Anxiety dreams about horses

Wagtail

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Have you had any? Do you know what they are based on? Last night I had a funny one - well it had my OH amused and thinking I'd lost the plot. A bit of background - I currently have 6 horses to care fore 24/7/365, five of whom are liveries. I didn't plan to have more than four but circumstances arose where this is what happened. I now don't have the time or energy to ride due to all the other work I have to do. I have also had to turn down numerous requests for full livery, some people having as many as three horses they want to place here. Anyway, last night I dreamt I was in the arena with one of my liveries and four horses were being walked up the long driveway to our yard. I explained we were full, but they said their horses had had a blood test which showed they had been raped! I had to take them in! What the....???

Anyway, I know the dream was due to genuine anxiety about not having the time to finish breaking in my youngster and the fact that another thread on here mentioned blood tests indicating stress. So, what anxiety dreams have you had about horses, and do you have an explanation for them?
 

huskydamage

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Horrible aren't they?!
I had a reoccurring one where I took my horse's rug off and found a sore on her side, I tried to treat it but it got worse everytime, no matter what I tried it kept spreading. Eventually when I removed the rug her whole side tore off like she was rotting away. It was awful! Then a vet turned up with a lorry to take her away to quarantine, she was going crazy in the box as they drove away. I had this dream 3 or 4 times, I think this is my fear of my horse getting older and me loosing her and there is nothing I can do about it.
 

Antw23uk

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I dreamt last night that I was driving past the blood bank fields and two horses where standing up against the fence/ hedge nose to nose and there legs were in the wire and I was thinking it wasnt going to end well and how cheeky they were!

...... I drive past the blood bank fields to work everyday and I must have seen them by the gate a few days ago! ;)

Oh I also dreamt i started smashing up a chicken coop and run I have on the yard which hasnt sold and I've no use for ... this morning someone has made me an offer on it! :)
 

gothdolly

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I have anxiety dreams about my two a lot, but then one is old and has Cushing's, and the other is young and accident prone, I think they have both destroyed my nerves!
 

Goldenstar

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I have them all the time .
Unfortunately sometimes you wake up and it's all going on !
One of our barns and flash floods now and again and after hurricane Katrina I had awful dreams all based around that .
I used to have lots of dreams around forgetting to feed horses and dogs when I was younger I don't have those anymore but have anxiety dreams about the horses all the time .
I also have them about my dogs in particular losing them and trying to find them .
I often have dreams about being rescued and having to decide to leave the dog on a boat or somewhere like that usually I wake up before they come to a conclusion.
I have since child hood had dreams about tsunami and the Christmas tsunami in Thai land started those off again .
 

Biglets Mummy

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Yep - suffer with this as well - mine is always water based....I am riding and I slip off a path into floods or my horses are stuck on an little island in a raging flood and I cant get to them. Doesn't help that 3 years ago I had to be rescued by the fire brigade with my puppy from a flooded road.I wonder if its like flash backs but the horses are always involved. Our paddocks and barn are very high up so no risk of it actually happening. Ive stopped reading stories online about animal rescues as I am sure I store it all up to torture myself with later - Its awful isn't it when you wake up and feel all out of sorts because of nightmares.:)
 

Wagtail

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I have them all the time .
Unfortunately sometimes you wake up and it's all going on !
One of our barns and flash floods now and again and after hurricane Katrina I had awful dreams all based around that .
I used to have lots of dreams around forgetting to feed horses and dogs when I was younger I don't have those anymore but have anxiety dreams about the horses all the time .
I also have them about my dogs in particular losing them and trying to find them .
I often have dreams about being rescued and having to decide to leave the dog on a boat or somewhere like that usually I wake up before they come to a conclusion.
I have since child hood had dreams about tsunami and the Christmas tsunami in Thai land started those off again .

OMG you have the same sort of dreams as I do! Not the tsunami, but the forgetting to feed animals. That used to be a recurring dream I had when I was younger too, and recently, I have had a couple more where I discover a room full of pets in cages that I'd forgotten to feed and water for I don't know how long. Somehow some of them are still just hanging on, barely alive. It's a horrible dream and I wish I knew what caused it. I've never spoken to anyone else who has this recurring dream before. I also sometimes dream about having to rescue dogs out of fires or floods and forgetting one of them.
 

Wagtail

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I have anxiety dreams about my two a lot, but then one is old and has Cushing's, and the other is young and accident prone, I think they have both destroyed my nerves!

Yes, they definitely do that to you!

Yep - suffer with this as well - mine is always water based....I am riding and I slip off a path into floods or my horses are stuck on an little island in a raging flood and I cant get to them. Doesn't help that 3 years ago I had to be rescued by the fire brigade with my puppy from a flooded road.I wonder if its like flash backs but the horses are always involved. Our paddocks and barn are very high up so no risk of it actually happening. Ive stopped reading stories online about animal rescues as I am sure I store it all up to torture myself with later - Its awful isn't it when you wake up and feel all out of sorts because of nightmares.:)

I think it could well be flash backs. You poor thing going through that!
 

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I often suffer from anxiety dreams about the horses. Dreams about turning up and them not being there, the horses starving (& both mine are bordering on obese so they have a fair way to go!), sinking in the mud, washed away by floods.

The weather related ones tend to come on when the weather is bad and sometimes I can actually feel surprised when I turn up at the yard and they are both where I left them completely unscathed by the torrential downpour in the night.

It drives my OH mad.
 

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I had one the other night - I had gone to the stables without any clothes on :eek3: when someone asked why I said "I thought I had some clothes here". Oh well that's OK then, perfectly reasonable to arrive naked :eek:

A couple of sad ones around horses that had been pts due to old age.

I woke up grabbing my OH in a panic because I hadn't put suncream on my horse's nose for ages - I couldn't believe I had not done it and was getting up to do it. Only it was the middle of winter and the horse had been pts 6 months earlier.

About 2 years after my wonderful old pony had been pts I had a dream where it was a sunny day and I said to someone at the yard "I'm just going to long rein him round the block" and they said "you can't he's dead" - just like that. I think it was my brain finally sorting things out because I felt much more accepting of the loss after that.
 

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I often dream about my little ones going missing or getting out through the fence. With minis that's always a very real possibility!!
 

rhylis

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OMG you have the same sort of dreams as I do! Not the tsunami, but the forgetting to feed animals. That used to be a recurring dream I had when I was younger too, and recently, I have had a couple more where I discover a room full of pets in cages that I'd forgotten to feed and water for I don't know how long. Somehow some of them are still just hanging on, barely alive. It's a horrible dream and I wish I knew what caused it. I've never spoken to anyone else who has this recurring dream before. I also sometimes dream about having to rescue dogs out of fires or floods and forgetting one of them.

I'm another one who dreams about finding animals I've forgotten to feed. Quite often it revolves around a cattery I used to run. I dream that I go to check a supposedly empty corridor of pens and find that its full of starving cats I'd forgotten were there, horrible! I've often wondered if it signifies something.

I had a horse dream the other night where my OH told me all my horses were being sold and that someone was coming to collect them straight away! I was utterly devastated and tried to hide one in the downstairs toilet to stop them taking her! I'm guessing this dream stems from having to have my lovely hafflinger mare put down suddenly earlier this month and worry for the others.
 

skint1

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Sounds like many of us have horse related anxiety emblazoned on our very souls!
My anxiety dreams tend to focus on me being unable to get to the yard do do my horse random things will happen and it's getting later and later etc Of course in reality I thankfully have yard friends who would help, but in my dreams there I am stuck in a traffic jam of thousands of ostriches or something and no way to get to my horse
 

atropa

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I had an anxiety dream 2 weeks ago where my younger mare totally kicked the daylights out of my older mare...both have been ill this year and causing me absolutely no end of stress. It's funny, in reality the younger, bigger mare would never say boo to her 'big sister' and is far more likely the one to be kicked.
 

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I also very occasionally have dreams of attainment these are lovely in them I am riding doing dressage or jumping and it's just vivid and the horse ( often a long dead friend ) is just going beautifully every thing Is my body is just effortlessly doing everything I want ,they are perfect lovely dreams .
I never ever ,surprising perhaps given I have broken a hip a leg and my back twice ,have bad dreams about riding if I dream about riding it's also a perfect happy dream
 

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I have had the dream about finding some animals that I had inexplicably forgotten to feed for some time. Horrible and terrifies me that I might forget one day.

I once had a dream about someone I worked with ( non horsey). We were riding some big horses on a path about three feet wide, about three hundred feet up and with a sheer drop(like side of the house sheer). It was just a large flat topped mass in the middle of a vast plain. There was no way down and we couldn't get on to the top. I told her to be careful and the next second she and the horse drop off the side and after an eternity they hit the bottom. With an awful thud. WTF. If anyone has any insights I'd love to hear them. I was friendly with her but we weren't friends. I can still remember the awful shock I felt at what happened in my dream.
 

Annagain

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The only I can remember (I don't remember dreams too well) was years ago when I still lived at home. I dreamed my old boy and his field companion turned up at my parents. The field companion was in a state and the only way we could calm him down was for my (totally non-horsey) mother to sit on him. I decided we had to construct a fence to keep them in the garden (my parents place has a long driveway that's all open) but the only stuff we had was the little plastic stuff that's about 6" high and goes around the edge of a lawn. We used that and they stayed but my mum couldn't get off the horse or he'd start going nuts again!

I did have a very strange dream last night though (again one of the few I remember). I had killed someone and was burying their body. I was totally ok with this, not bothered at all. When I woke up for the first 5 seconds I genuinely thought I'd killed someone and was in a right panic! I'm guessing I've watched too much of House of Cards recently.
 
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Wagtail

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Some very interesting dreams recounted above. It's nice to hear of the positive ones too, as well as the nightmares. And I am so pleased I'm not the only one having recurring dreams about not feeding my animals.
 

gothdolly

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Wagtail, I have horrible dreams that I find cages of guinea pigs that I had forgotten all about and most are dead :( I do keep 4 guinea pigs, but have never forgotten them!!

The worst horse related recurring anxiety dream was after I had my horse Charisma PTS I would dream that the vet misunderstood and put all my horses down :(

I still wake up from dreams that I forgot to give Domino his medication or change a rug etc, and then remember that he's been dead for 18 months.
 

Pilib

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I have recently started having anxiety dreams about my riding. It involves doing a riding test and I just can't ride. I am bouncing about and the horse won't canter. Then the examiner tells me I can't ride and should be ashamed of myself for trying and that I have failed. 😪
I am riding my lovely ID who I am having lots of lessons and training hard at the mo as we have moved up to Novice dressage and I really, really want us both to improve over the winter. I think this dream shows me I am putting too much pressure on myself!
 

Tapir

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I'm another who fairly regularly dreams about forgetting to feed my animals. It's usually guinea pigs but can also be my old horse. I hate these dreams so much, they're really upsetting.
 

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Someone had topped the field that my yearlings are in and flattened it. It looked like it had football pitch stripes. I woke up with a shock when I panicked about where the ponies had got to.
 

Remi'sMum

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I used to have a recurring nightmare about my lad when he was having remedial farriery. In the dream, I would go to him in the morning and find him standing in the stable on four bleeding stumps, not even hooves or pedal bones but standing on the bleeding stumps of his fetlock joints 😥. Not hard to interpret that as anxiety over the farriery, which was pretty radical, and in the end he was pts largely due to foot-related lameness so my subconscious was ahead of the game on that one 😥
 

ElleSkywalker

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I've had one for years that have taken a horse somewhere and can't get them back as no transport. It's truly terrifying! Oddly I've had it for years (since got first horse aged 15) and for the last 9 or so years have had my own transport, but since not having transport haven't had the dream again yet. Think it will really upset me if I do!

I should imagine it stems from being 15 and totally responsible for my horse (seriously my mum would not have helped in anyway) and the fear that something behold my control would happen. No idea why still having them 20 years later!

I also have the 'haven't done art homework and exam coming up' dream with a new addition that I should also be doing and English exam but haven't attended any of the lessons in 2 years!
 
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booandellie

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I have only ever had 1 anxiety dream about my old mare milly after she was pts. For a few years after i would dream that i turned up at a yard ( it was always a different yard to where she had been kept) and i would see her there and think oh my god, i haven't been coming to look after her! i can only think it was because i missed her so much
 

Zero00000

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I often dream about my beautiful mare I lost last year, it tears me apart every day, it's like waking up and remembering all over again, waking up thinking 'I love my horse so much' and then remembering shes not here anymore.
 
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