I can never follow the same dream the next night, but if I wake up during a pleasant dream, I can usually go back to it right away!
I am always myself in my dreams and in my dreams I'm always getting lost and can't find my way home. I do get lost or turned around easily. I have become lost in big box stores. I suppose it is age related.
I think dreaming is just my brain "defragging". Once I dreamt that I was awake, and when I woke up, I was asleep! But, all seriousness aside, I usually am trying to get somewhere, walking, and eventually get lost. I will dream about our previous homes, and find whole, hidden wings that I never knew existed. I will go around closing windows and checking the doors to see if they are locked. The worst dreams, find me at work! Those are nightmares!
I have similar experiences, particularly in the time just before I actually wake up. I was working for a small city in Texas, where I was the EMS directory, health inspector, and building inspector. Although I wouldn't be in any trouble over it, since I was frequently kept up at night with emergency calls, I preferred not to be found sleeping when the town manager came looking for me. I was napping on a spare ambulance stretcher in the ambulance bay one day when I awoke hearing the town manager talking to someone at the same time that I heard a key being put into to the lock leading to the ambulance bay, so I figured that he was looking for me. I quickly got up, and pretended to be arranging something in the ambulance. Then, the door opened and I was still lying on the ambulance stretcher. Rather than actually getting up, I just dreamed that I had gotten up. Otherwise, sometimes I get up early in the morning for one reason or another only to find that I hadn't really gotten up, but simply dreamed that I had gotten up.
I do have a clue, because this is almost the same as a re-occurring nightmare that I have. I worked for a long time as a restaurant server, and I get the same sort of dreams!! And it is terrible, it is weird and very unsettling. the dream always is that I am working and it either gets very busy, or something happens and I am trying in vain to serve these tables but I can't because they disappear, or I have to cook food first or any number of things happens. Sometimes like in the movies that area expands and I fear I will not get the food to the table hot. I have also had the same thing with reading the order, I either cannot tell what it is or where the table is located, just terrible. There is a variation where the equipment changes and I can not ring up the order, or read a schedule or something like that. Last night I had the restaurant dream again, this time I was a customer and decided to wait on myself. I made a cup of tea, and a bagel and brought some strawberries which I put on the plate. The hostess asked me why I was doing this but I ignored her and did it anyway. Then I tried to find a seat, and noticed the table arrangement was different. I finally found a seat and someone flopped their hair in my plate, but I moved it and kept on. People tried to join me, they wanted the table, but I finished the tea and had something in my mouth, I pulled out Wiley E Coyote, a toy one, and looked in my cup and found other toys had formed from the sugar cubes. There was a brief scene where I looked out the window and a guy had this car that was like a hearse, all done in red and pink and it had a bunch of little dogs jumping around. It was one heck of a low rider. Weird stuff, symbols I will no doubt be contemplating.
In my dreams, I am always myself. I don't think I ever had a dream in which I was someone else, or just myself with super powers or that sort of thing. Or if I had any dream of that sort, I must have forgotten it.
Had a goofy dream last night. My wife was with a few friends and as I tried to find her, they kept hiding in all these secrect rooms in some big old house. At times, I could hear them, but could not find her. This seemed to last most of the night but I imagine it was only a few minutes. Hmmm. I wonder if she is trying to tell me something.
I think I am always myself in dreams but sometimes I am watching everything going on and not really involved myself.
I'm always in my prime. I sometimes see myself very briefly like the time I went to a casual low-key party...and Bob Dylan was my date He was holding my hand. Pretty cool but the dream didn't last long. Dream was in black and white even though I always dream in color. Interesting.
When I was growing up, my grandmother lived with us and I usually wanted to share my dreams with her. She would tell me to stop -- it was bad luck! I don't know where she picked up that superstition, but it made her uneasy. Most of the time I am myself in my most recent dreams. For a while, my dreams made no sense whatsoever, were psychedelic and disturbing. They consisted of colors and shapes that were not pleasant, and had an air about them that would wake me up. I'd be drenched in sweat. Lately, I am me -- trying to get somewhere in my past. I'm always running into obstacles, and wake up realizing there has to be some meaning to the dream -- like I'm trying to accomplish something that never comes to pass. I used to have me dreams where I was in situations with other people who I knew or know in my real life. The dreams sometimes alerted me to feelings I had about one of the people. Feelings I didn't recognize in my waking life. There is some research online on how to have the dreams you want to have. I haven't tried to do that, but it might be an interesting experiment! Some of my strangest dreams about me, are where I pick up from the place I was dreaming about the night before. I wonder why if I take a really long nap in the afternoon, why I don't have any dreams, but at night I dream a lot.