Strange Dreams and Their Meaning

For as long as I can remember, I have been a rather vivid dreamer.

I used to think that it was just because I remember my dreams better than most people, but over the years I've learned that many of my dreams are very detailed stories coming to me in full Technicolor, in ways most people just don't experience.

While dreams have always been part of my nights, I really learned to be interested in them and pay more attention to them when I was in counseling in my early 30s and keeping a dream journal was one of my homework assignments.

Part of the exercise was to keep an eye on recurring themes and recurring dreams. And I definitely had quite a few of them.

In one common theme, I would find myself on an airplane — sometimes a large commercial airliner, sometimes a much smaller plane — and we would be rolling down the runway for takeoff but somehow the plane never got enough speed to take off, and we would barely lift off the ground and then end up crashing into the trees at the end of the airport.

While I tended to focus on the plane crashes, my therapist pointed out that no matter how often I dreamed of crashing, I was never injured, and the other people around me were never injured.

The plane would come down, break apart, and then everybody would just kind of be walking around looking at the bits and pieces like they were surprised at what had happened.

I would also often dream variations of the theme that I was back in boarding school, but at my then age in my 30s and was having to take some extra classes because I had somehow "forgotten" to take them, meaning that I had not really graduated. Invariably, I would be having the same feelings of dread I had during my original few years in boarding school, except now compounded by the fact that I was way older than any of the other students and they were all staring at me.

The theme of my car having been stolen also seems to be a common theme I had both back then and it periodically still shows up in my dreams.

I will be traveling and might stop at some restaurant or hotel, or perhaps go into a store, and when I come back out my car is gone. Within the same dream, I may even borrow somebody else's car, and it becomes stolen. Or I may call for a rental car which I take somewhere and then the rental car is stolen.

But perhaps the most common theme I have had —both as a youth and as an adult — have been travel dreams that also involved elements of moving.

Sometimes I have to get to an airport, but I don't really know how much time I have, and then I discovered that I have to pack up an entire apartment to vacate before I can go. When I start packing up things I realize that many of them are not even mine, but somehow I have ended up responsible for packing them.

Then, in my efforts to get everything packed, I forget to look at the time and then I suddenly don't have enough time to get to the airport. So I tried to call a taxi or get on a bus and the taxis are not running and the bus is delayed.

Or, sometimes I'm at the airport but I have more luggage than I can handle, and the airlines keep changing the gate I have to go to. All the while, I'm very aware that I'm running out of time, and there's not enough of me to get everything moved on time.

Of course, the overriding theme in all of these dreamscapes is one of stress, and one of not feeling capable of handling the situations I'm facing... at least that was what my last therapist suggested.

Well I do think dream analysis can be informative and give us some insights, I try not to take it too seriously. But that does not mean that my fascination with dreams has in any way declined over the years!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your weekend!

How about YOU? Have you ever studied your dreams? Have you ever kept a dream journal? Do you think our dreams teach us anything important about our lives? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2026.02.28 12:55 PST
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