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Nightmares

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
Yeah it's not necessarily one thing in particular either. I often have nightmares about my husband and son, or our cats, or the world ending. Even had them about zombies numerous times. It may rise from anxiety, idk.
 
I dreamed last night that Satan sold our family a car. Then our shower was possessed and I was angry at Satan for ruining my shower.

I don't even watch Supernatural, but I feel like that sounds like a Supernatural episode.

It wasn't really a nightmare though...
 
Yeah it's not necessarily one thing in particular either. I often have nightmares about my husband and son, or our cats, or the world ending. Even had them about zombies numerous times. It may rise from anxiety, idk.
:( I had lots of nightmares when my anxiety was very bad.
 
Ok, i'm never up at this hour (too early!) but i had a nightmare and I really really really don't want to go back to sleep so here I am, posting about it.

Apparently being a lucid dreamer can suck. I just experienced a freaking terrifying phenomenon that my friend once told me about...being stuck in a dream that seems to go on forever.

I'm not sure there was anything bad about this dream. From what I can remember there were no monsters or other horrors or scary, horrible situations. It was just the fact that I couldn't wake up. I went through an entire 24 hours in this dream that seemed to be in real time and tried every method I'd ever heard of to wake up. Nothing worked. I was stuck. I kept talking to my family: "I need to wake up! I want to get out of here!" And they kept trying to convince me that the dream world was not so bad. After all, they said, I was a lucid dreamer so I should be able to control a nightmare if this dream turned into one!

What scared me the most is that i didn't even use the argument that I wanted to go back to the real world. I wasn't even sure I knew if one was real and the other wasn't. Instead I remember saying that in the dream world, the order and security, everything good, is only a thin veneer. Peel that back and you have all the materials of nightmares, all the horrors which are the true state of the dream world. I think i was talking about reality generally though, not just the dream world. My interest in waking up wasn't that this world was real but that it followed rules.

I'm having an existential crisis.

I think what finally woke me up was that I realized that if i spent any longer in the dream world, i'd forget the real one and the dream one would be my reality. I woke up gasping for breath. I've never woken up gasping for breath from a dream and i guess now I know what it feels like.

I feel on some level that the medications are doing this to me, but i'm also having an existential crisis and that was easily the most terrifying dream i've ever had. I was lucid the whole time and my thought process was as fluid as now. I tried controlling stuff at first, but it didn't help to wake me up.

*sits awake for the remainder of the night having an existential crisis*
 
I remember i was looking through my friends' texts in the dream and I knew i was dreaming because their contact names (I have nicknames for most of my closer friends) were all wrong and our conversations were different than I remembered. Apparently in the dream world my guy friend and I just sent each other the same picture of a cactus over and over.

I think i was sending them texts trying to get them to help me wake up. Of course, in real life nothing got sent.

It was an alarmingly realistic dream. I'll never sleep again.
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
I had another dream last night that I was separated from God. I was walking around terrified in a cold dark place and there was mist on the ground. It was terrible being alone and separated from Him. Then I heard a voice tell me to walk towards the warm light and I woke up.

I'm having too many hell nightmares lately. Not trying to go on a religious tangent here but I do wonder if nightmares plague us in ways that are dearest to us. Because sometimes I have nightmares of losing my husband and son and cats.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
We all are different, but in general it's true that stressful times often cause nightmares to haunt our sleep.

Your nightmares in particular sound quite eerie Chessie, I hope that they are going to pass soon. My nightmares are often about supernatural events and entities like evil ghosts and demons, so I understand very well that feeling of dread and darkness that you have described.

I recommend you to pray every night before going to sleep, asking for help against the nightmares.

Dragon, what a dream experience! I have read about those dreams that seem to capture and retain you forever, but it has never happened to me. I believe that your medications have something to do with that experience, but not without assistance from your very natural lucid dreaming skills and power.

I don't believe that dream worlds are nightmarish by nature with just a thin veneer of order and safety. Good things and also bad things in dreams are just reflections that come from us, but it's true that dream worlds have a twisted and often unpredictable nature. I love them, but a lot of weird things can happen indeed.

Something that intrigues me in particular is that the inhabitants of those places are often aware that they exist in a dream world, and they regard the dreaming person as some kind of intruder that has invaded their realm.

Sometimes they are friendly and curious, but other times they are hostile and try to kick me out.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
I suppose you could call it a nightmare. After a sequence of other events which are murky at best, I found myself consulting a large book in a library. The various symbols - letters, numbers, punctuation, and whatnot literally floated right off the page and swirled about me. About that time, I realized I could no longer read. I could identify the symbols - '7,' 'c,' and so on, but they'd lost all meaning, and were mere convoluted marks.
 

Dark Squiggle

Troubadour
I can only remember three dreams I've had, but one that I'd had three years ago still scares me every time I think about it. I had a dream that I came to school and everyone wanted to kill me. I ran and ran, and the scene changed from the area around my school to some rough limestone hills. Then I saw me chasing myself. The other me caught up with me, and I killed him with a knife between the neck and shoulder before he could do me in. Then two other people caught up with me, one someone I sort of thought of as a mentor, and I killed them too. Finally, I ran into a bookshop, and a teacher from a previous school was standing there. He locked the door, handed me my bag, opened a pair of sliding doors in the back of the store, and there was a train station. He told me to get on a train and call him when I woke up, that he had something important too tell me about my life. I got on the train and my pursuers burst through the sliding doors as the train pulled out of the station, and I felt safe in the train, and felt a need to call this teacher. I then woke up.
This dream has bothered me ever since. I am not a violent person, I never had anything to do with this teacher - he only taught me a class once, but he had/has a reputation for mysticism and insanity and wildness, so if someone could invade someone else's dreams, I'd believe he could do it. It bothers me even more because I'd been going through a sort of mild depression at the time that I have never fully recovered from completely, and I don't know, just thinking about this dream makes me nuts, and I still don't have the guts to call this teacher.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello Squiggle!

Well, the first thing that I want to say is that many calm and non-violent people sometimes have unusually violent dreams that scare them a lot. In fact, that kind of dreams are among the most common nightmares that people encounter. Murdering others, witnessing a death or being chased are reported very often in the world of nightmares.

In my case, I very much enjoy that kind of thing and I have murdered countless people in my dreams.

I do not think it's necessary to call that teacher, it was just a particularly intense nightmare and not a case of dreams invasion. In fact, I am pretty convinced that dream invaders do not exist. At least, I believe that no living person can do that!

You can deal with it by telling yourself that it was just a crazy nightmare, and that's all.
 

Dark Squiggle

Troubadour
Hello Squiggle!

Well, the first thing that I want to say is that many calm and non-violent people sometimes have unusually violent dreams that scare them a lot. In fact, that kind of dreams are among the most common nightmares that people encounter. Murdering others, witnessing a death or being chased are reported very often in the world of nightmares.

In my case, I very much enjoy that kind of thing and I have murdered countless people in my dreams.

I do not think it's necessary to call that teacher, it was just a particularly intense nightmare and not a case of dreams invasion. In fact, I am pretty convinced that dream invaders do not exist. At least, I believe that no living person can do that!

You can deal with it by telling yourself that it was just a crazy nightmare, and that's all.
The scariest part was that I did enjoy killing the people in the dreams, kind of like a strange vengeance carried out in cold anger. I don't believe in dream invaders either, but you didn't see this guy, and don't know him - he believes in that stuff, and he believes so strong that if you're around him, you do also. I have spoken to two people who I consider wise, and they both gave me the same advice as you did, although one said I should come up with an excuse to meet him if I can after seeing how bothered I was about the dream. I am yet to come up with the excuse and have decided to let the dream lie as it is.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello again Squiggle.

There is something that you have to consider about nightmares: You are in them in one way or another, but whatever that you do in them does not necessarily represent what you would do in waking life. The Dreamworld is often twisted and mysterious, and your dream enjoyment of those killings does not mean that you would really enjoy such actions and events.

Now, judging from what you are telling me about that teacher I think it's best if you never see or even call him again.

I have met some people like that, and please believe me that it's better to leave them alone. You have to seek a more positive dreams life, enjoy the great dreams at the same time that you deal with bad ones and just let everything flow naturally.

And who knows, perhaps a great Fantasy story is going to reveal itself to you in a dream someday!
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
The Hungary Dream

Quite some years ago I was fascinated by the country of Hungary and its lovely culture in general. I loved to search for pictures online and admire the cities, castles, vineyards, the Balaton Lake and everything else. I have never visited Hungary in person, or at least the one here in Earth... since this was another one of those dreams that feel like you actually traveled to a different realm.

I visited a touristic resort somewhere in the Hungarian plains, and it was a very nice place with thermal water pools and vast gardens together with a small but luxurious hotel for the guests. In case that you do not know, thermal water resorts are a tradition in Hungary. I was in a personal travel, and I knew absolutely nobody else in that resort.

I enjoyed the pools and gardens, but one day (one of those dreams that feel like a long time has passed) I decided to join a group of some ten or twelve other tourists in a guided visit to a cave that was nearby the resort. We had a special Guide person that seemed to know the cave very well, and all of us carried torches in order to illuminate the way.

However, soon the cave proved to be a deep and complex system quite similar to a labyrinth.

This is where the dream started to become a nightmare, with that classic feeling of danger and dread. We were lost in some kind of underground maze, it was very dark and our torches would not remain alight for long... even the Guide looked worried, and then all of a sudden we arrived at some kind of very large chamber that was connected to the labyrinth.

There was a large oval mirror attached to one of the walls of this chamber, and before the mirror there was a creature that was just there combing its long and sleek hair. The creature was for the most part a huge snake, perhaps some twenty meters long, but the upper part was that of a woman except that the woman in question looked more like some kind of vicious monster.

The creature was staring at the mirror as it combed her hair, at first she did not see us and we were just petrified there for some time. Then, the monster turned around and spotted us at last... our Guide was the very first to run like freaking hell out of that chamber, the rest of us dashed after him and the creature immediately charged after all of us hissing and displaying claws and teeth ready to kill.

We still carried some torches and yet everything was so dark, it was a labyrinth, we were trapped... I could hear screams and cries as the monster started to catch those behind me, I was sure that it was going to catch me soon and then...

I woke up in my bed all shaken and yet fascinated by that powerful dream.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
While i do dream, and probably have nightmares, i almost never remember them or lose them soon after waking. I fear they will not me help me very much with story creation. Wish i had some to share but i dont.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello Pmmg!

Even though I have experienced pretty intense dreams all my life, my ability to recall them better was something that I developed thanks to the Dreams Journal practice. It's quite normal to lose memory of dreams soon after waking, and there is a little trick for helping with that: Try to stay as quiet as possible in your bed, since for some reason body movement causes the dream memories to vanish faster.

As soon as you have a good grasp of the dream, hurry and write it down. You do not need to write an excellent description at first, just write all the details that you can remember. Good or bad details are equally valuable. With time, you will find yourself recalling more and more dreams and with more detail than ever before.

The Dreams Journal is any notebook in which you write your dreams by date.

Now, not all dreams can be good inspiration for stories. Many of them are just random events, others are pretty ordinary and yes, sometimes unusual and curious dreams with story potential are going to come to you.

After all, Paul McCartney received Yesterday in a dream!
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
There was a large oval mirror attached to one of the walls of this chamber, and before the mirror there was a creature that was just there combing its long and sleek hair. The creature was for the most part a huge snake, perhaps some twenty meters long, but the upper part was that of a woman except that the woman in question looked more like some kind of vicious monster.

Naga. A south Asian demon/spirit. Several varieties, some quite nasty, others occasionally helpful.
 
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