That's understandable. It's a pretty big change in identity, especially if you hadn't been exposed to entertainment involving it before. On a somewhat related note, my first exposure to gender-bending in media was the episode of Power Rangers where the villains sabotaged the Blue Ranger's mind-reading device and he swapped bodies with one of the female rangers.radthemad4 wrote:My dream happened before I heard of Ranma or any other genderbending media, so I guess I freaked out as it was kind of unexpected.
@thread
I usually have action-packed dreams, but I have had some that are more down-to-earth. Boring but non-threatening dreams included getting takeout with my mom, talking and cuddling with my SO, practising for a play with my brother, and stopping at a few garage sales on my way home. I often have dreams that start normal before going completely off the rails though.
I've also had a few of the standard nightmares. I had a public nudity dream where my swimsuit disappeared after I left the changeroom at a pool, but everyone else was naked too. I had one dream about failing a class back in October and was very upset about it in the dream. I've also "woken up" and had one or more teeth fall out, but when that happened I quickly recognized I was dreaming and woke up for real. For reference, when I deliberately wake myself I try to force my eyes open even though they are already open in the dream. It usually works after one or two attempts, and it feels like having a second set of eyelids.
Someone shared this article with me back in January. It's about a study suggesting people that play a lot of video games are less likely to have nightmares and better able to control their dreams. Some of that is because gamers didn't tend to feel threatened by violent encounters in their dreams, so a skeleton attack that would wake a non-gamer in a cold sweat is just another fun battle with the undead to the gamer. I'll have to read the original study at some point too.