Disastrous ride that happened in your dream
 

A winter thread :innocent:

What was the most disastrous ride that happened in your dream (uncontrolled dream during sleeping, not fantasies)?

I have previously ridden C&O and GAP myself IRL. In the dream I invited my brother to ride it. I think we got a LHT for him, and we almost finished the ride (<10miles left). We entered some building without locking the bikes outside. I realized it and we went out. Bikes disappeared. My id (DL with my home address)/card/keys/phone were inside a saddlebag, so they were all gone. :bang: I was about to call the police from the brother's phone, but I realized I must have been sleeping and woke up.

Nothing like that, but I've had at least one weird "transportation" dream where I started out on decent roads on a bike, and as I got further along the route the general conditions became post-apocalyptic and I had to abandon the bike and continue on foot. I never did figure out where I'd started from or was going to or why, but dreams are like that.

Odd, but considering how much I enjoy cycling, I don't think I've ever dreamed of riding a bike. Maybe the real thing is good enough and there are no unresolved issues. Assuming that's what dreams are for. I'm not sure experts have ever agreed on the purpose of dreams.

However, I play piano well... in my dreams. Never even attempted it in real life. I was a mediocre guitar player but rarely dream of that.

I seem to spend a lot of time flying or at least gliding just above ground level in my dreams. Kinda fun.

Most of my dreams are so mundane I can hardly remember them and occasionally mistake them for real events, until I wake up and think about it.

I keep dreaming I'm on a 1200K. I've reached the 400K point, and all of a sudden I go into slow motion and I lose things and can't get my act together and the clock is ticking ....

In 2017 and early 2018, when I had started training for a 1200K again, in my dreams I make it to the 600K point before it all falls apart ... now I'm back to falling apart at 400K.

Last night I dreamt that I saw Joe Hill while riding. :D

I was riding a Trek 930 on the Katy Trail. From the other direction, weaving as if impaired, came a rider playing the accordion with one hand, eating Cheez-its with the other. Bike was 1992 Trek 1200 with full Campy Super Record. I was saved when, with a loud flushing sound, the ground opened and sucked the rider down into Trolldom. Winter gets long....

I'm with canklecat , for all my riding as a near daily bike commuter, I rarely dream about bikes. Trains, planes, automobiles and busses, yes...bikes...very rarely.

But just last night, as a matter of fact, I did dream about a biking "disaster".

In the dream I was on a local mixed-use path and had slowed as I came up behind a young woman pushing a stroller on the right edge of the path. As I passed her at slightly faster than walking speed, she suddenly turned left and I gently nudged the stoller back to the right with my front wheel. The woman began screaming at me that I deliberately ran into her stroller, I tried to defend myself saying that she had suddenly turned in front of me, and that it was because of my many decades of riding experience, and my deference to pedestrians on the trail that I was able to gently guide her stroller back towards the edge of the path. A crowd began gathering and the dream ended.

Maybe not the kind of "disaster" you were thinking of, but in the dream I was truly upset and frustrated that nobody acknowledged my skill at gently guiding the stoller to the right rather than merely plowing into it.

Also in the dream I never saw, heard or was aware of any infant in the stroller.

Plus, why didn't I give the pedestrian a wider berth on the MUP in my dream? In real life my standard procedure when coming up behind pedestrians, especially with kids or dogs is to swing left to the opposite side of the trail (when possbile), ring my bell, then slow down as I pass.

In fact just a couple of days ago I took a Sunday ride which included a stretch on the same MUP that was in my dream. In real life I came up behind a couple with a dog on a leash, and coming the other way was a young couple with two zig-zagging pre-school aged kids followed by a couple of joggers. It seemed as if we were going to converge at the same point at the same time, so I pulled off the trail to the right and stopped. The kids and dog gravitated towards each other and met in the center of the trail, and the joggers shifted to their right and ran around the kids off the shoulder of the trail opposite me. I probably could have swung by off the trail on the right also, but if the dog was on a long-ish leash, or of it was a "retractable/extendable"one, it could have also run off the trail to the right.

When the path cleared, I continued on.

Sunday's MUP episode most likely triggered last night's dream. But if the real life event transpired without danger, drama or distress...why would I have a stressfull MUP dream?

I humbly submit that the moderators create a "Counseling and Therapy" Forum to help us cyclists deal with the various emotional and psychological challenges of cycling...

...or is that already what BIkeforums is?

I realized the other night that dreams I have where I'm flying seem to be really about riding. It's more how it feels in the dream than the actual imagery. I sort of step off the ground and just keep going. My subconscious just seems to edit out the machinery.

I seldom remember my dreams at all, and when I do, they don't make much sense. A rare exception lately seemed like the plot of a TV pilot about a mysterious disappearance. My wife has elaborate dreams - usually about living a different lifetime, if something had been different in the past. She wants to share them but I've got nothing to share back.

I used to regularly have the falling dream.

I'd be riding on my bike, as soon as I was aware I was on a bike in my dream, I would crash and wake up.

This has occurred at least dozens of times. Not often but enough to remember.

One I've had a few times was where I am going over a jump at an unrealistically high speed, and as a result take off so high that death by crashing against the ground seems to be imminent. Never got so far though.
Perhaps I should try to force myself next time; I used to have recurring dreams of falling from high places, but once I forced myself to not wake up during the process and fall all the way to the ground instead - which resulted in precisely nothing, those dreams stopped.

I once dreamt that I was unable to go for even a 30 mile ride without wearing spandex and cycling shoes while also loading up my cf bike with multiple water bottles, a computer, a camera, and a power meter.
Worst nightmare I ever had.

I dreamed that I was riding through a convoluted residential area, all cul-de-sacs and looping, twisting unsigned roads and intersections. I could hear sirens in the distance and was trying to avoid them. As I became increasingly frantic the sirens grew closer. Eventually I stopped and looking down, realized I was covered in blood. And realized the sirens were for me. Then I woke up.

I’ve never had a bad bike dream. Ever.

I have had numerous dreams about my bikes getting stolen.

Two reacurring dreams I've had for years. One is climbing a mountain, road goes up and up, gets narrower and narrower. Crest the top and its straight vertical down. Thats when I wake up.

The other is I'm riding in a long string of riders. The "road" is just wide enough for one bike with shear dropoffs on both sides. The road zigzags with sharp corners. To get ahead I have to jump my bike ahead on the corners. Sometimes the two dreams combine into one. Very bizarre, and frightening dreams.

I have this weird recurrent dream where I'm climbing up a hill on my fixed gear. It turns into this weird kind of recumbent machine and I cannot get it to go forward - it's like I'm trying to walk up a hill or something.

Otherwise, my bicycling dreams are generally quite lovely. I've had a few where I get a couple of my riding companions to go into a car and let me draft the car at 45MPH. I wonder what that means?!

I had a bad dream that forum member Bernie beat me on a timed event of which he challenged me. We had both signed up for a timed event, 100 miles 10,000 ft of climbing. He made some pretty outrageous comments on the forums. Pretty much saying that if he had a bad day, I MIGHT be able to keep up with him. But highly unlikely seeing that he was a well known accomplished rider. Having done RAM, Furnace Creek 508, Paris brest Paris (spelling?), multiple double centuries, multiple rando rides. He bragged about his $8000 Colnago, his climbing wheels, descending gears and his many many racing awards. I guess my recreational style was no match for his strength and experience. He said my riding style was lacking and he actually made fun of my $1000 bike and heavy wheels that I built. :cry: He saw my ride reports about riding on the bike trails. Usually the day after climbing 5,000 ft so he said I could not compete with him. Of course, he was reading the fake headlines ha ha ha!

But yeah, it was just a bad dream. I bettered his time on the ride by more than an hour! :innocent:

He started before me, I actually passed him then stopped on the climb to let him roll by knowing I'd pass him again. He shouted out something about passing me on the descent with his amazing bike and descending gears. But I'm a pretty good descender myself so he had no chance of catching after I put a large gap between us on the climb. Sometimes the little guy can spank you if you under estimate him. :p

After the official results were posted, he didn't say much on the forums.

Oh wait, this was not my nightmare, it was his! :roflmao2:

I've had the molasses-type dream where the cranks are teensy tiny

and I can't get any speed.

Fairly regular cycling dreams but not disastrous.