My wife and I were speaking this morning. She had a nightmare. I had one of my usual bizarre dreams. Having lunch with people from college on a subway train.
But after further reflection, I don’t ever recall having had a nightmare where I woke up frightened. I remember a lot of my dreams and I think I would remember a real nightmare.
Since it seems that they bother my wife, I don’t really think I am missing out on anything.
So have you never had a nightmare?
One time I had a very vivid dream that my dad had died and he was sitting with my brother and I, as a ghost, divvying up his baseball memorabilia.
I was crying in the dream and I woke up crying, and then I cried some more. Once I composed myself enough I called my mom at work and asked if she had heard from dad that day and knew if he was still alive.
Basically, I think I had a panic attack in my sleep. It sucked.
Another time I was mostly asleep, and was dreaming that I was in my bed with a ghost descending upon me. At the moment in my dream when the ghost was about to touch me, my dog jumped on my bed and I screamed loudly - in the dream and IRL.
I was living with my parents at the time and they were extremely freaked out. I wasn’t sure if I had screamed IRL so I just sort of went back to sleep. Also not fun.
Then again…were those nightmares or bad dreams? Is there a difference?
I don’t ever recall a ‘bad dream’ let alone a ‘nightmare’. My dreams are boring a very quickly forgotten. One professional, a friend, off the record, spoke of medications affecting the sharpness of dreams.
If I do not take my sleep aid I have at least 6 bad dreams/nightmares that I can remember the next day. They wake me thruout the night.
My doctor told me that not remembering dreams is the norm. That remembering means that your sleep is very unproductive and you haven’t slept well enough. I believe her.
My wife is a lucid dreamer and hasn’t ever had a real nightmare.
However, she told me recently that she’s begun having a recurring nightmare-ish dream, in which she’s about to hit something while in a car. It lasts a fraction of a second before she wakes up.
I have at least one nightmare a week. It sucks and affects my mindset for the entire following day.
When I was younger I would have nightmares, I would scream and yell but the thing was I would never wake up.
On two seperate occasions, I had neighbors from next door, come over and bang on the door thinking I was being attacked or something.
I never did recall any nightmare, but my family said it sounded like I was being murdered for the screams for help.
Thanks to a really horrible 2nd-grade teacher, I had frequent nightmares as a kid. Over the years they tapered off, and now I really can’t remember the last on I had. Possibly 30-40 years ago.
Nightmares are horrible and yet interesting things.
I had them more when I was a kid, and one or two in particular that when I think of the, still give me the shivers.
In adulthood, they’re much fewer and farther in between. I think they come on mainly in times of stress, guilt, or when I’ve been overstimulated. They’re mostly of the vague sense of dread/fear/doom, there’s-someone-something-after-me variety. I’ll wake up freaked out and quickly realize (with relief) it was all just a bad dream. But, sometimes I’ll have epic, apocalyptic dreams; the kind that would take a 300 million dollar budget to turn it into a movie. Being in it is a whole different ball of wax, though. They’re very immersive, and will sometimes be a very long, drawn out scenario. One of these was a nuclear attack. Another one was an alien invasion of some sort (why yes, I do watch and read a lot of science fiction, why do you ask?). These sorts of dreams will stick with me, and hang over my head for the whole day. Like a pall, or a sour taste in my mouth. Especially returning back to bed that night, will bring it all back in a visceral way. Very odd.
Overall, you’re not missing much.
I’ve had too many to count. A memorable one was where I dreamed a giant tarantula was coming for me and I actually jumped off the bed in my sleep. Landed on my side on the ground with a great thud.
I very rarely have a ‘good’ dream. Usualyl its waiting the a bus, and none shows up, and the ones that do aren’t going the right way, I am trying to get ready to go somewhere and never make it, and so on.
I once dreamed about Jesus and woke up crying all over the pillow.
Only one nightmare, where I had a tiger in a bag and it was trying to get out, and it wouldn’t be hard as it was just a cloth bag. I woke up before it got out.
I’ve had the kind of nightmares that I think most people have had from time to time – ones where it takes a few minutes after you wake up to convince yourself that it was all just a dream and there’s nothing to be afraid of – as well as the routine I-have-an-exam-I-haven’t-studied-for stuff you get all the time.
I watched a guy I like have a nightmare – and helped him wake up from it – and it was pretty frightening. Despite a history of nightmares he said it was the worst he’d ever had, and it took a long time to convince him it wasn’t real and calm him down, and he was pretty unsteady for most of the morning.
I actually have three reoccurring themes in nightmares as well as other nightmares that are singularities.
Theme 1 - Walk into a dark room and something is eerily wrong. Hit the light switch and “no lights”. this dream has happened enough that I usually realize 'm dreaming and wake up.
Theme 2 - Super evil ghost/spirit type thing is moving objects, slamming doors etc. For some reason I get brave and challenge it to bring its worst to me.
Theme 3 - I’m driving but really can’t see where I’m going. Maybe because my eyes keep closing, the windshield is covered, or I’m driving backwards while facing forward. I wake up when I crash or go over the cliff.
** Have you never had a nightmare?**
I may have a nightmare tonight in which Olivia Newton-John sings a song with the above title.
Or one based on the ad I was privileged to see following the OP, in which a giant angry beaver gnaws through a man’s legs because he isn’t wearing Duluth Fire Hose Work Pants.
The things you see when you’re not a paying member…