Nightmares/Scary Dreams, What's Yours?

[Leah]

One night I had this animal looking thing...more like a black dog with legs and arms like humans grab me and I ran outside with this creature on my back screaming "God Save Me". Next a firetruck comes down the street, hands me a jacket. I try to put it on but it did not get rid of the creature so I handed it back to the fireman. They drove off, and I ran across the street with this animal on my back. I started pounding it on the yard, then woke up. It was weird because it seemed so real. Do you have any unusual dreams or nightmares?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Last week I dreampt I came home to find an old housemate who'd been evicted had wandered back in and began acting like he still lived there. The other new housemates were not sure if he really did until I came home. I found him at the stove cooking, using all other people's food and pots and pans. I yelled at him for that and he said his stuff would be arriving later. I said it had better not since he didn't live there anymore. I woke up as I started yelling at him to just leave immediately.

After I woke up I was baffled because though I "recognised" him in the dream, in waking reality he wasn't anyone I'd ever met or shared a house with. Somehow, though, I think the dream grew from a fear of living with people who completely don't understand boundaries. It doesn't sound frightening, per se, but was actually a very upsetting dream.

 

[scott1]

One time I had a dream about giant spider attacking me and ever since that I have arachnaphpbia.

 

[Evo]

Last week I dreampt I came home to find an old housemate who'd been evicted had wandered back in and began acting like he still lived there. The other new housemates were not sure if he really did until I came home. I found him at the stove cooking, using all other people's food and pots and pans. I yelled at him for that and he said his stuff would be arriving later. I said it had better not since he didn't live there anymore. I woke up as I started yelling at him to just leave immediately.

After I woke up I was baffled because though I "recognised" him in the dream, in waking reality he wasn't anyone I'd ever met or shared a house with. Somehow, though, I think the dream grew from a fear of living with people who completely don't understand boundaries. It doesn't sound frightening, per se, but was actually a very upsetting dream.

That is a very intense, meaningful dream.

I will never forget a dream I had in the eighth grade. I was walking along the muddy school yard, trying to get to "the shacks", temporary trailers that were set up on the lawn to house additional classrooms.

In my dream, this kid I'd never seen runs up to me and starts stabbing me in the chest with a large knife. I must have had the same dream 4 times in one night.

The next morning, it had rained. I was holding my books in front of me and walked looking down to try to avoid stepping in large puddles, when suddenly, I walked straight into a guy. I looked up into his eyes and we both let out a startled gasp and turned and ran. He was the guy that had tried to stab me in my dreams all night, he apparently was just as afraid of me. I will never forget looking straight into the face of my murderer, although it was a dream murderer. I have no explanation for what happened.

 

[motai]

The next morning, it had rained. I was holding my books in front of me and walked looking down to try to avoid stepping in large puddles, when suddenly, I walked straight into a guy. I looked up into his eyes and we both let out a startled gasp and turned and ran. He was the guy that had tried to stab me in my dreams all night, he apparently was just as afraid of me. I will never forget looking straight into the face of my murderer, although it was a dream murderer. I have no explanation for what happened.

That is very creepy. I wonder if the guy was dreaming that you were trying to stab him.

 

[JamesU]

That is a very intense, meaningful dream.

I will never forget a dream I had in the eighth grade. I was walking along the muddy school yard, trying to get to "the shacks", temporary trailers that were set up on the lawn to house additional classrooms.

In my dream, this kid I'd never seen runs up to me and starts stabbing me in the chest with a large knife. I must have had the same dream 4 times in one night.

The next morning, it had rained. I was holding my books in front of me and walked looking down to try to avoid stepping in large puddles, when suddenly, I walked straight into a guy. I looked up into his eyes and we both let out a startled gasp and turned and ran. He was the guy that had tried to stab me in my dreams all night, he apparently was just as afraid of me. I will never forget looking straight into the face of my murderer, although it was a dream murderer. I have no explanation for what happened.

so twilight zone-y!

 

[zoobyshoe]

I looked up into his eyes and we both let out a startled gasp and turned and ran. He was the guy that had tried to stab me in my dreams all night, he apparently was just as afraid of me. I will never forget looking straight into the face of my murderer, although it was a dream murderer. I have no explanation for what happened.

Had you ever seen him before? Was he an eighth grader, too?

 

[zoobyshoe]

That is a very intense, meaningful dream.

I've realized since posting it that it has a factual basis in two incidents I'd forgotten about. The "former housemate" actually was a kind of compaction of two guys who were friends of housmates at two different places. In both cases these housemates let their friends wander around the place when they weren't there and I had found both of them helping themselves to my and other's food. These incidents were years ago, and I'd forgotten about them.

In addition, at one house, there was a character who moved out who actually did come back a couple/three times to tell us he was ready to move back in as soon as there was a room available. His attitude was that this was a sort of right he had as a former housemate, as if he had a special spot that was his to take. I found that very irritating since he'd moved out suddenly and left us scrambling to find a replacement to make the rent.

So, these three guys were compacted into this one in the dream.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

For years I had nightmares about being attacked by a large wicker chair. To the best of my knowledge this has never actually happened.

 

[hypnagogue]

I will never forget a dream I had in the eighth grade. I was walking along the muddy school yard, trying to get to "the shacks", temporary trailers that were set up on the lawn to house additional classrooms.

In my dream, this kid I'd never seen runs up to me and starts stabbing me in the chest with a large knife. I must have had the same dream 4 times in one night.

The next morning, it had rained. I was holding my books in front of me and walked looking down to try to avoid stepping in large puddles, when suddenly, I walked straight into a guy. I looked up into his eyes and we both let out a startled gasp and turned and ran. He was the guy that had tried to stab me in my dreams all night, he apparently was just as afraid of me. I will never forget looking straight into the face of my murderer, although it was a dream murderer. I have no explanation for what happened.

Very eerie. I hope you don't mind if I try my hand at some possible (non-parapsychological) avenues of explanation.

One possible explanation might be that the person you were predisposed to 'see' your dream murderer on this occassion. The dream sounds quite vivid and upsetting, so you may have been in some emotional distress on some conscious or unconscious levels the following morning. On top of that, the following morning you found yourself in the same context in which your dream occurred, which surely was picked up upon by conscious and unconscious cognitive appraisal mechanisms-- so you may have had some expectations of/alterness to danger in general (and perhaps more specifically, danger relating to the dream events) and an abnormally sensitive predisposition to react to startling or unexpected events in a fight/flight manner.

When you bumped into the person, given your likely cognitive and emotional state at the time, it's no surprise that you had a fearful, fleeing reaction. The unusual thing is that you remember this person looking just like your dream murderer. A number of factors could have been at play in determining this experience:
1. Brief encounter-- since you bumped into this person unawares while looking at the ground, and soon ran thereafter, you might not have gotten as sharp or complete of a look at him as you thought;
2. Priming effects-- the morning walk was similar to the traumatic dream, so you may have expected/been predisposed to completing the pattern on some level of processing, whether it was really warranted or not;
3. Memory effects-- memory is not a perfect, passive recording; it's constructive and malleable. In particular, memories pertaining to highly emotional/traumatic experiences are susceptible to poor/incomplete encoding during the experience and alterations/distortions upon subsequent retrieval. Given that this was at least a mildly traumatic kind of experience, the effects of (1) and (2) on the encoding and subsequent retrieval/reconstructions of the memory may have been magnified.
4. The dream image of your dream murderer also may have been retroactively subject to (2) and (3). Assuming you did get a good and accurate look at the person you bumped into, your memory of what the dream murderer looked like may have altered in some way to match what the actual person looked like.

 

[Astronuc]

For years I had nightmares about being attacked by a large wicker chair. To the best of my knowledge this has never actually happened.

Wicker chairs are nocturnal, and they attack one while asleep. You probably weren't aware of it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

1. Brief encounter-- since you bumped into this person unawares while looking at the ground, and soon ran thereafter, you might not have gotten as sharp or complete of a look at him as you thought;
2. Priming effects-- the morning walk was similar to the traumatic dream, so you may have expected/been predisposed to completing the pattern on some level of processing, whether it was really warranted or not;
3. Memory effects-- memory is not a perfect, passive recording; it's constructive and malleable. In particular, memories pertaining to highly emotional/traumatic experiences are susceptible to poor/incomplete encoding during the experience and alterations/distortions upon subsequent retrieval. Given that this was at least a mildly traumatic kind of experience, the effects of (1) and (2) on the encoding and subsequent retrieval/reconstructions of the memory may have been magnified.
4. The dream image of your dream murderer also may have been retroactively subject to (2) and (3). Assuming you did get a good and accurate look at the person you bumped into, your memory of what the dream murderer looked like may have altered in some way to match what the actual person looked like.

Yeah, bumping into someone usually requires a large amount of distraction from your forward path, in this case concentrating on avoiding the puddles. To be startled out of that concentration by bumping into someone the morning after you've, four times, dreampt of being rushed up to and stabbed could easily throw your mind back to the dream and cause you to flesh out the face of the person you bumped into as the person in the dream, or to modify your memory of the dream to fit the person you bumped into.

The other possibility is that she actually had seen this guy at least once before. If she'd seen him, for example, acting in a way that seemed disturbing she might have pushed him out of her conscious thinking until he came back up in the dream.

 

[Mk]

I don't get any scary dreams, sorry for those who do.

 

[dav2008]

The only scary dreams I have involve me running away from someone.

 

[Evo]

Very eerie. I hope you don't mind if I try my hand at some possible (non-parapsychological) avenues of explanation.

One possible explanation might be that the person you were predisposed to 'see' your dream murderer on this occassion. The dream sounds quite vivid and upsetting, so you may have been in some emotional distress on some conscious or unconscious levels the following morning. On top of that, the following morning you found yourself in the same context in which your dream occurred, which surely was picked up upon by conscious and unconscious cognitive appraisal mechanisms-- so you may have had some expectations of/alterness to danger in general (and perhaps more specifically, danger relating to the dream events) and an abnormally sensitive predisposition to react to startling or unexpected events in a fight/flight manner.

I agree with all of your scenarios.

I could have seen him before, but didn't remember. His reaction could have been in direct response to my reaction. (If someone bumps into you and screams in terror, it would be natural to yelp and bolt in the opposite direction).

We had over 2,300 kids in our school. I don't remember ever seeing him before or after this incident, but that doesn't mean I hadn't seen him at some point.

 

[JasonRox]

I'm lucky to be able to just wake up when I'm dreaming.

I'll never forget the dreams of when I drowned and fell from buildings. Crazy!

 

[Cyrus]

sleep? what's sleep?

 

[Mk]

Sleep? What's sleep?

I just go on PF when I feel sleepy, then go back to school.

 

[hypnagogue]

A couple of nights ago, leading into a big test, I had a dream where this dog kept biting my hand and I had to pry its jaws open to get it off each time. I hate those kind of dreams. And I hate dogs.

 

[Alkatran]

I can always breath underwater when I'm breathing. But I have to "try" or it won't work. :rofl: I'm always worried I'm not actually dreaming and I'll drown.

I've definitely woken up in a cold sweat over dreams that, in retrospect, weren't really that scary.

 

[zoobyshoe]

A couple of nights ago, leading into a big test, I had a dream where this dog kept biting my hand and I had to pry its jaws open to get it off each time. I hate those kind of dreams. And I hate dogs.

Were you the hand that fed it?

 

[hypnagogue]

Were you the hand that fed it?

No, I was minding my own damn business. Damn, dirty dogs.

 

[zoobyshoe]

No, I was minding my own damn business. Damn, dirty dogs.

That could be the problem, then. It was hungry.

 

[hypnagogue]

Next time I'll feed it some arsenic.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Next time I'll feed it some arsenic.

That'll do the trick.

Today I fell asleep and had an unbelievable expansion of the dream I reported earlier: the building where I lived was taken over by raucus, violent, drug taking kids. They had just walked in and taken over people's rooms when they weren't there.

In this dream the building was very large, maybe 20 rooms, like a dorm, and in all the halls I checked there they were.

More kept showing up. There was some ruckus outside. I looked out a door and saw there were crowds of them on a kind of grassy square and they had surrounded 12 police officers. They were throwing beer bottles and junk at the cops and the cops were shooting back with their pistols. Later when I looked out, the disturbance seemed to be over, but there were only two cops left.

This hadn't changed the infestation in my building. The ones inside had just stood looking out shouting encouragement to their fellows, but also even cheering if one of their own had gotten killed in some interesting way.

I realized toward the end of the dream that they were like locusts in that this was just something they did now and then, and it wasn't permanent. They acted without plan or reason.

 

[bomba923]

Heh...I used to have nightmares before I turned 15.

But after they stopped, and were no longer original, they were no longer scary. Rather, I find them quite..."fascinating"; my dreams usually involve exploring some landscape or achieving some goal. They are not necessarily frightful or pleasing...just, interesting from an (not-entirely-empirical) analytical perspective.

As I mentioned, I don't dream anything original now, in the sense that "I have never seen this 'dreamscape' before! This was not even a part of previous 'dreams' ." Nothing like that. Everything I seem to dream now is just derived from past dreams (dreams before I turned 15 y.o...or around that time). It may be an original combination of parts I haven't experienced before...but nowadays even these combinations aren't quite suprising to me anymore.

In addition, dreams for me are also...quite "nostalgic", in the sense that I "know" the time I first dreamt that dream...my age, my environment, what caused the dream. The particular experiences of what age...would I interpret the dream with...etc.

*Generally, I have a comprehensive "mental" map of my dreams. Ordered chronologically, or by similar features, by similar ambience/mood, etc...(heh...just a normal mental process for me)
*Now when I wake up, I might reminisce about the time I first dreamt that dream (or experienced that particular mood). What experiences brought about that dream...how it was back then...etc.

(I'm only 17 y.o right now; I do not imply "back then" as an old person remembering "young times"! hehe...)

 

[hypnagogue]

Recently I was flipping through the channels late at night and came across The Wall (movie adaptation of the Pink Floyd album). It was at the part in which a mass of people fall into some kind of fascist frenzy, and their faces become disfigured mask-like ugly things with rudimentary and odd demarcations for the eyes and mouth (something like http://www.propstore.com/images/products/706/pinkflyod-maskdisplay3.jpg ). I always found that kind of image somewhat disturbing-- also occurs in The Matrix when Neo's mouth congeals into a solid mass of smooth flesh and in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind during a couple of dream sequences. Anyway, sure enough, the next night I had a dream where I found myself looking into a mirror and it happened to me-- no facial features at all, just a smooth surface of flesh, like a skin-colored egg with hair on it. (Don't ask how I saw myself in the mirror without eyes.) It was disturbing enough that I looked away and looked back at the mirror to find that my face was back to normal.

Also, though this is not a negative kind of dream, lately I have been experiencing an awful lot of NREM dreams (dreams that do not occur during REM sleep and are typically more abstract/thoughtlike and less perceptual than REM dreams). I usually have these shortly before waking up. They typically involve me trying to solve some kind of problem using algorithmic steps, and there's a lot of repetition (I'll go back and do the same steps over and over). The problems themselves and the solutions I instantiate never seem to make much logical sense upon waking, though I only have a very vague memory of what they were in the first place. The features of the dream that stand out are just the general features of having some kind of problem or goal and using repetitive steps of abstract thought to solve it.

 

[Sisyphus]

NREM dreams...They typically involve me trying to solve some kind of problem using algorithmic steps, and there's a lot of repetition

That's bizarre, I had a nap earlier today, had such a dream for the first time (as long as I can remember), and remember thinking that it was kind of strange.

 

[bomba923]

Me too. I didn't get much sleep last night (I was writing some English essay), so I took an two-hour nap at about 5:00 pm (Thursday, April 6th). I had such a dream too.

In my case, I was trying to meet some recurring deadline (in my dreams), to win some competition. Except I tried once, twice, etc..etc. Each additional attempt became more and bothersome...

(The dream was rather annoying and repetitive. Over and over again...tirelessly & repetitively, there was some goal I had to achieve in that dream)

 

[topsquark]

I believe that all women who have nightmares are simply expressing their need to sleep with me.

-Dan

(OINK!)

 

[moose]

I remember the last two weeks of last semester... Every single day when my alarm clock woke me up, I was horribly stressed out and worrying about this and this deadline. Then about twenty minutes later when I got up and went to take a shower, I realized that everything I thought was completely false... So everyday I worried like hell for nothing :/

 

[lostbeauty365]

?

I had this 1 dream not to long ago where there was this mental disturbed girl and she was in my class, so I would notice her in the halls all alone. Then all of a sudden my life fastforwards to when I'm 35 years old and a detective that was investigating a case where that girl was still the same age but her mom had died so I went to question her and asked her what had happened and she said that a burgaler had came into her house and stabed her but the report had said that she was strangled so I confronted her and then she replied well than i don't know. So I rewind to when I'm in school again and this popular girl was making fun of her. Then the bell rang and I ended up on the top of a buiding and the girl and the bully were both there so the popular girl again starts to laugh at her.So the girl grabs the popular girl and flips her over the building then the SWAT team pops from behind me like they had been there the whole time and took a machine gun and shot the girl like 60 times.So I run of to her and she's breathing deeply and bleeding profusly ( I'm 35 at this time) I am on my knees and holding her in my arms and she said "no one cared for me anyway" and then I said "I care about you" then she looked up at me. And when she did I almost cried.And she died, I woke up.

But the thing was that I never really saw the girl, and I don't remember what she looks like. And also I don't even know this girl so I don't understand how I cared about her.

And in the dream how I switched different ages but the dream was still about her??
I just don't understand

 

[daveb]

I used to have nightmares quite frequently about being at the beach as a huge tsunami approaches. I would always try to run away from it, but inevitably would be caught by it and drown (at which point I would wake up). Finally, I was able to provide a bit of lucid dreaming and willed myself to run toward the wave. Turned out the wave became nothing and merely got my feet a little wet. I haven't had that nightmare since.

 

[turbo]

When I was about 7-8 y.o., I had a vivid recurring nightmare. I would see a thin horizontal black line on a white background. As I looked more closely, I saw that it was not a continuous line, but a row of tiny black dots marching from right to left. Then the dots became "aware" that I was watching and stopped suddenly, then the line of dots rushed in my direction and I became horrified as I realized that the dot directly in front of me was going to engulf me, and I woke up screaming. I had that exact same nightmare periodically for probably 2-3 years. I have no idea where that one came from, nor any idea why I was so convinced that I would be obliterated by the black dot. I would always wake up screaming as the dot got so close (big) that it filled my field of vision with blackness.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

My worst dream lately was that I dreamt I was in the world of Elder scrolls:Morrowind and I found this book I had to give to some mage and so proceeded to do so(I was all excited in the dream)I woke up and for some reason this trivial fact resided with me so I thought: well I haven't played it in a while, perhaps it's about time I gave that book to the mage because I'm sure I found it elsewhere...

Sure enough there it was, but when I met the guy who wanted it and talked to him about it he just told me where to find it over and over again, so in frustration at the obvious game bug, I dropped the Chronicles of Nehluft(a book that cost me 200gp I might add) purposefully and then because my fingers rolled over the wrong keys I cast lightning at it, unfortunately lighting rebounds off concrete, and I hit both the head of The Mages Guild and the book worm, who then killed me for my accidental fit of pique.

The dual morals of this story are a) I should get out more and b) never listen to your dreams as some sort of prophecy, they could turn your life into a nightmare for real!