Dear Dream Doctor,

I have a recurring dream about bathrooms. It is always a bathroom, but never the same one. It has been everything from climbing up an old wooden ladder, opening a big wooden door and there is a bathroom. One was a multi-stalled bathroom and I was dying my hair in the sink. Last night it was a bathroom at my aunt’s house. 3/4 of the time I am urinating. I often look into the bowl beforehand. There are usually a lot of other things going on as well in the dream. The other night it was a friend/coworker who was with me, we had hitchhiked, gotten a ride with an older man who had renovated a bus. We both went into the bathroom, it was large, and she watched the TV that was in there, and I used the toilet.

I have been having this dream for maybe 4-5 years.

—Anonymous, Age 33, Charlottetown, CANADA

Hi Anonymous—

I hope I don’t disappoint you if I give a very literal interpretation of this dream: I think you have to go!

The reason I say this is because you mention that—in 3/4 of your dreams—you actually are urinating. This suggests that you really do have pressure on your bladder—which makes you want to go—and then this feeling is included (the formal dream term is “incorporated”) into your dream. That is—you have to go, and so suddenly you start dreaming about toilets—looking for them—finding them—then actually going.

A common variation on this dream is to look for bathrooms but to be unable to find any. Or to dream of going but to not feel any relief. What’s the dream metaphor here? You’re not actually relieving your bladder. Of course, it is fairly common for people to actually wet the bed while they are using one of these dream toilets.

You are a bit young to have an enlarged prostate, which could be pushing on your bladder and causing you to have to urinate frequently, but next time you see a doctor you might ask him to check—especially if you find you are urinating frequently during the day. Another experiment to undertake would be to limit the amount of fluids you drink the last hour or so before bedtime. If you go to bed with a full bladder, you can almost be assured that you will soon be visiting one of these “virtual bathrooms.”

Caution! Use at your own risk!

:-)