Nightmares

I had what might be the ultimate existentialist nightmare at the weekend. I had got into a lift at the top of a building intending to go down, but when I pressed the button it went up. I looked around but couldn't see any other buttons and I realised I was in one of those lifts that travel round in an endless loop. I also realised you're really not meant to stay in those lifts when they go over the top and I started to panic. The lift started to go down and I saw there was a peg attached to the wall, inside the lift but it stayed stationary relative to the shaft so it should have stopped the lift as it hit up against the roof. Instead it tore right through the roof and the lift carried on going down, but now the floor stayed stationary, in effect rising up as the lift went down. I knew with certainty and terror that the floor was going to crush me against the ceiling and I thought, in the words of Arthur Dent, "This is it, I'm going to die". And so I did, painlessly, but I immediately realised I appeared to still be in the lift - I could see the fake wood effect walls, I could feel my limbs, but I was completely paralysed and I suddenly knew with equal certainty and even more terror that I would be frozen in this limbo, conscious but unable to move or change my situation in any way, for all of eternity. Somehow, fortunately, the sheer horror of this scenario was enough to propel me like a rocket out of the dream and I woke up gasping.

Anyone have advice on reducing the frequency of nightmares? When they're bad I'll wake up utterly ruined and fall back into the same dream continuity wise. Hard to shake it as a bad dream can leave you exhausted and lull you back to sleep. Stress and dietary concerns could play a factor, any helpful hints or am I s.o.l.?

i had a nightmare the other day which has really messed with my waking life, ever since. it was very long and very vivid, and as soon as it started i remembered and knew the place i was in. i had a very similar nightmare several years ago but this was my first return visit and i hope my last. it is a very large, enclosed indoor space. although the setting is not an airport terminal, it's similar in two ways: it has a very similar audio ambience to the sounds at the beginning of radiohead's "A Reminder", and it's a liminal space where people are almost always walking or traveling somewhere else, or waiting. escalators, lifts, hallways, but all with very high ceilings. there is also a kind of common ground area with many hundreds of people, similar to the soccer fields at night just south of prospect park with lots of people milling around, but not sports themed. everyone there seems to be waiting to move again, or waiting to meet someone.

it feels like a resort. everything is "fancy". like i mentioned, the ceilings are tall, and everything is very clean and spacious and organized. each time i've been there, it's gradually revealed to be a menacing place. the workers there are watching. they help you and they guide you along, and are very professional. everything seems fine until you want to leave. there is always another step and it seems wrong that you want to leave. you always have to go somewhere else first before it's possible, and then you go there and there are very good reasons why you have to go somewhere else first. then traveling again, workers looking at you. that kind of thing.

i rarely dream about real people that i know. they're almost always just anonymous people, like most of the hundreds of people in this place. but i saw a recent ex in there, and she wasn't happy with me at all. she seemed surprised and disappointed that i was there at all. and then, someone i knew 20 years ago and haven't thought of since for a single second, a hotshot handsome young musician who went on to be in well known bands for a minute. he also seemed irritated that i was there. then everyone seemed disappointed and irritated.

the worst part was at the end. it was becoming apparent that i didn't belong there but that i wasn't allowed to leave, and the annoyance was starting to turn to anger, on the parts of the workers. i was woken up irl by pounding on the door at about 3am, which was the friends of my asshole neighbor who are incapable of doing anything at all unless it's at maximum volume and disruptive. they like to watch sports and yell woo. they were pounding on his door but it sounded like it was mine, and it just kind of ripped my nerves out. i didn't sleep the rest of the night and was unable to think about much else, and then i went to a party where i was the only solo person in a gathering of people my age who all had partners and children, or just a partner. i was trying so hard to just be normal and not feel out of place but it was excruciating. then i went on a blind online date and the other person had a lot of trauma, some really tragic things, fentanyl and physical abuse, a stalker. i ended up laying on the bed next to her all night until about 5 am, talking. it was kind of an unforgettable night but also i just can't sleep on a normal schedule at all. i slept in until 2pm and i'm doing my best to just make it to 10pm and go to bed like a normal person tonight.

this is my body and brain's response to being (almost entirely) sober this month

This all sounds very relatable and familiar in terms of dreams I have: Big liminal spaces filled with anonymous people and the occasional person I haven't seen or thought about for several years, and this sense that while everything is technically fine moving away from this space involves an extremely complicated number of steps. I often dream, for example, about being stuck at an airport or train station, keen or excited to get somewhere, but never able to get there for some obscure administrative reason. I also often have dreams about being on a train, often not inside the train but clinging to the side of it somehow as it takes me against my will to destination stops I don't recognise before whisking me off again.