Nightmares

[Tom Gone]

When I was young I suffered from nightmares and night terrors, and I think I developed this skill to kind of control it out of desperation. There was a time when I was terrified to fall asleep, but I also learned how to give myself powers like flight and telekinesis to keep whatever monsters were tormenting me at bay. The older I got the better I was at controlling the dreams. Until about five years ago. It started off with a pretty horrific life event. I got into a bad car wreck that triggered some trauma in me. Not immediately. About a year later I was terrified of driving. I mean debilitatingly so. I could barely get myself to work. I dreaded stopping for gas and refused to drive anywhere I was unfamiliar with. Because of this, I missed out on a lot and began to sink into a depressive slump. That's when the nightmares started again. A reoccurring dream, not in the way where it was the same dream over and over again, but in the feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness it left me with when I woke up. Certain things were the same: it usually took place in a house, not unlike the one I grew up in, and there was an old woman. She was always the same. And not only was she terrifying, but she also seemingly had the same lucid dream abilities I did, only much more powerful. It sounds like I'm writing a horror story, but I swear this is how I experienced it. Every night I would have this dream where she would taunt me, hunt me, and fill me with panic. I would wake up with a gasp almost every night. It felt so real. The dreams felt like they lasted days. One night I decided to stand up to her. To tell her that I wasn't going to run away. That I would face her and banish her from my mind forever. That's when she revealed herself to me. Her true form. It was me. My face and my body but twisted and off in an uncanny way. I experienced sleep paralysis for the first and only time that night. I remember walking down the street as the lights around me began to dim as my alter ego whispered horrible, dreadful things in my ear. I remember thinking 'This has to stop. I can't live like this anymore.' I reached into my pocket and conjured a razor. I slashed it across the eyes and ran. The sound it made... like a screaming animal from the depths of hell. I found myself in my bedroom and hid under the blankets just like I did when I was a kid. I felt this weight push down on me harder and harder until it was so heavy I couldn't breathe. Then it just lifted. And I could breathe again. And I woke up. I never had another lucid dream again after that night. And I never saw whatever that was again.

 

[Finchbearer]

So, I dreamt last night that orcs were everywhere and I kept killing them…with my gardening knife. I was constantly chasing daylight. They were everywhere. I’ll consider keeping my gardening knife close by for such an event.

 

[The Dark One]

I have two regular nightmares - both horrific in their own way.

One always involves heights. Comes up in all sorts of ways but usually something to do with a massive precipice and very little room at my back.

The other involves hand to hand fighting against someone or something trying to kill me and no matter what I do I can't hurt them. Some of these dreams are disturbingly violent - and I'm a total pacifist...

Scary.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Running across a huge, flat, freshly tilled field from a giant alien with a huge gun.
He was far behind but when he opened fire I'd throw myself down and try to will myself deeper into the ground while the bullets struck so close they flung dirt on me, knowing my entire body was clearly exposed no matter how flat I tried to lay.

I don't know anything about the science of dreams, but it felt like an "exposure" nightmare, like the classic naked in front of a crowd, but with the added terror for my actual life and nowhere to hide no matter how far I ran.

It's spawned several stories.