My sleep tracker says that I slept for 8 hours last night, but it’s lying. I slept for about 3 minutes, because I spent the rest of the time I was in bed trapped in a stress dream that touched nightmare territory from time to time, but was so weird it’s worth sharing.
I was in a play, but I didn’t know my lines, or what I was supposed to do. This is a very common theme in my stress dreams.
The play was being performed in a pop-up banquet tent at my Aunt Val’s house in the valley. The geography of the house was distorted in that weird way that dreams distort things to make them fit together in ways that would never work in our waking world. In this case, her back yard was big enough to hold about two hundred audience members in the tent.
So far, this is just a standard stress dream, and this is where it gets weird and worth writing about.
- The play was a version of Star Wars.
- This version of Star Wars had been adapted to fit inside the Welcome to Night Vale universe.
- The entire cast was playing characters from Welcome to Night Vale, but none of them were the actual Night Vale cast members.
- I was playing R2-D2. My costume was a blue hoodie.
In the dream, we had one rehearsal, while the tents were being set up. I saw my lines in the script, but I couldn’t get them to stay in my head. I don’t know why R2-D2 spoke instead of beeping in this version of Star Wars, but I suspect that it had something to do with it being set in Night Vale.
Time shifted, like it does in dreams, and the tent was full. The play was happening, and I was waiting to go on stage with two other actors. I think one of them was playing a version of Yoda or a Luke/Yoda hybrid for some reason. Again: Night Vale. The plastic wall of the tent (I’ve just now realized that the tent may have been selected by my brain because I’ve been reading The Martian) parted, and the three of us entered the scene together.
Only I was supposed to be on my knees, so I was, and I couldn’t move. You know, the way you can’t move in dreams sometimes.
So I’m R2-D2, in a Star Wars play that’s set in the Welcome to Night Vale universe, being performed at my dead great aunt’s house for an audience that’s far too big to fit in her back yard, and I’m stuck in the curtain, unable to move.
One of the other actors whispers to me that I need to follow her, and I’m doing my best to shuffle along on my knees, keeping my arms straight to look like R2’s legs, and I realize that the other actors are just standing there, waiting for me. I don’t know my lines, I don’t know when I’m supposed to say them, but I recognize the scene from the movie. We’re in the blockade runner, waiting for the Empire to board the ship. We’re in the end of a corridor … and that’s all I know. The other actors say their lines, look at me expectantly when I’m supposed to say mine, and I improvise whatever I think is supposed to go there. The scene lurches along for a few minutes, until I just decide that I’m done with it, and exit right through the back wall of the stage.
Once I get backstage, I take off my hoodie, and I make a decision: I’m going to just disappear. R2 isn’t that important to this version of the story, and it’s going to be better without me in it. So I stand up, and I walk down the side of my great aunt’s house toward the street, and I find myself on the side yard of the house I grew up in. According to the rules and physics of dreams, this makes complete sense, so I start walking around the house, pacing, as I try to talk myself into staying off the stage. Somehow, I end up inside my great aunt’s kitchen without actually walking into the house, and I realize that I can just find a script, put whatever my lines are into my short term memory, and muddle through the show. I can hear the other actors on the stage. The audience is silent. In fact, I realize now, that maybe the audience is entirely dead people (though that may be my awake version of making the story better, not like it needs help being weird).
But I can’t find a script, so I keep walking, and I’m starting to really freak out. I should be on the stage because I owe it to the other actors, but I really don’t want to go out there and embarrass myself and not know what I’m supposed to do. But I basically know the story, so maybe I can just go out there and say , “Beep beep boop” when I have lines. It will probably throw the other actors off a bit, but the audience won’t know and maybe it’ll even be funny.
I’m in the driveway of the house I grew up in. The car my mom drove in 1978 is parked in front of me. It’s hot and there’s a lot of dust everywhere. I can hear the actors on the stage improvising a scene because I’m not there. I’ve missed my cue. I panic and run toward the back yard. I go into the backstage area, which is in the side yard of my great aunt’s house. A stage manager is there, and she says, “you are supposed to be in this scene! You’re supposed to be on stage! They’re waiting for you! Go! Go! Go!”
I realize that I’m only wearing white underwear briefs, because that was the last element that was missing from my stress dream.
I don’t go onstage, because the actors move to the next scene without me. They come off stage, and I try not to make eye contact with them. I feel terrible. I know I messed up. I want to apologize, but I’m ashamed and embarrassed. They walk past me, and I see a big poster board, like the ones you use to make projects in elementary school. It has an invitation to the wrap party, and everyone’s name is on it, except mine.
The scene changes, and I’m in a park near my childhood home. It’s present day, and the whole thing has been developed. There are lots of condos and offices and other buildings along the perimeter of the park. This is a place my brain takes me in my dreams all the time, and it never looks the same, even though I know where I am.
Something is wrong. Something is sinister. Something is profoundly scary about this place, but I’m in a car or something, so I can at least drive past it in relative safety … but there is something or someone in almost every building, looking at me, and I’m terrified of whatever it is.
I wake up, because the alarm is going off. The weirdness and unsettled feeling of the dream is going to stay with me all day, like it always does.
Those dreams suck, don’t they? And very few understand how they can stay with us all day long. I can’t wait for the day my Fitbit can detect this dreaming and send for my dog to wake me because that silent alarm thing just doesn’t do it.
Those dreams suck, don’t they? And very few understand how they can stay with us all day long. I can’t wait for the day my Fitbit can detect this dreaming and send for my dog to wake me because that silent alarm thing just doesn’t do it.
I started having weird panic dreams like that when my last SSRI began to lose efficacy. Obvs. you’re not me, but you may want to check with your doctor.
That would make an amazing comic. I wish Slow Wave was still going; he could make a ten page run out of it.
My brain’s go-to anxiety dream used to be finding myself in high school and unable to read my schedule (and also naked) but last night I worked an overnight after being on my feet all day and my brain couldn’t let go of work, so I dreamed I kept screwing up the time clock and I was late to clock out so not only was I working for free I was going to get yelled at for going over. I suspect this is going to be a reoccurring thing.
That was indeed trippy and the inability to move caught my attention. I had trippy dream plus sleep paralysis a few months ago, and the research I did on sleep paralysis was really informative! Much more interesting than dream analysis in my view. Glad you used your experience for a post that resonated with me.
you have so much going on right now; people like u and i do not handle it very well .. love and light to you .. remember its only bc of the window that’s open right now ..it will close in about ten days .. <3 blessings to u
What window?
I had weird stress dreams last night too. I lost my keys. Then I lost my car. Then lost my phone. I didn’t know if I just misplaced them or if they were stolen. The locate my phone app said it was last active at Wal-Mart, but I was having trouble remembered when I was last at Wal-Mart.
Then there was the other stress dream where I couldn’t find a bathroom.
I’ll see you an actor’s stress dream and raise you a stage manager’s (and I think this may be the first time I may not have to explain some of my jargon) –
I was working on an unusually stressful show off-off-Broadway, and this was about halfway through the rehearsal period. For most of the dream this was something totally unrelated to anything – for the sake of argument, let’s say it was a dream about me and Emma Thompson on a cruise ship, and we’re sitting on deck in the warm sun, each of us dressed in fluffy white robes, while John Cusack was serving as pool boy and David Duchovny was tending bar or something.
Anyway, the dream toddled on like that for a while, meandering here and there, and then right when Emma Thompson was leaning over to me to ask if I’d tried the mai tais – the rum was especially tasty, she thought – suddenly I heard the disembodied voice of my show’s director asking “Sorry, everyone – K, are we at an Equity break?”
And suddenly I was sitting in my theater, my prompt book on my lap, the director to my right, and Emma, John, and David were on our cheap stage, all of them watching me expectantly while I checked my watch and then said, “yes, we could take a ten if you want.”
“Thanks, K – okay, everyone, this is a ten!” the director said, and Emma and David and John all wandered off the stage and started doing things like checking their cell phones for messages or getting refills on coffee while I got up to check on props.
I woke up about then, and realized that I had just called an Equity Break on one of MY OWN DREAMS.
I used to call lighting and sound cues in my sleep when I was stressed. I still do it on occasion and I haven’t been in the booth in 15 years.
COMRADE!
If you want to avoid dreams, try avoiding wheat.
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2011/10/this-is-your-brain-on-wheat/
And maybe change his name to Wil Gluten-free-ton?
applause
Not to mention its by-products.
Poop?
I quit consuming gluten three years ago and no longer have nightmares. I do, however, still dream- and do so frequently. I can tell if I’ve accidentally eaten traces of wheat when dining in a restaurant due to fatigue and nightmares afterwards.
This sounds like a lot of the dreams I’ve been having as of late. I keep having all sorts of complicated and frustrating dreams. I always wake up a complete wreck and feel emotionally worn. Part of it is because I have seasonal issues surrounding the warmer months of the year. I severely dislike weather that’s above 80F and I feel trapped in my own house because of it. I’m a freelance composer/sound designer which means I don’t interact with others much on daily basis except for my wife.
Now, I am diagnosed OCD and I do take medication for it but it’s not a cure all. Xanax is about the only thing that gives me a really good sleep during these times. It’s a bit comforting, though, knowing that I’m not the only one who goes through these things.
You have weird dreams like I do. I remember on in particular that i was in the ground floor of the building I previously worked in. I went to the end of the hall and there was this gigantic wooden door. The kind of door i would imagine that would be on a castle. As i stand and look at this brobdingnagian door this little blonde haired boy asked me did i want in. I replied yes, i do. He pucked up a phone hanging on the wall and spike to some one and hung up. The next thing i know, the door is opening. Someone greets me at the doir and we start to desend down this cave. I notice the rock walls and dirt floor. We make a left turn and there are offices along the cave wall. All of the offices have glass walls and a glass door so you can see inside. Fluorescent lights illuminate the cave and each small office that looks like the large cubie holes in the cave wall. Each cave office had a desk and computer in it and someone hastily at work. I proceed past the cave offices down this hall that looks like something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie with the torches on the walls and everything. Then i get to the end of the office cave hall and make another left. A built up dirt road that was used as road and a dam was packed with people with brown caramel skin. Most of tge women had baskets on their heads filled with flowers or fruit. To my right there was the most beautiful and vivid color of yellow flowers i had ever seen. Then I noticed the flowers were covering water. You could tell there was something in the water under the flowers causing them to bob and sway in the water. Suddenly a dragon like creature rose mightily from the flower laiden water and chomped down on a guy on the road. People were screaming and running until the creature returned to to it’s watery home. Everyone went right back to what they were doing, like it was an everyday occurrence.
The rest of the dresm gets foggy from here. I do remember riding in a horse drawn carriage that ends up being chased by something and the horse disappears somewhere and we are willy nilly rolling down hill.
Thats all I remember.
I had this dream a ling time ago.
Weird, huh?
Probably a “I forgot to take my meds” dream.
Do you write down your dreams as soon as you wake up? I could never remember this much detail of a dream, no matter how disturbing, for more than an hour or so after waking.
I feel your pain, those dreams always lead to weird places. That stage fright type feeling is so strong, it loves to come back in dreams! I have recurrent stress dreams where I am supposed to be dancing in a show that I have not learned the choreography for or ever practiced, but they have a costume for me and the dance won’t work without me, and everyone is very angry and pissed off at me and I spend the entire time trying to convince them that I shouldn’t be there. I at least show up on dress rehearsal day and never get to the real show before I wake myself up. The last one involved a wild-turkey-sized chicken whose best friend was a goat. I didn’t understand it either. I haven’t danced in 15 years.
Maybe your brain is telling you to write a Star Wars play set in the Night Vale universe.
Featuring Lee Marvin as Luke Skywalker.
This. Own it. Make that dream your bitch.
I suggested nightmares as a topic for The Anxiety Coaches Podcast just last week. I struggle too. Stress dreams can really be the worst.
I hate it when the unsettled feeling of a certain dream (or nightmare) stays with me for the rest of the day.
I never have nightmares. All the the elements you described make their appearance. The work related anxiety, the time & place displacement, the no pants (honestly, I think that is the body’s way of saying ‘it’s cold down here. Put some pants on!’) Since I’m a mechanic, I often have dreams were things won’t go back together correctly. Or I that I went back to jobs that I’d be a fool to go back to, but went back to anyway. I can never find the tools I need because the shops are always a combination of every place if worked before. So things are difficult to find. But for me they aren’t nightmares. They’re just interesting dreams. Honestly I seem to sleep better when I have them. Even disappointed when I wake up. I want to see where the story goes!
I’ve struggled with anxiety, & self esteem all my live. I’ve never been brave enough to get help for it. My way to cope has always been to disconnect. Perhaps this has bled over into my dreamscape as well. It may not be healthy, but it has allowed me to view my dreams objectively. And just enjoy the ride.
Disconnecting is not a solution. But maybe trying to remind yourself (while dreaming, easy task I know) that your just a passenger. Attempting to take control of something intangible will just cause extra stress. Just relax & watch the show.
At least in your dream you had underwear – I’m always naked in some inopportune location, having to get home unnoticed; I never know what happened to my clothes, yet in my dream that’s never a concern.
Or how about being on stage, playing opposite an actor who’s portraying a deaf mute, and you’re waiting, waiting, waiting for the first line of the scene and then suddenly have the stomach turning realization that it’s your line?
(Wait a minute! That second one wasn’t a dream…)
Awww the classic actor nightmare of “OMG I’m in a show and I don’t know my lines.” Maybe your next dream role will be in GOT and the only line you know is “The night is dark and full of Vienna sausages” and the next actor quips “You know nothing Wil Wheaton!”
Of course the other possibility is that it wasn’t a dream and the Annual Olde Towne Night Vale Operatic Rendition of Star Wars, featuring Earl Harland as R2-D2 has gone awry due to a fracture in the spacetime continuum.
I want to see that play, minus the nightmarish bits.
I’m just another person who had stress dreams all night, only they involved wandering kittens and trying to keep my daughter in check. Not the same level, I know.
Here’s hoping for better sleep tonight!
I was thinking not long ago that when we’re adults, the stress dream is far more common than the conventional idea of “nightmare,” i.e. a frightening dream. My typical stress dream has me performing at a concert, and I have forgotten to bring my music or even my instrument.
On the other hand, twice in the last couple of months (once being two days ago) I’ve woken from a dream where someone I know enters the room and then suddenly rushes at me with a shriek — like a rage virus zombie, I guess, though I never saw 28 Days Later — and wrestles me to the ground to start gnawing at my throat. I struggle against them helplessly until I literally wake up with a scream. (A manly scream.)
I understand why I have stress dreams, but I don’t know where the full on horror is coming from!
Not trying to minimize the pain, but that was a great description of a nightmare. When I wake, I remember maybe a detail or two and have that vague sense of stress without direction all day long. Your description was fascinating, You may have a new book idea. Keep a retro (non online blog) journal. I know stress, but not your creativity so my nightmares are far more mundane. We all care about you, in our (fan) ways. Try directed dreaming, deep breathing and hug a significant other every night.
Excellent story telling. Perhaps you you should write scripts. Sorry it was such a cramps dream.
Oddly enough when ever I’m naked in one of my dreams, I usually just look down and think, ‘oh well’ and go on with my dream.
Man, that dream was a doozy. I could almost feel the horror – just from reading your account of the thing.
I appreciate you sharing. I’m reminded of Callahan’s Law: Shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased. (This is from Spider Robinson’s book “Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon” – I highly recommend the whole series.) May your dreams sweeten up & fly right tonight.
when i am doing heavy duty processing in therapy, The Dreams come. it is the suck. writing helps. you’ll get through this, because you’re good that way. the mental and physical fog the day after is yucky; i commiserate.
Were it not for the massive and actionable intellectual property theft it would require, I would say you had stumbled across a twisted work of creative genius and that you ought to find a way to produce it!
I empathize with the whole weird and unsettled feeling, but maybe you had better accept that while some geniuses discover DNA in their dreams, you’re cursed with the discovery of novel plotlines. Accept your gift, Wil!
Funny how our fears and anxieties are what play out in these sorts of dreams. Just your brain trying to sort it all out. Usually a good indicator of what’s troubling you during the day. I know it may not be easy but take it as a lesson or as a sign from your subconscious telling you that maybe there’s something you’re a bit too focussed on or you’re stressing out over. Sometimes, if you can just identify the thing your brain is so focussed on, you might be able to find ways to diffuse it. If you’re worried about remembering lines for an upcoming gig or if you’ve got something coming up where you were planning on winging it, maybe at least outline what you were going to say. Tell yourself you’re planning for it and there’s one less thing to worry about.
The best part though is that your dream was Star Wars themed. Your brain is like, “let’s see, I need some parts for this next dream…”
Years ago I read an L M Montgomery book about a group of children who were friends on PE Island. Anne of Green Gables does not figure in this book. The children have adventures and play and it is a very sweet, amusing book. At one point one of them stumbles on having vivid, lurid dreams by eating something strange before bed. So they all take turns eating/drinking something odd before bed, and then talking about their dreams the next day. Until one day one of them eats a whole pickle and drinks a whole glass of milk before bed. The resulting dream wakes the whole house with the screaming and yelling. The whole story comes out and the parents put a stop to it.
My dreams often seen to entail me walking around naked and trying really REALLY hard to pretend everything is normal. UG.
So funny how our brains work. How the flotsom of our day, our reading, our life, the jetsum of our thinking, our plans —– can all mesh together in a mess in our heads. While we are sleeping.
Wow — wish there was something to make it better for you Wil.
The book is called The Story Girl, in case anyone is curious 🙂
but did your water smell like french toast?
Sounds a lot like another dream you described a while back, one with Patrick Stewart and the Star Trek uniform, and you walking away, finding yourself in… was it an old apartment of yours? About ten years ago I had a series of dreams (over a year or so) that culminated in a lucid aspect where, in any dream, I began to recognize the “landscape,” or rather, the “mindscape”. While in the dream, if I was in, say, a house, I would go outside and look at the street, and know that if turned right and went a few blocks, I would be in the location of one of the other dreams, or turned left and went another way, it would be where some other dream took place. This dream-landscape became very large, and I have theorized that it is like a representation of the pathways of the neural network. Your recent dream and the one about the uniform- costume certainly sound like they are in the same neighborhood.
Did you every try lucid dreaming?
It is possible to train the brain to recognize that it’s dreaming
giving you the chance to alter the dream to your liking.
Might give you an advantage over the stress dreams…
Wil, I’m not sure which social media platform, or mysterious Apple thing has made it so that your birthday appears on my calendar, with reminder notifications. Nonethless, my computer is telling me your birthday is Wednesday. So happy birthday! Hope your family spoils you rotten. And may your dreams be just as interesting, but less unsettling.
I just came off of two nights of nightmares in a row. This is after a long period, weeks, almost months, of terrible sleep. I think my brain goes into catch-up mode with the dreams. There were a string of of events and things happening here, that threw me off my sleep regimen. Finally calm enough that my head wasn’t spinning at bedtime. It’s amazing that I feel rested, because last night’s dreams were the ‘sticky’ kind. I feel that weird kind of ‘wary’. Thank goodness for feathers on a fishing pole and feline therapy.
You’ve gotta admit, that was a good one!