I have a dream every couple years where I get killed in some way (stabbed, fall, hot lava, etc.)
Had another one last night.
Was at a small store with my wife, son, and in-laws saying goodbye to them. I cross the street to an empty parking lot (nighttime), get in my car and start to back out. I notice a dark silhouette several meters behind the car so I stop. The figure runs up to the back of the car POP! POP! I see two white flashes.
I feel a burning sensation, realize I’ve been shot, crumple over into the passenger seat and black out. And then I wake up.
Not particularily terrified once I woke up but damn unsettling in the dream.
(And they all end the same way, buring sensation and blackout)
Scary! My recurring dreams always involve me being lost and trying to find something or someone. Usually I’m either in my old middle school or in a big crowd somewhere. When I have a dream set in my old school, I’m always walking around in the halls trying to find my class, and I never can. I’ll always have the feeling that I’m late for class and that I’m going to be in trouble and get made fun of. I’m not sure if I ever actually find my class in those dreams, but I don’t think I do.
I also have particularly depressing dreams now and then where I’ll be in a huge crowd or in some busy city and I’m trying to find my wife and I can’t. I’ll try to call her and I can never remember her number, and I’ll go to these different, strange houses trying to find her but she’s not there. Sometimes I’m just running all over town and I never get anywhere. It’s a horrible dream!
I had a couple “getting shot in the head” dreams about twenty years ago. Freaked me the hell out. One was similar to yours, I was in my car and someone started shooting and I got hit. The other one, I was playing basketball in the driveway of the house where I grew up and someone walked around the corner of the house and shot me.
The weird thing is, I very rarely remember my dreams, but I definitely remember waking up from those!
Ooh creepy, has happened to me, too (I’m usually stabbed. How Freudian.) I wish I could remember what was happening in my life at the time… If anything, I use these dreams to dispel that old ‘If you die in your dream you die for real’ urban legend.
I die in dreams very occasionally, like maybe once or twice a decade. But I usually manage to take a bunch of bad guys with me. I figure I should be pretty good at dying by the time the real deal comes around.
I have died in dreams quite a few times. But I don’t get the ‘fade to black’ effect. I can’t really describe what happens. But the dream goes on.
I have a lurid and exhausting dream life in general. I dream most of the night; I can wake up, use the bathroom, and go back to the same dream; my dreams seem to last much much longer than the 30 seconds or so science says they last. Always meant to start a thread about it…
I’ve only ever had to death dreams myself.
The first was pretty simple and involved falling off a tall building and hitting the ground – presumably my first and final attempt at following Douglas Adams’ instructions on how to fly. I don’t remember anything else about the dream other than that bit.
The second was far more vivid. I was standing in a parking lot between two plazas that were situated right next to each other. I knew exactly where it was in real life, too, as I’d been there before. In the dream though, it was night, and both of the plazas were engulfed in flames, so the immediate area was bathed in an orange glow. The scene had a surreal, post-apocalyptic quality, but I didn’t feel any fear or anything.
From off in the distance to the south, up the hill from the shallow valley the plazas were situated in, came a low rumbling. It grew louder until I saw that it was a long procession of bikers – an entire gang of them, riding north. I watched them pass, and then turned around to go – only to come face-to muzzle with a sawed off shotgun wielded by a biker who’d manage to sneak up on me silently. I had only a moment to comprehend the gravity of the situation before he pulled the trigger.
There was a dull thump, and then black. I momentarily found myself floating in a sea of nothing. There was no light, yet I could see myself bathed in an ethereal glow. Before I had time to wrap my head around that situation, I was suddenly back where I started – 20 or so feet behind where I was killed, in the alley between the two plazas. The biker was just slinging his shotgun over his back and into its shoulder holster before riding off to rejoin the pack. My body was not there.
And then I woke up. It didn’t freak me out or anything – it was puzzling more than anything, and kind of cool in a strange, morbid way.