"They always know where I’m hiding."
October 30, 2017 10:03 PM Subscribe
Atlas Obscura asked readers to send in their nightmares. Here is a small sampling.
These are pretty good. I've been told I have weird dreams, but I that's obviously relative.
posted by bongo_x at 10:48 PM on October 30, 2017
posted by bongo_x at 10:48 PM on October 30, 2017
Last night I dreamed I was getting a tattoo of a noodle with a face with a dick for a nose.
It was not, however, a nightmare.
posted by Grandysaur at 10:58 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
It was not, however, a nightmare.
posted by Grandysaur at 10:58 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
More of a Pastafarian vision. You are blessed.
posted by Segundus at 11:09 PM on October 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 11:09 PM on October 30, 2017 [6 favorites]
This was scary for me to read
posted by samthemander at 11:13 PM on October 30, 2017
posted by samthemander at 11:13 PM on October 30, 2017
Grandysaur;
Did you get drunk last night, and do you have any spots on your back half that feel like a sunburn?
posted by bongo_x at 11:13 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Did you get drunk last night, and do you have any spots on your back half that feel like a sunburn?
posted by bongo_x at 11:13 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Saturday I awoke from a pretty vile dream -- I'd found myself unable to control my arms or legs or hands or feet, I was completely dependent upon other ppl to do for me (including dressing me, feeding me, wiping my butt, getting me onto a toilet, cleaning me in a shower.) I awoke unbelievably grateful that it wasn't true, I kept touching my arms with my other hands, kept marveling that I wasn't living the dream I'd just had, kept marveling at how real it was -- it had really grabbed me.
It's no secret to me where this dream is coming from -- one of my best friends suffers a degenerative nerve disorder -- ataxia -- and he has finally reached this place in his own life. He is one of the most driven people I've ever met, and one of the most stubborn, and one of the best, he was told in the mid-80s to resign himself to living in a wheelchair, and everyone else in that group of ppl *did* get in a wheelchair, and Steve used one when he had to but he held out until about two years ago, he used a walker indoors and a grocery cart outdoors, fell and broke bones in his arms or hands a number of times, broke his hip once also but he just kept moving. He had rails put all 'round the inside of his house and that was really a great idea. He was able to drive until about five years ago. But finally it has nailed him. He has no control over his body. None. The race is run. Steve is incredibly depressed.
My friend is living my nightmare.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:22 AM on October 31, 2017 [6 favorites]
It's no secret to me where this dream is coming from -- one of my best friends suffers a degenerative nerve disorder -- ataxia -- and he has finally reached this place in his own life. He is one of the most driven people I've ever met, and one of the most stubborn, and one of the best, he was told in the mid-80s to resign himself to living in a wheelchair, and everyone else in that group of ppl *did* get in a wheelchair, and Steve used one when he had to but he held out until about two years ago, he used a walker indoors and a grocery cart outdoors, fell and broke bones in his arms or hands a number of times, broke his hip once also but he just kept moving. He had rails put all 'round the inside of his house and that was really a great idea. He was able to drive until about five years ago. But finally it has nailed him. He has no control over his body. None. The race is run. Steve is incredibly depressed.
My friend is living my nightmare.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:22 AM on October 31, 2017 [6 favorites]
Nightmare I recall 20 years later. I discovered that I had, in some kind of fugue state, been murdering people. I was a serial killer. I think I came to and there was a bloody corpse in front of me and I suddenly remembered everything. In horror, I confessed this to a close friend. He smiled and congratulated me as he was doing the same, but in full awareness.
posted by thelonius at 4:15 AM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 4:15 AM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
These are literal nightmare fuel.
I tend to have a lot of disturbing dreams, but strangely, it's generally not those that wake me up. Holding off zombies or vampires (I've had several of those) or dealing with murderous undead cats (also that) or creepy things in the woods (like the one I had last night) are all just par for the course for me, honestly. (There are more! I used to tell people about some of these with a tone of "Hey, listen to this weird and awesome dream I had!" and they'd react with "That is horrifying.")
The dreams that wake me up as always much more mundane -- it's just some stress I can't deal with, especially one that keeps repeating (like, not quite, but close to not being able to dial the correct phone number) and I'd rather "escape" from it by waking up.
posted by darksong at 5:58 AM on October 31, 2017
I tend to have a lot of disturbing dreams, but strangely, it's generally not those that wake me up. Holding off zombies or vampires (I've had several of those) or dealing with murderous undead cats (also that) or creepy things in the woods (like the one I had last night) are all just par for the course for me, honestly. (There are more! I used to tell people about some of these with a tone of "Hey, listen to this weird and awesome dream I had!" and they'd react with "That is horrifying.")
The dreams that wake me up as always much more mundane -- it's just some stress I can't deal with, especially one that keeps repeating (like, not quite, but close to not being able to dial the correct phone number) and I'd rather "escape" from it by waking up.
posted by darksong at 5:58 AM on October 31, 2017
Shit, my most frequent nightmare is that I'm back in Ranger School.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 7:10 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by A Bad Catholic at 7:10 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
(Do not read the below if animal harm upsets you.)
I had a similar one to thelonius's nightmare. I was staying with a doctor on some kind of therapeutic retreat in his beautiful lakeside cabin. The only thing that disturbed the peace of the retreat was when every morning we would wake up to find dead animals arranged into gruesome tableaux on the doorstep--dogs, cats, squirrels, foxes, other forest animals, arranged with leaves and branches. It became clear to me over time that the doctor was drugging me with a serum that caused me to kill and arrange the animals, while I remembered nothing.
The other worst one I can remember recently also involved animals. I had left for a fun weekend with friends. For some reason I was staying at my parents' house. When I came home, I realized that the door to my childhood room was shut. With sinking dread, I realized I had locked my cat inside the room, without access to food, water, or his litterbox. I opened the door to find him lethargic, barely alive, lying in a puddle of his own urine.
posted by capricorn at 7:15 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
I had a similar one to thelonius's nightmare. I was staying with a doctor on some kind of therapeutic retreat in his beautiful lakeside cabin. The only thing that disturbed the peace of the retreat was when every morning we would wake up to find dead animals arranged into gruesome tableaux on the doorstep--dogs, cats, squirrels, foxes, other forest animals, arranged with leaves and branches. It became clear to me over time that the doctor was drugging me with a serum that caused me to kill and arrange the animals, while I remembered nothing.
The other worst one I can remember recently also involved animals. I had left for a fun weekend with friends. For some reason I was staying at my parents' house. When I came home, I realized that the door to my childhood room was shut. With sinking dread, I realized I had locked my cat inside the room, without access to food, water, or his litterbox. I opened the door to find him lethargic, barely alive, lying in a puddle of his own urine.
posted by capricorn at 7:15 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
There's an endless desert of grey sand beneath a flat dusk sky, the setting for a massive ziggurat of dark stone blocks. I sit on a throne upon the peak. At the base of the structure, mice wearing a variety of human-esque garments scurry in terror as more tremendous stone blocks slowly tumble from the sky and crash around us, as if another structure concealed by the clouds was crumbling onto the world below. The sense of scale is tremendous, and simultaneously the distances between points are perceived with perfect horrible detail. Everything, everything has a weird double focus - in the broad sense they are normal, regular shapes and creatures, but overlapped like double vision they can be seen on a microscopic level where every surface and feature seethes with corruption, corrosion and decay to a near fractal level.
The ziggurat is pummeled and the mice are being crushed by the stones. One mouse turns to me from the desert floor and begs me to stop making the stone fall from the sky. I throw my head back and laugh and laugh and laugh.
After I wake up I can still feel the double focus and sense of every surface being decayed and corroded for quite some time, and can't bear to look at anything for the revulsion.
posted by FatherDagon at 8:16 AM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
The ziggurat is pummeled and the mice are being crushed by the stones. One mouse turns to me from the desert floor and begs me to stop making the stone fall from the sky. I throw my head back and laugh and laugh and laugh.
After I wake up I can still feel the double focus and sense of every surface being decayed and corroded for quite some time, and can't bear to look at anything for the revulsion.
posted by FatherDagon at 8:16 AM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
I have the same nightmare regularly since toddlerhood, and is the only nightmare I ever remember past waking.
I and two business men in suits come out of a forest and cross a meadow to a stream, we're on our way to an important meeting and we're late. There's a dock where the stream becomes a river and there's a garden gnome selling those big swan boats you see in tunnel of love attractions. We each climb on our own and float down the river. As we go the boats become real giant swans. We approach a roaring waterfall, and as each business man goes over, they reappear in the distance as their swan glides away. My swan goes over and becomes a wooden boat again, and I wake up feeling like I'm falling.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 8:24 AM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
I and two business men in suits come out of a forest and cross a meadow to a stream, we're on our way to an important meeting and we're late. There's a dock where the stream becomes a river and there's a garden gnome selling those big swan boats you see in tunnel of love attractions. We each climb on our own and float down the river. As we go the boats become real giant swans. We approach a roaring waterfall, and as each business man goes over, they reappear in the distance as their swan glides away. My swan goes over and becomes a wooden boat again, and I wake up feeling like I'm falling.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 8:24 AM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
It is approaching finals in the last months before I graduate college. The bottom falls out of my stomach as I realize I forgot to attend one class all semester.
I still have that nightmare regularly despite being well over a decade out of college. I wonder if it will ever go away.
posted by FakeFreyja at 9:16 AM on October 31, 2017 [7 favorites]
I still have that nightmare regularly despite being well over a decade out of college. I wonder if it will ever go away.
posted by FakeFreyja at 9:16 AM on October 31, 2017 [7 favorites]
I have had some dreams that fucked me UP.
One had me in a strange desert-like landscape with flat yellowish lighting. The only visible structure for miles was a yellow adobe building without doors or windows, just openings. I was walking around inside it, confused, and then black inky shadow things, vaguely people shaped but stretched out and warped, began following me, slinking along the walls and ceilings and whispered to me "How did YOU get here?" "You're not supposed to be here." "You don't belong here." "Go back where you came from." "This place was not meant for you" etc. In the dream, I had some kind of feeling that this was a Purgatory type of place and I should leave soon.
And then I woke up. I haven't had another dream remotely like it.
I also once dreamed that I had died and was in the afterlife and watched from afar as my husband moved through the stages of grief, first shattered and heartbroken and depressed, then kind of OK but still not great, then over time he slowly began to move on and recover and he started dating again and his memories of me began to fade. It felt like months were passing in the dream, it was very long.
I woke up reaaaallly freaked out and very disoriented. Meanwhile my husband had left to go get coffee and didn't want to wake me up, so I was wandering around half-awake and confused in the house. Then he returned and was very startled to be ambushed by his disheveled wife sobbing "oh my God can you see me? I THOUGHT I WAS DEAD!!"
posted by castlebravo at 9:27 AM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
One had me in a strange desert-like landscape with flat yellowish lighting. The only visible structure for miles was a yellow adobe building without doors or windows, just openings. I was walking around inside it, confused, and then black inky shadow things, vaguely people shaped but stretched out and warped, began following me, slinking along the walls and ceilings and whispered to me "How did YOU get here?" "You're not supposed to be here." "You don't belong here." "Go back where you came from." "This place was not meant for you" etc. In the dream, I had some kind of feeling that this was a Purgatory type of place and I should leave soon.
And then I woke up. I haven't had another dream remotely like it.
I also once dreamed that I had died and was in the afterlife and watched from afar as my husband moved through the stages of grief, first shattered and heartbroken and depressed, then kind of OK but still not great, then over time he slowly began to move on and recover and he started dating again and his memories of me began to fade. It felt like months were passing in the dream, it was very long.
I woke up reaaaallly freaked out and very disoriented. Meanwhile my husband had left to go get coffee and didn't want to wake me up, so I was wandering around half-awake and confused in the house. Then he returned and was very startled to be ambushed by his disheveled wife sobbing "oh my God can you see me? I THOUGHT I WAS DEAD!!"
posted by castlebravo at 9:27 AM on October 31, 2017 [4 favorites]
That I could jump, and each jump would take me higher, but quickly there was one jump that was too high and as I came down I knew it was going to kill me, painfully.
—Dana F.
This is a recurring dream of mine, and doesn't always become a nightmare. It's almost as if gravity is slightly broken in my dreams. As someone in his forty's still occasionally experiencing the same nightmares of his childhood it's remarkably comforting to read someone else experiencing the same thing.
posted by diziet at 9:37 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
—Dana F.
This is a recurring dream of mine, and doesn't always become a nightmare. It's almost as if gravity is slightly broken in my dreams. As someone in his forty's still occasionally experiencing the same nightmares of his childhood it's remarkably comforting to read someone else experiencing the same thing.
posted by diziet at 9:37 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
I never seem to have the normal sorts of nightmares. Going to school with underwear is only a nightmare if your underwear isn't cute. The taking-a-test-after-not-attending-classes-all-semester one always amuses me because it's basically a retelling of my entire run in college. I pretty much lived that dream for semester after semester until graduation. Thank Ba'al for essay tests and my ability to sling nonsense semiotics like a sonuvabitch, as it happens.
Instead, I have had more or less the same nightmare in multiple variations over the past thirty years I've lived in my apartment. In it, I have an old friend visiting from out of town, or several friends, and we've spent the day out, and returned exhausted, and I have come in, stripped, and gone to bed, accidentally locking my friends out. In some versions, I've forgotten to provide them with a place to sleep, and the dogs have prevented them from using the sofa. I wake, sweaty with panic, lurch through the house in that half-asleep haze before my consciousness is finished rebooting, and am horrified that my friends have left because of my appalling failure of hospitality.
It is, quite possibly, the stupidest repeating nightmare imaginable, but I had a bout of it just the other night. No blood, death, gore, apocalypse, tragedy, or any of the usual tropes—just me accidentally being a dick to my friends, capped off with a shivering panic of realizing that I've been a dick to my friends.
The occasional zombie or math test in my underpants would almost be a pleasant change.
posted by sonascope at 9:38 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Instead, I have had more or less the same nightmare in multiple variations over the past thirty years I've lived in my apartment. In it, I have an old friend visiting from out of town, or several friends, and we've spent the day out, and returned exhausted, and I have come in, stripped, and gone to bed, accidentally locking my friends out. In some versions, I've forgotten to provide them with a place to sleep, and the dogs have prevented them from using the sofa. I wake, sweaty with panic, lurch through the house in that half-asleep haze before my consciousness is finished rebooting, and am horrified that my friends have left because of my appalling failure of hospitality.
It is, quite possibly, the stupidest repeating nightmare imaginable, but I had a bout of it just the other night. No blood, death, gore, apocalypse, tragedy, or any of the usual tropes—just me accidentally being a dick to my friends, capped off with a shivering panic of realizing that I've been a dick to my friends.
The occasional zombie or math test in my underpants would almost be a pleasant change.
posted by sonascope at 9:38 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
I have had variations on the same nightmare for years (not all the time, thank jebus): I've snuck into someone else's house and I'm trying to get out before they catch me. It goes on and on.
As a teen, I actually went into a stranger's house with a group of other teenagers. They said it was abandoned, and then someone came home. We RAN. I never a) did that again, or b) believed anything those idiots ever told me again. Everything about it felt wrong.
posted by corvikate at 9:54 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
As a teen, I actually went into a stranger's house with a group of other teenagers. They said it was abandoned, and then someone came home. We RAN. I never a) did that again, or b) believed anything those idiots ever told me again. Everything about it felt wrong.
posted by corvikate at 9:54 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
It is approaching finals in the last months before I graduate college. The bottom falls out of my stomach as I realize I forgot to attend one class all semester.
I'm 25 years out of grad school and still have that dream!
When I was 11 or 12 (1978-79), I dreamed that my friends and I were at our elementary school in the middle of the night. As we caused mayhem at the school, we caught glimpses of a full-sized landspeeder being driven by giant rats. They chased me, and I barely managed to drag myself into the school office to hide from them. When the giant rats came to the office, they told the secretary they just wanted to know what my favorite movie was.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 10:09 AM on October 31, 2017
I'm 25 years out of grad school and still have that dream!
When I was 11 or 12 (1978-79), I dreamed that my friends and I were at our elementary school in the middle of the night. As we caused mayhem at the school, we caught glimpses of a full-sized landspeeder being driven by giant rats. They chased me, and I barely managed to drag myself into the school office to hide from them. When the giant rats came to the office, they told the secretary they just wanted to know what my favorite movie was.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 10:09 AM on October 31, 2017
Fun early childhood nightmare: I am wandering around alone in an old west type town. The sky is a terrible burning reddish orange color. I turn around and there is a giant shambling Cthulhu-like creature made of ropy tentacles with big staring eyes. It has no color but is made up of a sort of disorienting black and white pattern, like static. I am transfixed by its terribleness until I awaken.
Grim recurring adult nightmare: I'm driving on a coastal road by cliffs and for some reason decide to accelerate. I take a turn too fast and go flying off the road. As the car plunges towards the impossibly distant ground I know for an absolute certainty I am going to die; I feel no panic but rather a bleak resignation and some well why did you go and do that, that was stupid, now you're going to die thoughts of regret.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:40 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Grim recurring adult nightmare: I'm driving on a coastal road by cliffs and for some reason decide to accelerate. I take a turn too fast and go flying off the road. As the car plunges towards the impossibly distant ground I know for an absolute certainty I am going to die; I feel no panic but rather a bleak resignation and some well why did you go and do that, that was stupid, now you're going to die thoughts of regret.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:40 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Artists's rendition of the "mutating fish" was too much for me. The whole "too many eyes" thing is a major, major phobia of mine. Early childhood memories of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica are to blame.
posted by Pistache at 11:56 AM on October 31, 2017
posted by Pistache at 11:56 AM on October 31, 2017
Oh lord, one of these reminded me of one that I'd almost managed to forget: Pale knuckled crablike legs, just like on the facehuggers from the Alien movies, are growing out of my thigh. So I have to snip them off with pruning shears.
posted by neckro23 at 12:03 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by neckro23 at 12:03 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
FatherDragon , yes! I know exactly the vision you're talking about. the immense sense of infinite space, while simultaneously seeing everything in perfect, grotesque vision.
Trigger warning for gore and harm to infants/death and allusions sexual assault and lots of really unpleasant shit tbh.
I have a pretty diverse history of trauma, so a lot of my nightmares center around reliving the same violence. But, when I was a kid, I used to have these episodes where I'd be somewhere in a dream, and get washed over with this immense sense of dread, and then my whole body would vibrate, sort of like when a limb falls asleep, but combined with the worst sense of impending evil you could imagine. Then it'd be followed by sleep paralysis. I've grown out of it so that was honestly a life saver.
The worst horror dream in the past year: I was in this haunted house, and by haunted i mean teaming with evil, grotesque, deranged monsters and beings and blood and viscera. I was in a red bathroom with black and white checkered floor. A creepy man type thing in a ragged tuxedo has me pinned between him and a white pedestal sink, I'm facing the mirror and my hands are gripping the edge. He's slowly impaling the back of my arms with push pins. I feel this nauseous, bubbling, disgusting feeling in my gut. My eyes snap to look at myself in the mirror, and my cheeks bulge before a huge, violent stream of blood vomits from my mouth. the force pushes both of us back, and i exit into the hallway to try and escape, but I'm at a dead end, and at the other end is this... fleshy thing that lays it's eyes on me and starts coming towards me. So I duck back into the bathroom with tuxedo man, who body slams me onto the tile. now covered in at least an inch of my own blood, then the torture turns sexual and eventually i wake up
Bleakest dream I've ever had, which was also in the past few months: I'm in a very, very downtrodden neighborhood. Think more like a bunch of empty buildings where desperate people squat. There's people literally dying on the sidewalk, strung out laying in the road, children wandering around with no shoes, sounds of domestic violence, etc. above us, by about 100 ft, a very shiny, hi tech, sci-fi road is being built, to connect two cosmopolitan areas-the only places where things like grocery stores and schools. The bridge meant there was no way for people like us, on the ground, to get to those places anymore. Construction vehicles are coming and going, tearing down buildings and working on the supports for the bridge. It's the only vehicle traffic we ever see. Somehow I'm now a very skinny, weak looking man holding a crying baby that obviously was *just* born, I'm sure the mother has died in childbirth. I go to the middle of the road where there's one of many, many large pot holes. I kneel, and set the baby in the hole, and cover it with gravel and rocks and other detriment. It's still crying. I walk back to the edge of the road, and watch as a dump truck drives by, and over the pot hole. It was a mercy killing, but still awful.
Thanks for listening to the awful shit i think of sometimes!
posted by FirstMateKate at 12:38 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
Trigger warning for gore and harm to infants/death and allusions sexual assault and lots of really unpleasant shit tbh.
I have a pretty diverse history of trauma, so a lot of my nightmares center around reliving the same violence. But, when I was a kid, I used to have these episodes where I'd be somewhere in a dream, and get washed over with this immense sense of dread, and then my whole body would vibrate, sort of like when a limb falls asleep, but combined with the worst sense of impending evil you could imagine. Then it'd be followed by sleep paralysis. I've grown out of it so that was honestly a life saver.
The worst horror dream in the past year: I was in this haunted house, and by haunted i mean teaming with evil, grotesque, deranged monsters and beings and blood and viscera. I was in a red bathroom with black and white checkered floor. A creepy man type thing in a ragged tuxedo has me pinned between him and a white pedestal sink, I'm facing the mirror and my hands are gripping the edge. He's slowly impaling the back of my arms with push pins. I feel this nauseous, bubbling, disgusting feeling in my gut. My eyes snap to look at myself in the mirror, and my cheeks bulge before a huge, violent stream of blood vomits from my mouth. the force pushes both of us back, and i exit into the hallway to try and escape, but I'm at a dead end, and at the other end is this... fleshy thing that lays it's eyes on me and starts coming towards me. So I duck back into the bathroom with tuxedo man, who body slams me onto the tile. now covered in at least an inch of my own blood, then the torture turns sexual and eventually i wake up
Bleakest dream I've ever had, which was also in the past few months: I'm in a very, very downtrodden neighborhood. Think more like a bunch of empty buildings where desperate people squat. There's people literally dying on the sidewalk, strung out laying in the road, children wandering around with no shoes, sounds of domestic violence, etc. above us, by about 100 ft, a very shiny, hi tech, sci-fi road is being built, to connect two cosmopolitan areas-the only places where things like grocery stores and schools. The bridge meant there was no way for people like us, on the ground, to get to those places anymore. Construction vehicles are coming and going, tearing down buildings and working on the supports for the bridge. It's the only vehicle traffic we ever see. Somehow I'm now a very skinny, weak looking man holding a crying baby that obviously was *just* born, I'm sure the mother has died in childbirth. I go to the middle of the road where there's one of many, many large pot holes. I kneel, and set the baby in the hole, and cover it with gravel and rocks and other detriment. It's still crying. I walk back to the edge of the road, and watch as a dump truck drives by, and over the pot hole. It was a mercy killing, but still awful.
Thanks for listening to the awful shit i think of sometimes!
posted by FirstMateKate at 12:38 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
When I was getting close to graduating college, I would get these recurring dreams that there was some clerical error with my high school diploma and I would have to go back to high school and take one class. I never had the forgetting I had a course dream while I was in college, but I do occasionally get that now, with the added thing that this time there was some clerical error with my college degree.
The real memorable thing is the time where I died in a dream, but it was kind of a slow life-draining-out-of-me thing, so I didn't wake up with a jerk. Then, I don't know if I had sleep paralysis or just didn't think to try and move, but as I was lying there I was convinced I was dead, and that souls didn't leave the body but just stayed there, aware and unable to do anything until the end of time. Eventually the haze of sleep left me and I tried to open my eyes and realized I was actually alive and in my bed.
posted by ckape at 12:44 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
The real memorable thing is the time where I died in a dream, but it was kind of a slow life-draining-out-of-me thing, so I didn't wake up with a jerk. Then, I don't know if I had sleep paralysis or just didn't think to try and move, but as I was lying there I was convinced I was dead, and that souls didn't leave the body but just stayed there, aware and unable to do anything until the end of time. Eventually the haze of sleep left me and I tried to open my eyes and realized I was actually alive and in my bed.
posted by ckape at 12:44 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]
Almost all of my nightmares and sleep paralysis episodes involve aliens in some capacity, typically in abduction scenarios. But on Monday I actually called out of work due to a particularly intense nightmare. (Trigger warning for guns/animal abuse!) I was in a giant warehouse that somehow I knew was "hell". There was a car in the warehouse and a big, white, fluffy dog sitting in the backseat. A man rose up in the seat and put a gun to the dog's mouth and shot it several times, but the dog didn't die, it just got more and more deformed and bloody. Eventually its mouth was hanging off and it had no eyes, and then it began chasing after me. I woke up and was panicking, and couldn't go back to sleep due to the imagery of the dream. I called out of work and laid in bed the rest of the day.
posted by gucci mane at 1:39 PM on October 31, 2017
posted by gucci mane at 1:39 PM on October 31, 2017
capricorn: I realized I had locked my cat inside the room
/checks timestamps on Harper’s instagram
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:59 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
/checks timestamps on Harper’s instagram
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:59 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I was looking at the driver's side door of a long, green car. Something from the late sixties, maybe. There was a mirror in an ornate frame attached to the panel of the door on that side. I couldn't see myself or anything else in the mirror but was pointing an old style automobile aerial at it, trying to make it break, even though I wasn't really touching it.
Eventually the mirror did begin to crack, and at that point my older brother, who passed back in 2006, came crawling over the roof of the car toward me. I awoke then and saw my late brother standing at our front door clear as day, sealing the door shut with plastic tape that had blue designs running down it. I could hear the sound of his hands smoothing out the tape.
And then he kind of just burst into what looked like a swirling pattern of tiny glass or stone fragments, which revolved in place for a short while before fading away.
posted by metagnathous at 4:21 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
Eventually the mirror did begin to crack, and at that point my older brother, who passed back in 2006, came crawling over the roof of the car toward me. I awoke then and saw my late brother standing at our front door clear as day, sealing the door shut with plastic tape that had blue designs running down it. I could hear the sound of his hands smoothing out the tape.
And then he kind of just burst into what looked like a swirling pattern of tiny glass or stone fragments, which revolved in place for a short while before fading away.
posted by metagnathous at 4:21 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]
TW: Trump, abuse, rape
My mom was married to Donald Trump and not only was he abusing her he was raping my sister while watching videos of himself raping her as a child. My mom did nothing even though we all knew what he was doing.
I think that was one of the few where my own yelling woke me up.
posted by bendy at 7:38 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
My mom was married to Donald Trump and not only was he abusing her he was raping my sister while watching videos of himself raping her as a child. My mom did nothing even though we all knew what he was doing.
I think that was one of the few where my own yelling woke me up.
posted by bendy at 7:38 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I always think the worst nightmares are where I dream I had a fight with my husband, or best friend, or similar, and it's very realistic to life, and when I wake up, I'm not sure if that actually happened yesterday or if I dreamed it. UGGGGGGH.
For a long time my worst recurring nightmare-nightmare was that there was an emergency (usually a fire) and I was running for the phone and it was like I was running through molasses. Then an emergency actually happened to me and time slowed down so much it was like running through molasses, and I have never had that nightmare again.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:07 PM on October 31, 2017
For a long time my worst recurring nightmare-nightmare was that there was an emergency (usually a fire) and I was running for the phone and it was like I was running through molasses. Then an emergency actually happened to me and time slowed down so much it was like running through molasses, and I have never had that nightmare again.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:07 PM on October 31, 2017
I remember two nightmares I had at about the same time when I was four or five. One was thanks to Captain Kangaroo and his rendition of The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. In the nightmare, dozens of Little Red Lighthouses are coming down the hallway toward my bedroom to get me. The other nightmare is what can happen from reading Bible stories to an impressionable child. I dreamed that red-skinned, forked-tailed Satan himself had come into my bedroom and was carrying me off to Hell. My dad (in the dream) hurried from his bed and was loading his BB gun to try to save me, but what good is a BB gun against the devil?
As an adult -- for, say, nearly three decades -- I've been treated to uncounted versions of my college fiancee breaking up with me for another guy. Some have been fairly accurate, others less so, but each with the same gut punch that always made for a rotten day afterward. I managed to rewrite history in one dream, breaking up with her instead. That seems to have broken the string.
posted by bryon at 4:57 AM on November 1, 2017
As an adult -- for, say, nearly three decades -- I've been treated to uncounted versions of my college fiancee breaking up with me for another guy. Some have been fairly accurate, others less so, but each with the same gut punch that always made for a rotten day afterward. I managed to rewrite history in one dream, breaking up with her instead. That seems to have broken the string.
posted by bryon at 4:57 AM on November 1, 2017
/checks timestamps on Harper’s instagram
Ha! I actually did leave Harper at home (granted, with plenty of food and water) while I was away for two nights recently and he was, obviously, fine, just very needy and antsy for a while. That will probably cut down on the cat neglect nightmares going forward.
posted by capricorn at 7:13 AM on November 1, 2017
Ha! I actually did leave Harper at home (granted, with plenty of food and water) while I was away for two nights recently and he was, obviously, fine, just very needy and antsy for a while. That will probably cut down on the cat neglect nightmares going forward.
posted by capricorn at 7:13 AM on November 1, 2017
The new recurring nightmare du jour, because work travel has amped up for me recently: BEDBUGS.
posted by capricorn at 7:14 AM on November 1, 2017
posted by capricorn at 7:14 AM on November 1, 2017
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posted by LSK at 10:10 PM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]