Thread: What are your earliest dream memories?

I remember a recurring dream I had when I was little, where I was running away from a bad guy. I went into this space, I think a lake surrounded by walls, and there was a giant painting of mona lisa, who was going to protect me from the bad guy. There was a giant rubber duck there too.

I was running away from that bad guy in many of my dreams as a child. I think I was around 5.

Godzilla ate me and I went down into his red stomach.

Earliest dream I can reliably remember involves me being chased by a mummy Indiana Jones style through a pyramid. Was recurring and scared the shit out of me at the time.

I actually think that it was a lucid dream, and it was probably in 1994 or something, when I was 8 years old.
I dreamed that there was some sort of outdoor party in our garden in the middle of the night (I think there were Christmas decorations here and there as well, like colour lights and stuff), and there were a lot of anthropomorphic animals there.
At one point I got frustrated that the dream just kept going on, and I screamed at a bear "Why do I never stop dreaming?!" and that bear pretty much didn't care.
Then I woke up a few minutes later, and I think that's when I became aware of the fact that you could be lucid in dreams, although I couldn't really do a lot of research on this since this was before the Internet had become accessible.

I recall four dreams from my childhood.

One was set in some sort of school building where a red spiny lizard creature ran around creating havoc, pushing people down stairs, etc.

One was a re-occurring dream where I was in my parents room and then a bear burst in, walking on its two hind legs in a very unrealistic fashion, and then proceeded to just stand there in the middle of the room, being a bear.

One was a re-occurring nightmare where there was a blank white void. Then, very slowly a black "squiggle" would begin to move from the left of my field of vision, to the right, and a high-pitched whine would accompany it. When it got to the center of my field of vision it would suddenly become huge and I would hear an unpleasant noise. Then it would shrink and become small again, and continue it's journey to the right, and after it left my field of vision the dream would end.

I don't remember why, and I could never understand when awake, but that squiggle dream was terrifying. The worst part was the anticipation. Like when the squiggle was moving in from the left I knew it was going to become huge and make an unpleasant noise when it reached the center, and the anticipation of that happening as the squiggle slowly moved to the right was the worst aspect of the dream. And now in retrospect the dream is a hilarious example of dream illogic.

The fourth I can remember, the most detailed dream I can remember from my early childhood, involved a blue lizard-person that was hunting me. This lizard-creature had the ability to kill people and then turn them into small cyan-colored beads, with which it made a bead necklace. It could further use these beads to transform and take the form of the person that had been turned into that bead. The majority of the dream was spent trying to evade this shape-shifter, and not trusting anyone as anyone could potentially be the shape-shifter. It ended up being a lot like the Thing, a movie I had no knowledge of at the time.

It started at some sort of dance, where I discovered the creature had been hiding in the bathrooms, killing people that entered and adding them to its shape-shifting necklace. I left the dance trying to escape, and eventually found two hunters who agreed to help me out... only for one of them to turn out to be the shape-shifter, of course.

I escaped again and headed to Lake Michigan, where I found and boarded a pirate ship (I was a child in this dream, after all), and joined the crew. The very last part of the dream was an epic battle between the shape-shifter and the pirates, with the final remembered image before waking up being myself on a lifeboat sailing away from the pirate ship, with the lizard-creature standing on the railing of the ship, holding the rigging in one of its claws, and looking menacingly at me as I escaped yet again.

I don't recall which of these dreams preceded which other ones. Although I remember the fourth one must have happened in kindergarten or first grade, as I remembered considering using the story in one of the creative writing assignments we got back then.

I was about 4-5 years old and I dreamed about playing with a little (about 6cm long) car which was painted by dark red metallic paint... it had openable doors and trunk. It was so vivid dream that I was sure that I had that car in real life and I tried to find it for weeks.
I was about 6 when I had another vivid dream where I was flying. After waking I tried to repeat the feat for a few days, I even told my brother what he has to do to fly We were hard landing into mattresses

Originally Posted by Psionik

I was about 6 when I had another vivid dream where I was flying. After waking I tried to repeat the feat for a few days, I even told my brother what he has to do to fly

I had the same experience, but I had a little sister rather than a brother. In my dream I "learned" that you can fly if you tie a bedsheet to your wrists and ankles and run - you catch the wind like a kite and get lifted off the ground. I tied a sheet to myself first and jumped off the roof of a shed in the back yard. I thought the reason it didn't work is because the shed was blocking the wind from getting under the sheet and filling it like a sail. So I tied the sheet to my sister and she ran across the neighbor's yard (big open yard where we always used to fly kites and throw balls and frisbees etc). She fell and broke her big toe.

Years later I had a dream that a dwarf walked out of my closet and told me the secret of flying in dreams. Actually I was half-awake when this happened - I was looking into the closet at my robe and boots, which then turned into the dwarf - very comical looking, wearing a big floppy trench coat and big hat and had big feet - sort of reminded me of one of the dwarves from Snow White (Disney cartoon version ). Who was the goofy one? Dopey I think? Looked a lot like him, but more serious. Also had a lot of MacGruff the Crime Dog, but I think it was before those commercials came out. So sort of like a detective (in the trench coat and hat). He told me I need to tense a certain muscle in the abdominal region (actually the solar plexus area) and I'll always be able to fly in dreams, and I think I understood that I was in a dream at the time. Turned out it didn't work though. I woke up immediately after with the feeling I had just experienced something really powerful and important.

Oh, I also remember - when he walked out of the closet his feet moved really fast and made loud slapping sounds on the floor - very weird and funny. It was because my dog was scratching himself near my room and his foot used to hit the floor really fast and make that noise. I incorporated the sound into my dream.

All early dreams I can remember are reccuring nightmares.

One, that was more a thriller than a nightmare, was about a witch living at the bottom of a shopping-center. She wanted to eat children after cooking them in a huge pot. I had to escape her by balancing on a huge rotating log like in super mario 64. In the end of the dream my Dad would always bash her over the head with a frying pan.

The worst were what I call "mathematical nightmares". I could never really describe them. But the stress was unbelievable. There were several versions, all recurring, they shared that I had to solve increasingly difficult logic puzzles with increasing time pressure to save someone, usually a little girl from dying. Just trying to recall those dreams makes me pretty uncomfortable. I just couldn't win or save her, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Some times those dreams would make me sleep-walk, and my parents found me soaked in swet, pacing around the house mumbling, screaming and hyperventilating. Or standing in front of the mirror, impossible to wake up.

They were worried...

Originally Posted by ThePerson

I remember a recurring dream I had when I was little, where I was running away from a bad guy.

Originally Posted by LabyrinthDreams

I don't remember why, and I could never understand when awake, but that squiggle dream was terrifying.

Originally Posted by LighrkVader

All early dreams I can remember are reccuring nightmares.

Seems like recurring nightmares are a consistent theme in this thread.

Originally Posted by Phased

Seems like recurring nightmares are a consistent theme in this thread.

I suspect it's psychological. A bad experience tends to imprint itself on the memory more than ten good experiences. Ergo for dreams, at least for those untrained at dream recall (like children), a nightmare will likely be more remembered than another dream.

Black cat sitting on my chest..,asking numerous personal questions (this one's more recent) wake up (at least assume i am) asleep on stomach..feel an instantaneous wave of ecstasy over head and body (was once given hydromorphone/dilaudid intravenously for kidney stone) cant think of better comparison, i cant move yet had no concept of fear..something proceeds to slowly massage my shoulders (all i remember) furthermore i wasnt under the influence of anything..this isnt fiction, i slept with light on for days..and if happened again would probably check into psychiatric facility

A dream where I saw a lady purposely mess her hair up then jump in a lake.Then she couldn't swim.She called attention to a boat,which went to her but just let her drown.Then I saw a giant statue of her where people could take an elevator without walls down her throat and see food chunks stuck to the sides of it.I was a very messed up kid.

Extremely interesting results so far!
Perhaps the high frequency of nightmares in this thread are due to people taking up lucid dreaming to combat them and therefore ending up in this thread.

Keep them coming!

Possibly, i think some people just enjoy to read about others dreams..offers them a unique perspective about who they are, sometimes wish i could buy or program good dream experience's (think author philip dick wrote similar story) and that (almost) everybody has something that somebody else wants....love your picture

Originally Posted by PrisonPlanet

Possibly, i think some people just enjoy to read about others dreams..offers them a unique perspective about who they are, sometimes wish i could buy or program good dream experience's (think author philip dick wrote similar story) and that (almost) everybody has something that somebody else wants....love your picture

Thanks

Originally Posted by Psionik

I was about 4-5 years old and I dreamed about playing with a little (about 6cm long) car which was painted by dark red metallic paint... it had openable doors and trunk. It was so vivid dream that I was sure that I had that car in real life and I tried to find it for weeks.
I was about 6 when I had another vivid dream where I was flying. After waking I tried to repeat the feat for a few days, I even told my brother what he has to do to fly We were hard landing into mattresses

I also had a dream where I learnt how to fly when I was young. I just had to lift my leg up and my arms up and I would fly up. I tried to do it in real life but it wouldn't work...

The first dream I ever recorded in my journalling system was in 2012 where this American voice actor came to my house and then we all went over to a family friend's house. The rest of my family and the voice actor were driven there but I rode all the way there on my bike. My brother and I built a real life Minecraft style house on the property and then I rode to and from the beach nearby.

Yes I remember a nightmare of being chased by a wooden puppet that was trying to eat my legs. I became lucid so I could escape the dream. I think I was about 3 or 4 years old.

+Sleep paralysis with small cartoon characters walking on my chest and one grew in size to jump on my face
+mother trying to have snakes bite me
+me climbing into a hole in the closet to teleport to other dream scenes (this one was a recurring dream scene)