my uncle's farm house from when I was about 5. Always admired that house. But I wasn't allowed to go in the basement, so I often have dreams of what the basement might be like. Also for some reason I have many dreams about the upstairs floors sagging severely, like a foot or more. I drive by the place every now and then, and it is in good standing.

I also had plenty of dreams of the Grand Traverse Resort tower, since I've always admired that building. But of the electrical and mechanical rooms that are at the very top. Since I'm not allowed to go in there, closest I've gotten is I've taken the stairwell up past the top restaurant.

Since almost the beginning, I had desires and sketches to add on to my old house. Build a room above the single story living room to tie in with the rest of the 2nd floor. I've had multiple dreams of this room, always looked the same. Same blond hardwood flooring, same drawers in the wall, LP wall heater burning. But off to one corner there was a long hall that couldn't have fit anywhere in the actual house. I followed this hall and there was a bathroom, with a little girl sitting there, and when I touched her she suddenly jumped to life and scared me. Like she had been sitting there for years. I figure that part of the dream came from a combination of the movies "Beneath" (how the burned girl jumped to life) and "The Ring" (she resembled Samara).

For awhile I kept having dreams of the place I used to work. I looked it up and found out one of the guys I worked with died suddenly. After I did the research I didn't have the dreams anymore.

I clearly remember many dreams I had when I was a kid. This one made sense as I had recently spent quite a bit of time in the hospital for bowel surgery. In the dream it was called the Digestive System hospital. Every stage of the tract took me down a winding staircase deeper into the ground. Farthest I got was a floor labeled Large Intestine, but in reality that's where the poop got blocked. And many of my dreams have a song playing. This one had "Sara" by Starship playing. And the part "storms are brewing in her eyes" I thought they were saying "stones operate in her eyes" so each floor had a stone statue of a girl head with a single rock in each eye rotating around the pupil.

Other dreams about roads all over northern Michigan, that kinda sorta exist but not exactly. I can tell in my dreams where they're supposed to be, but when I go there they're not quite the same. One night in my late teens, before sleep I spent a couple hours piecing them all together into a map that went from Mackinac to Grand Rapids.

 

[joe2006]

I sometimes dream that I am back in high school and am supposed to go to class. Then I get lost trying to find the classroom. Then I try to find the list of classes I have and realize I do not have them and begin going to the office to get a new schedule sheet. I usually wake up before I get to the office and have never gotten to class in these dreams.

I also have dreams about flying in airplanes. I have had several different disasters happen in these dreams. One day I dreamed that I was flying and something went wrong with some of the airplane controls. I crawled around on the floor of the plane trying to figure what was going on. I would open up panels and check the wiring but I still could not figure anything out. The plane seemed big and it was easy for me to get lost in it. I woke up after I banged my head on my dresser. I had crawled out of bed and to the other side of my room thinking I was in the airplane.

I have had several dreams about places that I have previously lived at. Most of these dreams take place in the house I grew up in back in Georgia.

 

[anacrusis]

mine are of trying to run away from something or someone, just thinking I've got clear, then they catch up again, and I need to run some more, sometimes having to climb or scramble, or hide myself away. The surroundings are often familiar to me, but at the same time not exactly like anywhere I've ever been, and sometimes I'll find myself in the same landscape several times in a dream.
My favourites though are the flying dreams - in those, I have the ability just to take off and fly. They start with me launching from a raised bit of the space I'm in, small swoops before landing again, then my range increases and I'm able to take off from a level surface - I can twist and turn, land, and take flight again. Oddly enough these dreams seem to be located in a closed space - a biggish one, but with ceilings and walls. Sometimes there are other people around, but they're often not that surprised that I'm doing this, though none of them join me.
When I wake up during a dreaming phase, I notice I'm often narrating the goings-on in my head during dreaming, my mind talking me through what's happening in the dream.
The nightmares also have regular themes - my version of meltdown is shutdown, so sometimes in a dream I'll get really really angry, and wake up very upset by that. And then there is the horrible nightmare of teeth falling out.... uuuurgh...

 

[Rob]

Hi - Good to be back on the forum.

I had recurring dreams of re-attending a technical school in the past. Though I managed to graduate it long ago, doing well academically, my experience was very painful.

Just a mention - this depiction has NOTHING TO DO with how the school might be like today, or how it ever was like in the past.

My dream of re-attendance is thus:

After I got enrolled, with tuition paid by my late-in-life parents,
I started classes. I was in my mid-40s!

Right away I could not find the right rooms or remember my locker location. I was COMPLETELY LOST. With only a pencil and a few sheets of paper I sought out the classrooms that may have had my classmates in them. I found a classroom with familiar faces, so I sat down and took notes at my desk. After only taking half the notes the professor presented, he removed the lecture material after the first slide! Everyone else was fully caught up.

After class was over, I looked for my classmates. They were NOWHERE to be found. They arrived at their next class while I was lost in the hallways and byways of the school. As I went up to 4th floor, a huge window overlooked a sports field and a lake. Another wing of the school was visible just ahead.

From my point I could see a large first-floor restaurant where I ate someone else's lunch - unsuspectingly. After finishing the lunch quickly, I climbed up a cement stairway just below a clothing and gift shop, when I frantically sought out my classmates. I stumbled to meet them in a laboratory classroom. I dreaded doing chemistry labs!! Besides seeing all kinds of precision glassware, I do not remember what I did or how I performed in those labs.

All I remember was being lost for many more weeks and repeating all the above steps. Finally I passed a medical lab room and got to the administration office, where I was told the classroom schedule was posted on the wall across the office, in fine print! Sure, everyone else was aware of this while I was not. How did they - my classmates - know about this? HOW?!

It is amazing how much time can go by in a dream!