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biostructure
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15 Apr 2015, 11:28 pm

I mentioned this is passing in the thread in Love and Dating, but wanted to ask more generally whether this is a common AS thing. In my dreams, I am often implicitly younger than I am in real life. I say implicitly because it's the situations and the relationships I have with different people that imply a younger age when analyzed by my waking mind, not that I have a strong sense of my own age in the dream.

For instance, I have recurring dreams of going to my old elementary school. Parts of my adult self do "break through" in these dreams, like when assignments are being given I feel like they are "beneath me", or that I really don't have to be there any more because I know all the stuff already. In that sense it's almost like I'm "auditing" elementary school classes, yet it takes me a while in the dream to remember that I in fact already passed those grades. I also commonly dream of getting in a car and driving home from that school. But during recess I'm just another one of the students.

Also, in my dreams, my relationship with parents is closer and more "pure" than it has been for many years, although they don't appear as actual figures, rather as disembodied voices coming from somewhere vaguely behind me that explain things to me or ask questions.

I also have dreams of playing with other kids, which I didn't do often as an actual kid at all, and sometimes there are romantic overtones if there are girls in the dream. The others are identified as kids by their facial features, yet we're roughly the same size, i.e. I'm not looking down on them as I walk around.

Is this common for aspies (or even NTs)? I don't hear about it much, but then again most people don't regularly talk about their dreams in front of me.



Jacoby
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16 Apr 2015, 1:59 am

I don't really have perception of myself while dreaming, I'm me. I often dream about relatives and friends that are no longer with me, important places I've been to in the past. I think it is common to dream about these things, once childhood is gone the only way you can get back to those places is thru your dreams.



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16 Apr 2015, 4:45 am

I often have dreams where I'm at high school or I'm hanging out with old friends and I haven't been in high school for years.


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Kiriae
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16 Apr 2015, 7:58 am

In my dreams I can be either my age(young adult, without specific age because I don't identify with any age in reality either) or a middle schooler (since sometimes I get nightmares about returning to middle school, I consider it my little PTSD).

But usually I am not really myself. I keep my personality and values but thats it. Most of the time I am not even a human. I look like a human but I am a demon, God, witch, ghost, alien, vampire or something like that. I may just be not aware of it at first but I can discover it or turn into another being any time. So my age doesn't matter(for example in a dream I was a ghost which possessed body of a 8 year old boy that lost his soul but I kept my young adult personality and knowledge, while waiting for the body to grow up to my age).
And nearly half of the time I am a guy, not a girl and my sex can change during a dream depending on situation. Which doesn't bother me at all even after I wake up. It feels natural.



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16 Apr 2015, 8:17 am

I don't think it's an AS thing, I think it's something lots of people do. I often dream that I'm back in the house I lived in as a kid. Most of the time, I'm not in my own dreams at all, I'm just watching them like a movie. But the dreams I am in, I appear as my own age. But this is also the age I think of myself as being when I think of myself.
But as I understand it, lots of people dream of themselves as younger because they think of themselves as younger. People I know who are in their 50's say they think of themselves as still being 21 until they look in the mirror. It makes sense that they would be younger in their dreams.
Usually, I am myself but other people are not themselves. Like, I might dream about my partner but he looks totally different or something.


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16 Apr 2015, 8:36 am

I'm very often younger than my age in dreams, and I will find myself back in school, sometimes as early as elementary school. Once I was in day care age in a dream.
Very often I'm in my teens or have relationships with the people in the dream as if I'm a teenager.


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biostructure
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16 Apr 2015, 1:49 pm

So it's common even for NTs to feel like a different age than they are, e.g. to feel like a child when actually a young adult, or to feel like a young adult when actually an older adult? I haven't heard of that.

The other kids in my dreams, when I do have those dreams, are never someone I actually know. Sometimes they have characteristics of people I know (some of whom I know as adults, some of whom were kids I went to school with), but usually they are just generic people. Not generic as in lacking personality, I mean not resembling any real person, although in the dreams I feel like I know them.

I guess because I was a loner growing up, there isn't much room for actual friends to appear. Also, I think that part of why this shows up in dreams is because I can control these people, and make them people who want to do the same things I want to. Part of the reason I never socialized as a kid was because I'd rather do what I wanted to do alone than adapt my activities to include other people.



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16 Apr 2015, 2:08 pm

I don't feel my actual age when I'm awake, so it would be exceedingly strange if I did so in dreams. Often, others in my dreams are younger than I know them to be in RL as well. My mental age is somewhere between 17 - 23, so that's generally how I feel and seem to appear in dreams.


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BoyInGreen
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16 Apr 2015, 3:39 pm

Most of my dreams are set in the present, so I would be my own age in them.



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17 Apr 2015, 3:31 am

I dream mostly as my current aged self although the setting of the dream more often than not is set 20 or more years in the past where I encounter people as I knew them then or even younger.



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17 Apr 2015, 5:40 am

I think, I use to be in my thirties in my dreams- sometimes younger/a kid. I´ve never dreamed of myself as older.
I can meet people as them selves or resembling them - and the same with places. Of course I often dream of my parents - mostly my mother - and sometimes my brother.
All emotions illustrated by elements from my life.


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Edna3362
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17 Apr 2015, 5:55 am

In real, in my waking like I thought myself as 8-12.

In dreams it feels older. Like 20s-30s something and I don't feel like some inexperienced young adult... I barely felt like a child in any dreams I recalled at all. Not even in nightmares.


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17 Apr 2015, 7:11 am

In my dreams I am usually much younger (say 21 or so) and even had a recent dream where I was clearly female. I would suppose this is my subconscious trying to make up for those lost years as a late bloomer (and understand the female POV).

What was really bizarre was that as a child was how many dreams I had where I was a much older woman (probably my Grandmothers age). They were some incredibly vivid dreams to the point it was hard to believe they actually were dreams!



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17 Apr 2015, 12:35 pm

It's very common for people to dream about the past, so implicitly they're often younger in their dreams. I don't think it's usually got much to do with the way they feel about their age, it's just that some or all of the dream's elements are from a long time ago. All you have to do is to think about old times while you're awake, and you're likely to incorporate those images into a dream when you next sleep. If you think more about the future, you might have dreams where you're "older."



biostructure
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09 May 2015, 12:19 am

Skilpadde wrote:
I'm very often younger than my age in dreams, and I will find myself back in school, sometimes as early as elementary school. Once I was in day care age in a dream.
Very often I'm in my teens or have relationships with the people in the dream as if I'm a teenager.


This sounds a lot like what happens with me.