So, I have always been interested in dreaming. Always thought they have meaning behind them. I’ve been having very vivid dreams this week. Last night i had a dream I was on the opposite side of a softball field fence and people were kicking very colorful rubber balls over the fence to me. I was catching them and then kicking them back. It was a good time and i felt like a child for a moment. Then, BAM a police officer shows up and informs me the park is closed. There is more to my dream, but I am interested in hearing about others dream experiences. So, if you would like to share, please do so! 
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I had stopped dreaming for years and years…or at least I had stopped remembering if I had dreamt. I don’t even know how long it was anymore. It took quite a few years of sobriety and stopping all sleep aids before I started dreaming again. It was a poignant moment when I realized I was dreaming vividly again, as dreamwork has long been an interest of mine.
My interest in dreams started when I was in high school. My sociology class had us wake ourselves up when dreaming and write down our dreams to really catch them. I also used a tape recorder (that is an ancient device that humans once used to record their voices 
)…it is super eerie listening to your sleeping voice. Totally monotone, no inflection at all. But waking yourself up is a great tool to fully capture your dreams.
Later in life, when I was working toward my degree in transpersonal psychology, I took quite a few dream classes and workshops…most were based on the collective unconscious/Jungian school of thought regarding dreams. It was enlightening work, and I particularly enjoyed analyzing dreams and learning how different cultures approached the dream realm.
One of the dreams that I remember most in my life…pre long term sobriety…was dreaming I was flying (not particularly original 
)…I always love flying dreams…so light and carefree…nothing weighing you down. In this particular one, I eventually started losing my altitude and started dropping back down from space into the atmosphere and then falling faster and faster. It became very scary as I was hurtling toward the ground and obvious death. Just as I was crashing, I woke up in bedroom and I swear to this day I felt myself bounce off my mattress as I landed from levitating. 
It was one of many interesting moments in my life. 
Talk about ‘coming back to Earth,’
Anyway, thanks for letting me take a little trip back in time and remember how much comfort and clarity dreams have brought to my existence. 
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Oh that was such a beautiful share @SassyRocks! Annnnnd now I feel like I’m going to dampen the mood a bit lol.
When I was a kid, I would “dream” a lot, but it was more nightmares. I had recurring dreams. One was about wolves jumping into my 2nd story bedroom window that scared me and the other dreams as I got older were about my dad dying. He was always in a car but the ways he would die were always different. And too vivid even to remember as I type this. So, when he died in a car (his anniversary of his death is tomorrow) I wasn’t super surprised. I had also written a poem to him about how he needed to quit drinking or by my 14th birthday, he’d be dead. And he was, a month and a half before my 14th birthday. Alcoholism leads us no where good! I started drinking and smoking weed after that so I don’t recall having any more dreams until the next round of sobriety, when I was pregnant with my son.
Those dreams were scarily similar to my dads, my son always drowned in them. It freaked me out and I had an irriational fear of it happening and I literally prayed every single day for that to not happen. Until the day my mom took him to the beach when he was 5. My mom can’t swim and they didn’t realize as the tide came in that it created a deep water channel between where they were and the beach. I didn’t know what that looked like for them until after the danger had passed, the water was moving fast and up to my mom’s neck. They were both lucky they made it across, they aren’t sure how it happened either. That day I said my thank you’s to my dad and all the guardian angels watching over them and said I have faith you’ll keep him safe. I never had another dream about it after that.
I know dreams are supposed to be about symbolism-which I have always sucked at interperting lol. But it completely fascinated me how accurate they were!
I didnt have dreams for the longest time because I was no where near sober. If I had one I remembered, it was usually the occasional visit I had from my dad. I’d always start out asking, you know you’re dead right? Lol.
When I stopped smoking weed a few years ago is when the dreaming came back with avengence! Its been INCREDIBLE!! They are never fearful like they used to be. They are effing beautiful. And most days I remember 2 or 3 from each night when I first wake up. It’s like I have this intuitive insight that I had closed off for SO long. It helps me to see things so differently. To know things sometimes that others don’t tell me, which is rare but apparently sometimes needed and it adds SO much richness and beauty to my life. I often will run them by my sponsor if something really stands out because she is fantastic at helping me interpert them!
It is really beautiful how it has evolved with my healing too. The fear, the pain, the worry, chaos and destruction even in my unconscious dream state has changed. It’s one more gift of recovery I am just now realizing how much has evolved with me.
This was a great and insightful topic!!
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If i was to pick apart your dream, I would say your conscience was feeling free and at a all time high flying in your dream, and your subconscience was concerned you might fall back into old habits. You were self aware and woke yourself before you hit bottom. I think dreams are a way for our minds to “act” out unwanted desires or wanted desired to prevent us from making “mistakes” or feeling “hurt” in our awakened life. Dreams are kind of away for us to experience situations that might be difficult in real life, and help protect us or even teach us. I don’t know if i am making sense. Its difficult to write and put into words. Basically, i think dreaming is away to protect us.
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To me it sounds like you have very strong intuition and you might not always voice what your “gut” is trying to tell you. Your intuition is coming out in your dreams and preparing you for situations that will be difficult to handle in real life. It could also be your brains way of preparing you for situations that could arise or away to release your fears without actually putting yourself in harms way. Simply, away for your mind to release those fears and move forward. It sounds like you have really overcome your fears and your conscience is aligned and clear, therefore, causing you to have beautiful dreams and enjoying your inner spirit.
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When dreaming i try and remember things like colors, smells, how i was feeling in my dream, what point of view was i dreaming in, was i able to see my face, and if so what facial expressions was i making, am i the same age in my dream, etc. Trying to really pay attention to all details. I’ve only ever had one experience where i was able to control my dream and have a reoccurring dream after waking up. I started dreaming the same place i woke up from, that was pretty interesting. On another note, I had a friend who had night terrors HORRIBLY. I dated his cousin and they lived together. There were a few nights he would wake up screaming and running like a mad man throughout the apartment. There was one time when he actually ran outside and locked himself out of the house. Or he would run into my bfs room and lock the door, completely forgetting anyone else was around. It was scary. He didnt even like mentioning what he had dreams about. We didnt talk much about it, besides the time he locked himself in my bfs room and was holding the door shut. We couldn’t try and wake him, because he was unaware of who we were in his dream state. He described a slinder tall figure always trying to get him. I felt so bad for him…
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