I had a bad dream a few days ago, and it was really upsetting. It was about rats. But not, as you might guess, because rats are icky. While tiny rodents (mice, hamsters, gerbils etc) may me feel uneasy because they’re so dart-y and fragile, bigger ones like rats are fine in my book. I saw one last week in North station and my reaction was more “hey, a rat.” Than the hysteria that lots of people display. I figure that coupled with having seen a segment about rats on scare tactics the night before put them in my dream.
But anyway… In a really sureal dream I dreamed that there were rats in the house, a few adults and a mess of babies, little pink ones, and as much as I liked them, they had to go outside because they were on the ironing board and we needed to use it. I scooped them into a box, but two of the babies fell on the floor, and I wondered if I had killed them. I hadn’t, so I picked them up too. There’s a wetland in the yard, and l let them go there. A small white rat tried to get me to play tag, and I might have if (our long dead) cat hadn’t shown up that moment, and announced that she and my brother had joined the blue angels. I got sort of distracted by the little blue outfit and goggles on the cat. By the time the rat got my attention again, three men in suits had caused the wetlands to flood, and the rats were drowning! I grabbed one of those little plastic shovels that come on kids’ sand pails, and began digging the baby rats up - the dirt had turned to sand somehow too- so they wouldn’t drown, like at least one of the adults already had. And the blade of the little plastic shovel dismembered two of the baby rats. It was kind of bloody. After that I dug with my fingers so I wouldn’t hurt any more of them. I felt terrible about accidentally killing them in the dream and still did when I woke up too.
So there you have an upsetting dream about rats, but probably not for the reason most people would think given the subject.
What sorts of dreams have you had that were upsetting for reasons others wouldn’t have thought of upon hearing the dream’s subject?
The dreams that disturbed me/scared me shitless as a child were the ones where I was being dragged by some invisible force downstairs and under someone’s bed, and the ones where none of the light switches worked.
These days I welcome a good nightmare. It has to be better than the monotony of adult life.
Let me guess - you were reading Something Awful recently? (Don’t know if it’s okay to provide link to that site, considering some of the ads, and content.)
I’ve had lots of dreams where I kill tortured the family pet but then suddenly felt bad and tried to save it. It’s like -come on guy, make a decision and stick with it. I guess it was more annoying than anything else.
Almost every time the cat has a litter, I dream something gruesome happens to the kittens.
Then there was this one time, I was about 10 and had been reading too much science fiction. I fantasized about putting a big ring around the earth, until in this one nightmare it was in place and started spinning. The silliest thing to look back on it now, but it scared me half to death back then.
OMG me too! :eek: And the ones where the light turns on but it’s too dim and the room is still dark.
Some people have reoccurring dreams of falling or drowning, my reoccurring dream has always been that I lost something (like keys or my billfold) and everyone else in the dream doesn’t seem to care about my concern.
When I have dreams of long lost friends or relatives, they tend to make me sad for the day.
When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream that I was being chased across a grocery store parking lot, and I couldn’t run; it was as if my legs were encased in cement. (You know, the "dream run.) Anyway, the grim reaper (tall guy, black cape, scythe) was chasing me, which is why I was running. But the part that really scared me is that the grim reaper turned out to be my dad. (Sadly, that was a somewhat accurate reflection of his personality, but that’s a whole 'nother story.)
I’ve had the “dream run” dream, and I’ve also had the “falling” dream, where you fall and when you hit bottom, you wake up. But there was one dream that took me a few days to get used to. Ironically it was a very intense sexual dream. I only had it one night, but it definately took me about 4 days to get used to because in the dream, the subject of my affections was this girl that, up to this point, I had absolutely no attraction to. After this dream, I just couldn’t look at her the same way. 4 days later, I worshipped the ground she walked upon.
I find it interesting that a dream would totally change my perception of one girl.
The first one is where everything suddenly goes dark, as if a widespread blackout suddenly sweeps across the country. I was having dreams like this long before the blackout we had here in the U.S. last summer (I don’t live in any of the areas that were affected).
The other is where someone in my family is unable to talk. All this person can do is mumble incoherently. It’s scary to me because the person is trying to tell me something important, that I am in danger, and yet they are unable to speak clearly enough that I can understand them. One time my whole family was doing this and then I was doing it myself. Very strange, indeed.
I don’t seem to have the falling/drowning dreams that other people have. I do have the occasional flying dream, though.
I have nightmares virtually every night, it would take way too long to explain any of them, but most of the time it’s about losing people I love, or not being able to get to someone, killing things or being killed, usual stuff really.
I had the most disturbing dream EVER the other night. It was honestly so brutal that I actually wondered what the hell was going on inside my head that night to create such a dream. It involved killing an ex-gf of my current SO , in self-defence, cuz she broke into my house and ran at me with a knife. Crazyness. I actually told my bf and he laughed about it. I looked it up in my dream dictionary for curiosity reasons, and a bunch of the symbols in the dream seemed to talk about current relationship problems. And it’s true, also cuz my ex came back into my life trying to stir things up. So I guess there was a reason for the messed up dream.
I have several times dreampt of dying (as in, actually dying, not waking up just before it happens.) One time, I was actually conscious after I “died”, and I thought basically “cool, now I can see if there is an afterlife!”
Then, I realized I was waking up, and I fought not to come back. My soul was being wrenched from me and that is the most horrible feeling I’ve ever felt.
I’ve had dreams where people I love are killed, but I’m being tricked in the dream. Just a few nights ago, for example, I dreamt that my husband and I were auditioning for a tv show with Jack Nicholson. It seemed we were doing really well, but I just had a weird feeling about what was going on. At the end Jack said he was going to think about us and let us know, but wanted to talk to my husband alone first. I left the room and when they came out he had my husband bound to a little red wagon with a bunch of stuffed animals tied to him for comfort, and he was going to push him off a bridge. Really frightening… I’m choking up now thinking about it. :eek:
I’ve died in my dreams, too. The one I remember specifically is where I know I’m dying, I’m at my grandma’s house and everyone is standing around me. I’m sobbing because I don’t want to die, I’m not ready and I’m scared. Then I die, and everything around me gets bright yellow, like the sky right when the sun is setting. Suddenly I’m at the beach but I’m the only one there. It’s completely silent, not even the sound of the waves, but I feel warm and peaceful. Then I woke up to Howard Stern on my alarm clock. :smack:
Jason Donovan stood by a large set of traffic lights, slowly he bent down and said, ’ when they go red, you go red. at midnight, at midnight’ [perplexed-e] the incomplete sentence structure worried me nearly as much as the implied threat.
the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker stand in a hot air balloon, wielding a meat cleaver, a bread knife and a lit candle respectively. the ballast is made up of human beings tied to the basket. as whirligig music plays faster and faster they lurch backwards and forwards, laughing and cutting off body parts. this makes the balloon rise into the air.
this was scary, but i always wondered how the candlestick maker managed to remove body parts with a candle.
When I was a kid I had this recurring dream that I was sitting on one of those square ancient middle-East style things (you know with the four guys holding it up, used to transport Princess Jasmine and the like,) riding through Buffalo. Buffalo??
But the thing that bugged me was that we kept on going past the same restaurant, Jafafa’s Hots.
(Don’t know if it’s okay to provide link to that site, considering some of the ads, and content.)