# Dreams: Nightmares don't scare me **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 22, 2019, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840 "2019-11-22T22:48:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/21 "2019-11-26T08:12:01Z")
Similarly, one can go through potentially terrifying personal oneiric events without experiencing any fear. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/22 "2019-11-26T12:10:56Z")
It’s worth remembering that there are certain properties of dreams beyond what you’re seeing and hearing that may affect how scary they are: Dreams may or may not be lucid (i.e. realization of dreaming). It’s also common to experience dreams where you think the environment is a game or a film or something, so not real, but without achieving the full realization that it is a dream. How vivid the sensations in the dream are can vary a lot, as can your place in the dream (e.g. even viewing things in first person it is common to feel disembodied). So it’s not a given that a dream with a giant spider attacking you is going to be as scary as it would be in the real world (or in The Enemy). So in answer to the OP, I think it’s normal to experience at least some dreams where something which would be scary in real life doesn’t scare you in a dream. And I would WAG that there are plenty of people who only experience “soft” nightmares like this, since a large proportion of adults seem to rarely if ever have vivid dreams at all. But I don’t think there is any data on this specific topic. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/23 "2019-11-26T15:06:09Z")
Just the other day I had an involved dream that had something to do with successive waves of “attackers” having to be fended off. Like someone said upthread, I didn’t feel terribly scared during it. It was more a matter of figuring out how to deal with it. And upon waking, it was no different than my other dreams. Far more frequent are the dreams where I wasn’t registered for a class, wasn’t going to graduate, needed to take some action and couldn’t fid the correct office… Do you consider those nightmares? Because I find those more troubling than ones where something jumps out and says, “Boo!” But no, I get a kick out of all of my dreams. I wish I remembered them more clearly, but I’m too lazy to try to record them right away. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/24 "2019-11-27T14:39:02Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > I’ve had plenty of nightmares but they never seem to scare me. I’ve dreamed: > > Peeling the flesh from my body (Like that scene in Poltergeist) > Zombie attack (Fell asleep watching Walking Dead. lol) > Attacked by my own dog. > Been chased by a serial killer. > > All seemingly scary stuff. But it never _scares_ me. I tend to find the dreams more interesting than scary. > > Anyway, I’m posting this because I am currious how common this might be. > > Anyone else immune to nightmares? [You’ve never had this dream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDFJVUaXUI)? Never been up at 2am, searching for a class schedule by flashlight so you don’t wake your dormmate to confirm you didn’t miss that history final? Never had it years after you graduated, leaving you panting in bed trying to convince yourself that you aren’t in college anymore? Lucky bastard. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/25 "2019-11-27T15:05:54Z")
The ones that get me are where I have committed a serious crime - murder, rape, talking in the theater - and I wake wondering how I am going to get out of it. ---
**Author:** ![Anglachel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Anglachel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anglachel)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/26 "2019-11-27T16:22:23Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I haven’t had one in a while, but there is an unpleasant style of dream that I occasionally get, especially while ill. I’m trying to perform a simple task, like something on a computer, and simply cannot do it. This process goes on _endlessly_; it feels like my dream has looped thousands of times, trying and failing to do the same mundane (and sometimes nonsensical) thing. Sometimes I’ll wake and snap out of it for a bit, but the feeling is still there, and as soon as I fall asleep again I’m back in the loop. Ugh. Glad I’m not the only one. It is often a math problem that I can get close to the solution, but never quite there. I wake up a bit and realize it’s not real, but can drift right back into it. I also have it happen more often when I am sick. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/27 "2020-01-02T08:43:54Z")
Not sure how I came across this thread now, but figured I’d bump’er. There have been dreams that had me kinda bent outa shape, where I was trying to kill a spider with a rock or something, and as I was killing it, the damn thing somehow metamorphosed into a freaking kitten, and as I’m thinking - ok, I’m now whacking away at a kitten, I then ask myself the $64,000 question: Shouldn’t I cease? Immediately? I have no problem with the darn things - always had one in the house while growing up. But I somehow rationalize that I must complete the job I started, regardless of what evidently strange turn(s) it may take. Thankfully I never had one of those past childhood. I had it at least more than once, and thankfully it would never play itself out, and after one of them, I remember relating to mom how completely wracked and depressed and remorseful I felt for several hours into the afternoon, over it. Crummy. That was by far my worst type, and then there was the usual ACK I’m at the wrong school locker on first day of gr. 8 classes and no clue where my homeroom class is supposed to be, and in my futile search I end up in the wrong one, as classmates snicker away. Or the flyng ones where you panic because you can’t come down again. Actually there was one other actual nightmare where I was walking down one of those looooong window-lined disembarking hallways of the BC Ferries yards, and I stopped at one of the windows and saw a casual acquantaince - Lex MacDonald (whose actual identity has no real bearing on the story here) - just outside the window. The things is, these hallways are way, way up off the ground, and so accordingly there was a noose around his neck. (I’m like - whoa - Lex!) And for icing on the cake, an eye was gouged out, with the requisite bloodied red _Birds_-like hollow, tongue hanging out, WIDE open eyes staring right at me, blood-spattered face, slighty swaying back and forth… Yeah that one ruined my Yellow Point Lodge visit, which is where I had it. Of course, there’s always all that spiffy [sleep paralysis](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=799311) stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840/28 "2020-01-02T13:15:48Z")
Yes. I am pretty much “immune” to nightmares. Like, the unrealistic ones. They are basically like a movie to me and I can see some pretty disturbing shit in movies and derive entertainment value from them. The ones that wake me up are the realistic ones. Job loss, terminal illness, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dreams-nightmares-dont-scare-me/843840.md?page=1)