Ever hear that urban legend about how if you dream that you’re falling and you don’t wake up before you hit the bottom, you’ll die in your sleep? Well, last night I “fell” off a ~400-foot cliff (if I’ve done the math right), experienced impact, and am still here.
I was in a car with my sister (that’s weird; we almost never are in a car together) that was sitting near the edge of said cliff. A bunch of people were standing around. Suddenly the car began rolling backward off the cliff, and no one could stop it, and then we were falling and knew we were going to die. I’m guessing the fall took about 5 seconds, hence my guesstimate of the height. On impact, there was just a second or two of . . . slight tingling? fading? No perception of pain. I guess my subconscious was imagining that after a fall from that height, you wouldn’t really feel anything but die instantly.
But after that I dreamed that I was looking at a map of where it happened, with the impact point marked with an X.
And when I finally did wake up, it was just my usual calm awakening (I hadn’t set an alarm), and it took me a few seconds to remember the dream. You’d think you’d wake up from a dream like that in a cold sweat, whether you “died” or not.
I’ve dreamed the “Falling Dream” - I fell off of a cliff. I bounced upon impact and immediately “blacked out” in the dream. I woke up thinking, “Well, that shoots that whole dying thing to hell, don’t it?” and promptly fell back to sleep.
I’ve also been shot on several occasions in my dreams - always in the arm, for some reason. Horrible burning sensation. Thing is, I’ve never been shot IRL, so I’ve been left trying to figure out how my sleeping mind has determined that the horrible burning sensation is what I would be feeling.
I’ve had plenty of dreams where I died. The earliest I can remember was back in kindergarten where I fell into molten lava. Just kind of blacked out.
The most recent was a terrorist bomb exploding a few feet from me. Again I kind of blacked out, no pain.
Other than that I have been shot, stabbed, crushed, fell, in dreams. All of them ending in blacking out accompanied by a warm sensation.
I can only hope it really ends that way.
I watched the first four episodes of The X-Files last night and then went to bed. That was a restless night. I was freezing for some reason, and I was trying to get down a complicated set of steps and keep my father from seeing me, but the guy in the dream didn’t look like my father.
I was at the fair. I wanted to ride the double Ferris Wheel. So I bought a ticket, got in line, and waited. It took a long time but when I finally got up there, the people in front of me got on and they advanced the ride.
There was no seat. Just a huge bolt sticking out of the wheel. The carnie looked at me, nodded at the bolt, and I handed him my ticket. I grabbed onto the bolt, noting how sharp the threads were.
The ride started going faster and faster, and as I went around the top, the force had me upside-down. Finally I couldn’t hold on any longer. I let go and flew through the air, landing near the Tilt-A-Whirl and bouncing. I got up, walked toward the ticket booth, and bought another ticket for the double Ferris Wheel.
I dreamt last night that I was getting ready to die. I knew I’d be dead in just a few hours, so I had to say all my goodbyes and get all my affairs in order. I specifically remember posting in the Mafia: Conspiracy II signup thread that I was sorry to have to back out of the game, as it turned out I’d be unable to participate since I was about to die.
Hal, I think you need to back away from the Dope!
I had a dream where I was climbing this huge sand dune. As I neared the top, the wind picked up. It got stronger and stronger the higher up I climbed. I finally slipped and started sliding down the slope. I picked up speed and couldn’t stop. I ended up sliding right off a huge cliff near the bottom. I was tumbling through the air as I fell and just before I hit the ground I noticed by bed and I was falling right toward it. Just as I impacted the bed in my dream I woke up - and was in my bed in the exact position I had hit it in my dream. It was really pretty freaky.
The only other time I nearly died in a dream, I was being crushed by a tractor. It was rolling slowly over me and I couldn’t breathe. I woke up with my face buried in my pillow - which was blocking my nose and mouth. I guess if I hadn’t woken up for that one I would have died.
I died in an electric chair when I was about 6. I still remember it quite vividly. I must have just recently learned what an electric chair was.
I also once killed a perfectly innocent vacuum cleaner salesman, stuffed his dismembered body into trash bags and tried to pin the crime on my brother.
Those are standouts. Usually I’m trying on all the clothes in my closet or screwing up the same phone number over and over.
I dream of dying fairly frequently. When I die in a dream, everything goes white (not black) and my whole body tingles very intensely, most especially my head, and I get a feeling I can best describe as “disastrously dizzy,” i.e., there’s this kind of vertigo with an accompanying feeling that there’s not going to be any end to this vertigo. It’s kind of weird. Then I wake up, often with a minor headache and some disorientation.
-FrL-
ETA: There’s also this sound that gets louder and louder the “deader” I get, sort of a rushing or roaring, not quite of wind, but I don’t mean like an animal roar either. Just kind of like being in the middle of a lot of really active frothy water.
When I was little kid I had the fall-off-a-cliff-and-die dream, and then afterward I became a ghost. The dying part was a bit unpleasant, my whole body felt very heavy, as if I was gonna sink into the ground, and then suddenly I felt so light that I stood up almost automatically. It turned out I landed in some girl’s backyard, and we had a pleasant conversation (she didn’t seem to mind talking to a ghost).
Anytime I drive in a dream, I end up on a twisting mountain highway surrounded by a forrest. There is always a cliff on one side of the road, like this. I keep going faster and faster, and I can’t stop. Eventually, my car flies of the edge of the road, and sails down into the cluster of pine trees below. I never stay asleep long enough to experience the impact, but I recall the fall as taking forever, and being kinda boring. Everything gets silent, and I mutter to myself, “Well, I’m gonna die.” Totally deadpan.
I find this odd, because anytime I drive in a dream, I can’t slow down, but If I am trying to run, I can’t go faster.
*I just realized a lucid-dream-cue. Anytime I try to run in a dream and I can’t go very fast, I turn around and run backwards. I can always go faster if I run backwards then forwards.
Last night’s dream lasted weeks, or months, before anything weird happened. I was going back to High School, to get a another Diploma (I must have 7 or 8 HS Dream Diplomas by now) and I was headed up the stairs to my locker. All the wooden statues came to life and started climbing the stairs. I screamed to get someone’s attention so I could prove the rumors (that the school was haunted by wooden statues) but I couldn’t make a loud enough sound. I touched the wood skull that the headless statue was carrying, but it didn’t seem to mind. Then I woke up.
I think what you’re experiencing is what we used to see on televisions late at night after the programming was over - your dream program is over, so all you see is white screen and static.
Probably because we have an instinctive fear, or at least caution of heights.
I recall dying in a falling dream; a thunderstorm had started, and I dreamed of hitting the ground just as thunder woke me. I heard the trailing part of it while awake; the dream must have rescripted itself on the fly to add in the “sound effect” as an impact. I was startled enough that I felt like I achieved levitation; not the calmest way to wake up.
