I think I've noticed a pattern in my last few dreams that have involved either Zombies, Werewolves, or vampires. It seems these creatures appear in response to me becoming angry. I haven't gone digging through the DJs yet to see if this is the case, but in this context, it would make sense that these creatures represent a part of myself.
If they do indeed represent parts of ourselves linked to emotions, then I think the werewolf would be the easiest to identify and understand. It's safe to say that werewolves represent a base, animalistic part of ourselves. Zombies would be a little harder to identify with because of the mindlessness they embody, and vampires are even more complex due to their sexual nature.
So this is the part where I ask everyone to post links to to zombie/werewolf/vamp dreams they've had. Do these creature appear in response to your emotions?
Edit: I've started searching for werewolves in the DJs, and it's amazing how many logical reasons there are for werewolves to appear in dreams that have nothing to do with emotions. Those types of dreams don't count! The rest however do seem appear in response to aggressive emotional situations.
I don't remember ever having either a werewolf, zombie or vampire in any of my dreams. Weird ... maybe tonight.
I think someone else brought up zombies in dreams, and I offered my explanation of them being representative of stress in life. Zombies almost always come together, surround you... not exactly in a very quick violent sense (just like in real life you're not dodging assassins and gunfighting... its deadlines, things you know you have to do later, bills, etc... slowly killing you). They are all encompassing, and although not quick to kill you, they are endless in number coming one by one.
I myself have had few zombie dreams but my dad has them often, so I've come up with this explanation.
I think its good you've mixed these creatures together as they mostly likely embody conflict, or something that haunts you... but like you said, they probably each represent something a little different.
Quote from: The Cusp on June 29, 2008, 01:20:10 PMZombies would be a little harder to identify with because of the mindlessness they embody Zombies are other people.
I have zombie dreams, but not vampire or werewolf dreams, unfortunately. Zombies are always such a vague threat, easy to forget about; they're just like part of the background a lot of the time, setting the mood of the dream.
I don't know if you're right or wrong, but I don't think my dream examples would be much help.
What I'm looking for specifically is when the monsters make their first appearance in your dream, and what you were doing right before they showed up.
Dreams that start off with these monsters already in them are missing the parts I'm looking for.
here is my most recent zombie dream...
i had gone to see a friend of my grandfathers who lived in the woods, he resembled Bell from Cannibal! the musical. there were 5 or 6 people with me, it was winter and very snowy... me and the people with me were to do some chores for Bell. we did some work around the cabin for him, i asked if i could use his snowmobile to move some downed tree limbs, i told him that i'd fill it up with gas once i was done. he agreed and i drove the snowmobile up from his basement to outside. it was hard to steer, it steered by pushbutton, every time you pushed the left or right button it would turn a little more in that direction and it never seemed to go in a straight line.
time passed and it seemed that everyone except me had started to go crazy. the cabin had turned into a cabin on top of a large concrete complex with shops below it as well as a huge parking garage. after touring the complex mentally i realized that everyone i was with had become flesh eating zombies.
full dream here: http://mortalmist.com/forum/index.php/topic,854.msg19619.html#msg19619
does a mummy head count? it would be my only example, but since i was lucid and just arrived from a successful WILD attempt, there wasn't any specific mental precursor or anything... but maybe you should add mummies to your list? don't wanna discriminate now, do we?
My dreams with zombies.
Zombies
(A long, complicated movie dream; I forgot most of the details of the beginning, but it involves being trapped on a island with zombies, trying to drive a bus to get away, etc.)
The disease that caused people to become zombies works like this: people look normal, but every 8 minutes they turn into zombies and attack any non-zombies around. We end up trapped in a room, about 20 or so people. Luckily an alarm sounds every 8 minutes to warn people that a zombie attack is imminent. Whenever the alarm sounds, we look out of the room to see if there are any non-zombie people we can save by pulling into the room. One of these times, we can't get the door to close and lock again.
I realize we are going to have to leave the safety of the room--besides the door problem, there are too many people, and eventually we will have to eat. There is discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of leaving the room, but eventually we agree. We practice looking like zombies so that when the alarm sounds we can blend in and not be attacked. I am doubtful that I will be able to pass as a zombie, and also scared that I won't be able to hide, but I know we have to go. So we organize a fishing trip and head off to the river. It is mostly family members at this point. (I remember fishing, getting into a vehicle, and not too much more problem with zombies.)
Zombies
A thought-dream where I considered the different types of zombies and the best defenses against them (slow vs. fast, etc.)
Damn Zombies
A zombie plague is taking over the world (again). If you get touched nine times by one of the infected, you will go to sleep, then wake up as a zombie. People keep touching me, and I lose track of how many times, so I get freaked out. Tom and I decide to escape and commit suicide if we show signs of turning. My Dad lays down on the couch, saying that he is tired--of course we know that he will wake up as a zombie. We urge him to quickly kill himself, then leave.
At some point during our escape, we are in a bar, playing poker. Then we find an abandoned apartment and hide in it. I am leaning against a door that won't lock, so no zombies will get in. (Except for the poker playing incident, the dream up til now is filled with terror, however it loses the nightmare quality in the apartment).
There is a big-screen TV in the apartment, and I find program on it that you can use to make avatars. I start to make one for Tom. You can start with a famous person and customize it for your avatar. I think I am using an Arnold Schwarzenegger base for Tom, which I think he will really like, but when he comes in and sees it, I realize I have used some tennis player instead of Arnold, and he is not happy with it. I feel sorry I disappointed him.
Zombies--a very original dream
People are in a shopping mall. Zombies are there too, the slow kind. The people have guns to shoot the zombies, but the zombies have mutated and are very hard to kill. The people are running out of ammunition and are already out of food. They are doomed.
I have never dreamt of monsters of any kind in my dreams. Any threat I ever felt in my dream would be from human.
Quote from: dallyup52 on July 01, 2008, 11:08:08 PM
OMG!!! that's the best smiley ever!
Quote from: analyst on July 01, 2008, 01:04:12 PMdoes a mummy head count? it would be my only example, but since i was lucid and just arrived from a successful WILD attempt, there wasn't any specific mental precursor or anything... but maybe you should add mummies to your list? don't wanna discriminate now, do we?
Yeah, I suppose mummies count. They are certainly an archetypal creature.
My Zombie contribution...
I am walking around a giant dilapidated mansion that is infested with the walking dead and their spirits. Oddly, I am not very afraid (just a bit wary). I know where their positions are throughout the house and I have dealt with the more dangerous ones already. Most of the remaining dead have resigned themselves to my intrusion and stay out of sight when I pass. The rooms are very grand, but dusty and full of gloom and cobwebs. One room has a large ornate mahogany bar with silver sconces. There are wooden chairs tossed about. The dust is thick on the floor. I never see any bedrooms in this house. I meet with the owner of the house on the top floor (the staircases are a deep reddish brown, wide, and very sturdy). I am relieved to see someone living here. He doesn't seem to care too much for my presence, but it not overtly hostile either. He gives me some advice for getting out of the house. I make my way back downstairs and enter a room where one wall is covered with lovely (but dirty) stained glass. One wall has some four or five red leaf blowers hanging on hooks. Suddenly, the owner appears with a shovel and smashes all of the stained glass. Daylight floods into the house. I feel relieved to finally see some daylight, as it makes this house much less forbidding. The man's back is turned to me as he continues to destroy the stained glass. I have the notion to kill him. Yes, the daylight is refreshing, but he is ruining his house as well. I decide to leave him alone.
Thanks for the zombie dreams, but...
I'm looking for dreams that start off before any trace of the zombies showed up. Basically, I'm trying to find common triggers that make zombies appear.
It seems that so many dreams start in the middle of an on-going story. It's hard to find ones where everything is normal and then goes bad, it seems like.
Here's what I've found in my MM DJ, which isn't much:
[Vampire] http://mortalmist.com/forum/index.php/topic,80.msg12740.html#msg12740
[Zombie] http://mortalmist.com/forum/index.php/topic,80.msg21298.html#msg21298
Not sure if these are too helpful.... Post more as I find them on my older DJs.
Could be considered a logical reason... I seemed to not have posted how I felt in my older DJs >.>
[Vampire]
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?p=525629&highlight=vampire#post525629 [Evilness]
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?p=630013&highlight=vampire#post630013 [Evilness]
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?p=697752&highlight=vampire#post697752 [Evilness]
http://hazelnutldreams.blogspot.com/search?q=vampire [All old vampire stuff, didn't look through them thoroughly]
[Zombie]
http://hazelnutldreams.blogspot.com/2007/05/051407.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?p=435922&highlight=zombie#post435922 [Evilness]
Yeah... I don't know if these are very helpful either....
I dream about vampires and werewolves fairly often, but I read so much about them that it's pretty obvious mine don't mean anything.
I think it's facinating how symbolic they are in other's dreams, though.
Thanks for all the dreams everyone, I think I have more than enough examples. I found exactly what I was expecting. They seem to follow my rules of dreaming without exception, or at least the rules of creation.
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The more attention you give to one element, the more detail it creates in relation to what you are focused on.
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Emotions play a strong creative role and influence all dream elements. (I need to summarize that one better)
I was however a little surprise to see how few emotionally created monsters appear. The vast majority of these creatures arise from the logic of the second rule. But the emotional ones are crystal clear as to the origins of these beasts.
I've been doing some research and trying to find the very first mention of zombies ever in print, with no luck. Mainly because I think the very first conception of zombies originated in somebody's dream. Everything about their nature screams dream to me. You start off with one ghastly zombie, the horror of which draws fixates your attention to it, and the next thing you know, there's zombies everywhere. They whole zombie physics echoes what happens in dreams. There has to be a link between the two. But then again, we probably get all our ideas from dreams.
I dream about zombies really often. I dream about vampires sometimes, and werewolves not very often at all.
In my dreams zombies almost never show up (maybe never show up -- I'm too lazy to look through all my DJs right now) without my family being there. They appear when I become concerned for my family's safety. Often they are part of some end-of-the-world scenario. Usually I'm not afraid of them hurting me, I'm afraid of them getting to my family. Usually I attempt to get my family to some safe place with plenty of food and water, etc.
This is how a typical zombie dream will progress for me: I'm with my family and we are traveling for some reason. I begin to worry about someone getting left behind or family groups getting seperated or lost. I worry about housing, food, etc -- availability of resources. I become aware of some unnamed threat, something going wrong with society in general. Poof zombies!! Then I proceed to try to protect my family.
Zombie dreams seem to have this difference from other stressful dreams about my family: Security fears -- securing where we are staying Early in the dream I will get seperated from most of my family and am left with a small (1-4) group I worry an unusual amount about getting the whole family back together The feeling of a threat from outside the family Feeling that there is or will be a scarcity of resources I am nearly always seperated from my partner
Looking back, in waking life context, zombie dreams seem to represent the progression of some innocuous seeming emotion, event, attitude, etc that slowly becomes a threat to my relationships with my family. It has also surfaced when a family member is fighting cancer.
I'll try to make some generalizations about my vampire dreams and how they differ from dreams that are about other monsters.
When I dream about vampires my family almost always isn't in the dream, or I've been arguing with my family. I'm almost always lucid.
Vampires seem to show up if my dreams have some of these characteristics: Someone dies. I or someone else is trying to stay under the radar. I may be using a fake name or sneaking around. I'm horny, but don't actually have sex. Food or drink almost always figure in the dream somehow. Drink especially. The dream has a "story" feel to it -- is like I'm acting out or watching a movie.
The last four of those seem to be the real key ingredients to me having a vampire show up. This is a generalized run down of how a vampire dream will progress for me: I am pretending to be someone I'm not. I go to a cafe or bar or open a fridge or something and see a lot of fruit and vegtables and fruit juice. I'm feeling like I could use a little lovin' but for some reason I don't get it on. A mysterious, handsome, and dangerous looking guy or girl will show up. They're tall and thin. When they look at me I can feel my insides tremble. I find out they are a vampire. We got hunt supernaturals together.
Vampire dreams seem to indicate a need for some adventure in my LDs. Often I get vampire dreams when I'm working hard on a story. Usually I haven't had sex in over a week.
I don't dream about werewolves much. Unlike vampires and zombies I have never had a dream in which I was a werewolf. I've had a couple of dreams in which I was a shape-shifter, however.
Werewolves seem to be very related to spirituality to me. All the times that I can remember they only show up if I've: been at a church been at a spiritual event of some kind been talking about or thinking about spirituality They are especially likely to show up if I'm feeling spiritually constrained. I mean if I've been at a church with my mom or something and I feel like I can't express my true spiritual nature.
They also have a huge tie-in to nature. If I'm in a big city they aren't going to show. They are especially likely to show if I'm traveling in a forested, wild area. For some weird reason they also have a link to fish in my dreaming brain. If I see fish or eat fish the odds that they'll show increase dramatically. I can't remember any dreams about werewolves in which I was afraid of them.
This is how a general werewolf dream will progress for me: I'm at a church or doing something religious-related. I feel like I'm not expressing my spiritual nature, or like I have to hide what I really believe. I leave and have to travel through a forested area. I'll see some fish in a stream or think about how much I'd love some salmon for dinner. I see movement in the trees. I see a wolf or group of wolves. Often they have humans with them. Sometimes I'll see humans change to wolves. They excitedly greet me. I know that I am the priestess of the werewolf pack. I do something to express my deep spiritual tie to nature, the wild and untamed parts of myself, etc.
They seem to be closely linked to spiritual growth, freedom, and affirmation.
I think it is interesting that so many people have "negative" associations with werewolves. Loosing control, fear of one's beastial nature, etc. I wonder if I have such good dreams about werewolves because I have worked so hard to be in tune with all of my self and to be accepting and affirming of all of my darker drives.
What do you guys think?
THanks Red Queen, that was a very good summary of your dreams. I couldn't have asked for better!
Very interesting and insightful. What a good view of yourself and your dreams.
Hmmm, I finally dreamed of a werewolf and the first thing I recalled was this thread of yours Cuspy!
It had no logical origin, but I'm uncertain I'm almost certain I was not stressed IRL or anytime prior to it's appearance... I think I'd have to dream of them more before I find a real origin for me.
I don't think I've ever dreamed of zombies, werewolves or vampires. I always assumed that these creatures appear in the dreams of those who watch horror movies or play computer games. However their presence in folklore and myth is widespread and in at least two cases connected with darkness.