# Sleep and Dreams > General Dream Discussion > Nightmares and Recurring Dreams >  >  Dream about giant,extremely intelligent, telepathic spider

## superpengin

Last night i had a nightmare about a giant daddy long leg like spider. It was on my ceiling and its legs reached the walls and corners of my 10' x 11' room its head was the size of a pumpkin and a few inches from my face. I remember that it was telepathic and smarter than me. It was talking to me in my head i don't remember what it said but it hurt my brain and it felt so real. My mom heard me scream "just shut the fuck up" before i woke up. Does any one know what the meaning of this could be? I have a lot of nightmares that feel real but usually i just go right back to bed and don't care this one bothered me.

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## JoannaB

In dreams it is often a good idea to think of the other parts of the dream as parts of your own personality: thinking of it that way there may be a part of you which you perceive as being scary and you think may be smarter than the main part of your personality that you identify with. Of course it is telepathic, all dream characters might as well be because they are all inside your mind. That alone can be scary and disconcerting because we are not used to that from waking life, but in dreams telepathy can be perfectly normal.

How do you feel about spiders in waking life? This same dream would be even scarier if you have arachnophobia in waking life, whereas if in waking life you don't mind spiders much then that would be different. Of course, even those of us who don't mind a normal daddy long legs as much in waking life, are bound to find one that size to be scary.

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## superpengin

I don't like any spiders, but normal ones, or hairy ones don't bother me very much. but ones with long, thin legs terrify me. Id rather have a tarantula crawl on me than a daddy long leg. its always bothered me because its such a irrational fear. iv'e grabbed water moccasins with my bare hands and they're poisonous, but non poisonous spiders terrify me.

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## Darkmatters

The brain sometimes uses dream time to run diagnostic checks on the fight or flight system. That's why we dream about spiders, snakes, bears, and other typical frightening creatures, and find ourselves in incredibly terrifying situations. That's not always what it is - sometimes these dreams might carry some important meaning, but if your subconscious has something urgent to tell you it will do so in many different dreams, and probably in waking life as well. 

But if it's just an isolated dream then it's probably nothing more than a test to see if your adrenaline system fires properly. The fact that you were terrified and woke up means you check out A-OK. 

I think it sucks that things like this aren't taught in schools or on kid's shows. It's well known in brain science circles, but unfortunately the education system is all fouled up.

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## JoannaB

I agree with Darkmatters that if it is an isolated dream, it may well be just an adrenaline check, and nothing to worry about. 

The fact that daddy long leg spiders actually do terrify you in real life I think is significant though. This dream is essentially taking a waking life fear of yours and blowing it out of proportion in a nightmare. That is not unusual. Dreams exaggerate our waking life fears and phobias. If I were you, I would not be too concerned over this dream.

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## Darkmatters

There are also anxiety nightmares, but those have a very specific modus operandi, they seem to happen when you first get to sleep. For me at least, when I suffered anxiety nightmares, falling asleep was difficult enough in itself because of the anxiety, but as soon as I did I started having dreams right away that woke me up. It's pretty rare to start dreaming right away when you fall asleep, but anxiety causes sleep deprivation which in turn causes REM rebound, meaning you fall behind on REM sleep and in response your sleep cycles shift so that you start dreaming right away. 

On the other hand, if a nightmare politely waits till after you've had plenty of sleep then I suspect it's not anxiety related at all, but one of the diagnostic checks. It makes sense that the body would only do this after you've gotten enough sleep, so as not to screw up your circadian rhythms or make you lose sleep.

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