I was just wondering what your scariest nightmares were like. I’m into dreams and dream analysis and all of that stuff so I’d be really interested to know.
To start off, I had one about three weeks ago when I was walking down an ordinary street and people I’d never seen before but who were convinced they were my long lost brothers and sisters kept running up to me and bursting into flames. Freaky stuff.
All of my nightmares are the same, even though the details vary by what’s on my mind at the time. I’m always running and something is chasing me. And I always wake up before it does, but it’s as if I’m stuck to the bed and I can’t move for a good 5 minutes and I’m just sitting there terrified in the dark because I’m afraid that this will be the one time I can’t ever move again.
Yeah, I know, that’s pretty lame for a nightmare, but it’s all I got.
I guess this could be blamed on my career choice, but from time to time I get a variations on my only recurring nightmare-
The one where I am taxiderming an animal and the animal is either not quite dead or it comes back alive and asks me what I am trying to do to it.
And then there was that dream where I was trying to teach a taxidermy class, and all my students were really messy and kept getting formaldehyde, intestines and various other goodies all over the floor and I was walking ankle-deep in white opaque “dissection fluid”, constantly bumping into pigeon-heads and fetal pigs.
I often have a dream in which I need to call 911 because of some kind of emergency. The emergency differs in each dream but for some reason I can’t get to a phone (I can see a phone, I just can’t get to it), or I can’t dial the number, or the phone is busy. I feel a great deal of urgency and then frustration when I can’t call for help.
Come to think of it, whenever I need to use a phone in my dreams I can’t dial or something else goes wrong. IRL I am a phone hater.
I had recently attended some brass clinics at a nearby college. One night, I had this dream where I was at some kind of musician’s clinic, although I was a drummer for some reason. However, I realized we were, by some mistake, playing at the wrong kind of clinic- an abortion clinic. I think I started to panic. Now, of course, the image of a live band performing at the offices of a doctor who performs abortions just seems funny.
I dont know if this qualifies, but last night I dreamt that I had become a moderator on the SDMB, I guess it was inspired by Coldie, I mean if he can do it, why not me?
Well I was cruising around banning trolls (yeah yeah yeah only admins can do that) but for the life of me I couldnt find out what forum I was supposed to be moderating, then imagine the horrors when I finally found out I was a moderator for In My Humble Opinion!!
No offense slythe and TVeblen, but it scared the piss outta me.
When I was really young, about five or six, I had the same couple nightmares every week.
In one, I was running up a mountain, usually with a large group of people. Something was chasing us. Every time, I would fall, or everyone would start getting further and further ahead of me. Soon I’d be all alone, then I’d wake up.
I stopped having this particular nightmare a couple years ago, when I went through all the motions in the dream, then, at the point where I usually fell, then presumably died, I fell, and then got up again, and proceeded to make it away from the monster. I guess that represented a victory of my mind over whatever caused the nightmare in the first place.
In the other one, I was always hiding under a potted palm in my living room. There would be a friend of my brother’s coming towards me, but he was a vampire, and I knew he was going to kill me, but all I could do was hide under the plant.
An interesting thing about my nightmares is that they always end with an out-of-body experience, as I watch myself falling, spiraling rather, down a huge black pit. That’s when I wake up.
I don’t really have re-occuring nightmares but I have a re-occuring theme. I’ll be in some awful situation (it varies) and I’ll try to run away but all of a sudden my legs won’t work, like they’ve both suddenly gone ‘asleep’ and I’ll keep stumbling and tripping over myself . I’ll try to scream but my voice will be hoarse to the point of silence. The worst is when I’m ‘okay’ for a little while–ie., able to run and/or scream–and then all of a sudden The Terror will hit and I’m thrust into sudden, total helplessness.
A general theme in mine is blood. I see myself bleeding from my arms or my face. Sometimes its self inflicted,other times done ny someone else. And I try to stop myself from bleeding but it doesn’t stop, then i wake up and cant sleep for a good hour or so until i calm down.
Other times im getting beat up or hurt by some person in my dreams that im close to, generally a male. and I don;t know what i did wrong to make them mad, but they always tell me i deserve the pain they give me and won’t stop.’
Don’t I sound like a total nutcase? wonderul dreams for a 17 yr old girl to have.
Sounds like something they call sleep paralysis. If I find the article again, I’ll leave a link here. I believe they said you aren’t fully awake when this happens and once you are fully conscious, you regain movement. I wasn’t sure I agreed with the article.
OK, you’re on. (they don’t go into words well, though, but here goes):
The worst one is the “Being the Red and then Dying” dream, in which there was much frenzied fearful anticipation and I, like a leaf among other leaves on the sidewalk, was windblown, and it was ominous; and then that which I feared happened and like an explosion I was red and terrified and no longer small but huge and spherical and in much pain. Then it was over and I knew “this is what it is to be dead, I am dying I am dead now, THE HORRIBLE THING HAPPENED and I am killed.”
The first runner-up is the “Evil Light Fixture That Made Edges Sharper” dream, in which I could see the ceiling light fixture and the corners of the ceiling in my room by what first seemed to be the light filtering in through the window and coming from streetlights and the moon and whatnot; but then I became aware that the ceiling light had been CHANGED and was shining horrible pale blue light that you didn’t notice at first because it was so pale; and the horrible pale blue light hit illuminated the edges where the ceiling met the walls and where the walls met each other, and the horrible light made the edges too sharp, exact and precise, and killed everything and shone down on me like that too.
OK, doctor, analysis please
Up until a couple of years ago I had the same reoccuring nightmasre. This started when I was about 4 or 5 years old.
I’m sleeping in my bed, which is on the second floor of my house. I wake up and look out the window and see all these huge wolf/werewolf like creatures moving slowly around in a circle , passing my window one at a time. They were walking on their hind legs, BTW. My window was on the second floor, so that tells you how big these things were. As each passed by the window, they looked in at me, drooling, snapping there jaws and scratching at the glass. The whole circle of creatures was illuminated by this eerie light that was shining from an outdoor light fixture. They kept doing this and doing this until I woke up. It still gives me goosebumps now because it was so vivid and real. Most of my dreams are “fuzzy” or unclear, but this was sharp, real. I can remember the smells and sounds of these things perfectly.
Just today, when I was taking my after dinner nap, I had a dream that I tried to kill my sister. If my nap had been a little longer, I probably would have killed her. It was very strange, and very real. Certainly not my worst nightmare, but the most recent.
My mom keeps having nightmares where God and Satan are fighting over her, arguing over who gets to have her when she dies.
I’ve had two similar dreams, that might be characterized as nightmares, only because they freaked me out so much.
See if you can follow - I dreamed that I was dreaming, and in that dream, I dreamed that I woke up, but I was still dreaming.
In the first one, I got out of bed and got ready for work, but I ended up getting on the wrong train and I had to slog through a marsh to get the right one, AND I realized I was still in my pajamas. So I walked all the way back home. While dreaming I knew I was dreaming, so I made myself wake up, at which point I proceded to relate my dream to my wife. But of course I was still dreaming. She had no idea who I was or what I was talking about. She was just like, “Shut up and leave me alone.” Which upset me greatly. It was at that point that I woke up screaming.
A couple nights ago, I had a shorter, yet scarier one. I dreamed that I was in my bed, next to my wife, my dog at my feet, just like normal when I was disturbed by a sound. I lifted my head only to see a shadow moving over by the kitchen. The dog didn’t notice and my wife was still sleeping. So at this point I was dreaming I was awake, and it was all very real, but I couldn’t move or speak. It was like the blankets of the bed were conspiring against me. I finally managed to get my body contorted into a position where I could see into the kitchen where a strange man was just standing there looking at me. Poof! That’s where I wake up in a cold sweat.
Oh yes, I feel your pain. I have these type of anxiety dreams whenever I’m under a lot of pressure and I’m stressed out. It’s that whole feeling of powerlessness that really sucks about the dream.
I also will dream that I’m the passenger in car that is hurtling down a busy street and all of a sudden I realize that there is no driver!!! :eek:
I had the worst nightmare right after my BF’s mother died.
My friend and I robbed one of those grocery store banks at night. Instead of having a getaway driver, we parked my car. The robbery went terribly wrong. Someone shot my friend. I saw all the blood in my dream. I bolt out to the car where there is this little kid (age4) sitting on the roof of my car. As I’m unlocking the door the little kid shoots me in the forehead with a double barrel shotgun. I woke up screaming.
I also have this reoccurring dream that I’m flying and then I fall from the sky into a swimming pool full of blue marbles…
Last night I had a few really bizarre ones. First, I was in a park with some people I knew, and there were bees all over me. I was walking around really slowly and trying not to agitate them, like I do in real life, and the strange part was that it didn’t seem like a dream at all. I remember exactly what I was thinking in the dream, like how nervous I was that they were all going to sting me any second. I could feel them crawling around on my skin.
Also I had one where all my recent orthodontic work somehow became undone, and I had to do it all over again, which really pissed me off. Apparently in the dream, I was sleeping and punched myself in the mouth. Come to think of it, I’ve always had a lot of dreams involving dentistry. What does that mean?
My most gruesome nightmare which I can recall happened about 7 or 8 years ago. I was in a trance, lying on a plain wooden table in a small, dim room. A friend was whispering something to me, and all of a sudden all sorts of bloody pulsating organs – kidneys, hearts, etc. – started rising up out of the floor in pools of gore. It was pretty horrible. But the worst nightmares IMHO are the ones where your teeth crumble apart and fall out. I’ve had that one a few times and they are so realistic that I always wake up convinced that my teeth really did fall out!
My most memorable recurring “nightmare” came right after my Grandmother (whom I was especially close to) died. I was 13, by the way. In the dream we would be going about some normal routine, such as walking down the street or browsing the library, and all of a sudden the realization would hit me. I’d look over at her and blurt out “Grandma, you’re DEAD!” and she’d look back at me, smile and say, “Yes I am.” in a completely normal tone, as if to tell me “that’s right.” It freaked me out, and I had that dream over and over for years.
Lately, less of a nightmare and more of a recurring theme, I’m somewhere I don’t want to be surrounded by people I don’t want to be with. I’ll end up trying to get away and hide from them, but they always find me in the end. No violence involved, more frustration that I CAN’T GET FREE OF THEM! I suspect this is work-stress related, since my work has been frustrating of late.
That sounds kinda normal. I have dreams about bleeding, too.
I have a remarkably vivid dream in which I was back in the Army and I was on some sort of security details or something, which is funny because that wasn’t my job in real life. I approach some guys we’re after and they shoot me, and I fall on my back and I can see the blood coming out of my neck, and I realize, holy shit, I’m gonna die. Then I wake up.
I’ve had this dream quite a few times.
And Nimue, I used to have that teeth-falling-out thing all the time. I don’t anymore though; I wonder why.
