What are leaving dreams about?

It was as if I had seen the real world, not the one that we are in but, a dystopian place where people who consciously dream are locked away for fear of finding the real world. I escaped from the prison to eat my favourite food, chicken schnitzel, due to the fact that in the prison you barely got to eat and a lady (That I knew was guarding the real world trying to catch dreamers) spoke to me and asked me if I was ok, I stared blankly at her, she replied with "Oh good I almost thought you were conscious" with a sinister smile. I heard speak of someone once I had left the restaurant talk about words that would unlock the gates to the prison and let the conscious dreamers be free, I found other dreamers, fell in love and walked amongst the rooftops of cities and through streets for what felt like days. I found myself reaching a pinnacle of a grand tower, that stood above the city and the code words that would set the dreamers free, I returned to the prison, near the restaurant that I had broken into, the same lady spoke to me she was angry with what I had done, that I would let people know of the real world and with the words of power, I let out all the people into the real world and woke up.

When I woke up in my dream I was standing in a huge grass field with a mansion behind me. My father was sitting in a lawn chair next to me and told me to go hide because the war was starting. I went over to a little bridge with water underneath. Grabbed a bucket and got into the water with the bucket over my head. I stayed there for about 5 mins. I remember hearing my breath in the bucket and feeling cold from the water. When the 5 mins passed, I got out and my looked for my dad. When I found him, he immediately told me to go back to the water because round 2 was starting. I grabbed the bucket again but before I had the chance to get into the water, a woman grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the mansion. She explained that "I wasn't supposed to be here." She led me to a very tall man in a blue suit. He took me to the front lawn and pulled out a gun. He told me that I can shoot myself or he would do it because I needed to leave. I decided to do it. I put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger. All the sudden bright lights were around me and I started floating. I felt so warm, like nothing has ever affected me before. It was actually an amazing feeling. I slowly woke up from this dream. Not panicked at all.

But I'm truly curious as to why I didn't wake up once I pulled the trigger? Also, No part of me is suicidal.

I don't remember the first part of the dream only what it led up to, where I'm being introduced to a daughter I never knew I had for the first time, if I had to guess she's something in between 6 to 10 years old, not sure.

in the dream, I kneel in front her, tell her I'm her Dad and she doesn't say anything but gives me a big hug, I then burst into tears.

I woke up pretty much then, feeling an immense sense of loss, it feels like I was given something wonderful and then had it taken away.

Anyone else have anything like this? I feel like I'd rather have had a nightmare than something that leaves me feeling depressed.

Hello all!
About 2 weeks ago I had a very existential lucid nightmare that I can’t get out of my head. It’s to the point where it has been effecting my waking life. I need some outside help making sense of what it could mean.

For context, I have existential issues involving what my purpose in life is or even if I am supposed to exist at all.

So it began in a sort of black void with a warm colored aurora in the sky. Directly in front of me there is a hooded man with his left eye missing that looks like an older grizzled version of me. Same look, voice, eye color, scar on our upper lip, everything. He is looking into a circular stone fountain looking thing with a bonfire positioned on a raised platform in the middle.

Around him in every direction as far as I could see were hundreds of thousands of gravestones. All of them had a vague “endings” written on them. (For example, “The Swiss Ending”, “The Atomic Ending”, “The Fantastical Ending”, etc.) Some were filled in while most had empty holes in front of them.

I approached the man in the middle and politely asked who he is and where I was. He simply responded with this,
“You know where we are, this is where we all go to die. Now find your grave, I’ll help you out when you get there.”
I responded with,
“My apologies, pal, I’m not dead yet. Who did you say you were again?”
“Does it matter? We’re all the same here anyway.”
That is when it occurred to me. All these graves were for different versions of me. From different realities or universes I don’t know. I was fairly certain I wasn’t dead and this was all just a bad dream so I decided to explore and possibly see which gravestone in this labyrinthine graveyard was mine.

As I walked, I started to feel a tug from my chest, like my heart was being pulled in a certain direction. I followed the pull for what seemed like ages. Eventually the graves just stopped except for this one gravestone sitting alone just outside of where the rest of them lay. As I approached my soul felt like it was it was sitting next to a cozy fireplace, so I had the feeling that this grave was mine.

I eventually got close enough to read it had it not been for the dust and debris that covered it. It looked old and dilapidated yet it still had an open plot in front of it. I brushed off the dirt covering the gravestone and what I read chilled me to my soul.
“The Bad Ending”

The old man came from beside me.
“What an unfortunate soul this one. Feel real bad for him, you know?”
“I think that’s me.”
“What? No, it couldn’t, he’s not-“
He looked at me, his face grew grim.
“Oh shit, you’re not supposed to be here yet!”
He then grabbed my face and I felt my brain shock like it had just been struck by Thor himself.

Then I woke up. Sweating, crying, and white-knuckled. It’s absolutely fucked with my mind ever since.

I’ll try to keep this as short as possible, I have ADHD and my stories turn into ramblings most of the time.

Anyways.

When I was about 10 or so, I had this dream where me and this random girl were playing and just having fun doing kid stuff. Suddenly I got the urge to tell her “this is a dream, and I can leave whenever I want to. Isn’t that cool?”

She replied with something like “I know.”

So I said “watch this” and in the dream, I closed my eyes and opened them and I was awake (in real life).

Didn’t think much of it.

Come this past June, I was in a town about 4 hours from the one I live in, getting my drivers license photo and all that done since COVID restrictions took them out of my town.

I walked out of the DMV there, and a girl is walking her dog. The dog peed on my moms car door, and she apologized.

We talked for a bit and she asked me for my Snapchat so we could talk some more, which was a first for me since I’m a solid 3/10.

Flash forward a few days later, we’ve been talking, we like each other, decide to hang out in person. She makes the drive up to my town to spend the night.

We spent most of the night just talking about random childhood stories, and I went a grabbed my 3rd grade school picture. Then she told me she had a dream when she was younger about how she was hanging out with a boy, then he said “this is a dream” and leave.

She pointed out how younger me looked almost like the kid she had a dream about those years ago.

Well I told her my story of the similar incident, and we concluded we were destined to meet.

I think we both are in agreement that it’s just a scary coincidence, but we both also feel very twilight-zone-y about it now and we aren’t sure if it is a coincidence or some weird fate stuff.

Life is weird, kiddos.