When you have a nightmare...

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
1

Here is one for you. I was wondering a lot about what usually occures in all of your nightmares. This isn’t really a nightmare diary per say, but more of a common link between the nightmares you have all had; common elements, feelings, inhibitions and other things. Here are some questions fo you to answer when you post here. You don’t have to refer to specific examples (though you can if you are trying to use it for the sake of explanation).

here are my questions:

Who or what is usually haunting or pursuing you?
What do you usually do? (run? hide? scream?)
Where does the nightmare usually take place?
Is there anything that you are commonly afraid of? If so, what is it?
Is there anything that holds you back? (no voice? heavy feet?) If so, what is it?
How do you feel during the dream?

Now, I am in no way trying to seem invasive. If you have some sort of private matter that your nightmare revolves around, I don’t want anybody to feel obligated to post it. I am merely curious as to what nightmares are like to others.

I will post my own answers just to start things off:

Usually, it is a shady figure that I cannot recognize visually. However, there is always a lingering feeling that I know the thing in question. I always feel like it is a friend or family member, but I am never sure. All I know is that it frightens me.
I usually try to run away to a safe place and hide. I try not to make any noise, but my movements seem to make all the noise in the world.
Usually, it takes place in a seemingly never ending piece of land with some common repeating element or theme. Like, once it was in a never ending art gallery. Another time, it was in a large old resort with abandoned rooms.
I can’t say, but the fear sometimes seems to stem from being found out. It is as if I have a feeling that I did something terrible and I am running from some figure of punishment. (though, I can never figure out what it is that I am protecting myself from)
A lot of the time, my body will feel as if it weighs a ton. Every movement takes every bit of energy I have, and sometimes I can’t move at all. Other times, I will shut my eyes, and I can’t open them and see.
Often times, I feel a sense of deep regret mixed with desperity. It is very strange.
So, what is it that eats at everybody in a nightmare?

2

my nightmares are usually real life like situations so there are no monsters etc to get me lucid.
My most recent ones are DCs trying to break into my house and/or having to watch something happen and not be able to do anything to prevent it :sad:
so the main feelings are fear coupled with powerlessness :meh:

3

In my nightmares… Hm, or its some random DC or a happening, not any kind of living thing. So it can be some person, or flowing to mouth. What mostly am I doing then ? It depends, if I know that I’m dreaming, I try to resist - mostly unsuccesfully - or wake up. If I’m not aware of that fact I am just being terrified. If I die, I simply wake up. There mostly in my house, or in some random place. And I don’t have any special fears or phobias. I’m kinda afraid of some dogs, but I never had a nightmare like that. Nothing is holding me back, but in some of nightmares are time is flowing slower. I don’t feel like that was annoying me then, I just think “Why it takes so long…”, so I notice it. How do I feel in that dream ? well, possibly like I should feel in nightmare - scared.

There is a link that can interest you, if you didnt saw it already - Nightmare diary

4

my nightmares are usually not at all frightening except in my head during sleeping… when i wake up i often think “now what was i afraid of??? window? little chair???” i have completely normal dream and i am totatly scared without any peticular reason… like i am afraid of the dream itself… :confused: funny…

5

For me. Being chased is not a nightmare. There is no fear in such dreams. If I get scared it’s most probably the mood of the dream. A demonic voice on the telephone with low volume so I couldn’t even hear if it was a known language. It creeped me out that one time. Or feeling the fear of Agent Scully in a dream when I was the entity chasing her.
The last time I felt fear in a dream It was because a tiger was going to eat me and it was sniffing me and such, I was afraid to move. I lay still from start to finish.
I’ve had dreams that might have terrified others. More like horror movie themed. But I guess I’m practically immune to horror movies by now. I’m generally not emotionally envolved in dreams.

6

That brings up an interesting point. Have any of you had nightmares where you are the predator in question, but you fear for the life of the prey. I remember once, in a dream, I was a T-Rex chasing a smaller dinosaur, and I was scared for its life, but I couldn’t stop myself. Have any of you experienced something like this?

7

Who or what is usually haunting or pursuing you?:

I don’t really have a specific nightmare, it’s always something different, often it will be a disfigured, gray skinned, human-ish monster, but that’s as far as the specifics go, because the detailes of it are always different
(size, eye color/size, if it even has eyes, mouth, tongue, if it even has a mouth, ect.)

What do you usually do? (run? hide? scream?):

Since I can never move or make any sound at all in my nightmares, I do what I can, try to wake myself up, but when waking myself up, I get terrible SP, my breathing seems constricted (It’s not, but it feels like it), and the nightmares appear in reality for a minute untill it’s over and I can move. in turn: every nightmare I have is an old hag dream

Where does the nightmare usually take place?:

My house, usualy in the hallway, it’s the creepiest room in the entire house, but it’s always MUCH longer in my nightmares, and theres alays something in the background, I can’t make out what it is, though.

Is there anything that you are commonly afraid of? If so, what is it?

If you mean in RL, spiders and the dark (the latter being a direct result of my frequent nightmares) though spiders never appear in my dreams.

If you mean in my dreams, that one day I won’t realize I am dreaming when I have a nightmare and I’ll be stuck there untill someone wakes me up… SHESH! I’m freaking myself out just thinking about the possibility!

Is there anything that holds you back? (no voice? heavy feet?) If so, what is it?

Hmm… let me think about this one… Well there was… no wait… OH YEAH! I can’t move… at all…

How do you feel during the dream?

Well, my fear is so bad, that I’m more than just afraid of the nightmare, I’m afraid of the fear, like it feels like I’m going to be in fear with that exact same restricting feeling and not being able to move, with the nightmare right in my face (like it always is) for the rest of my life, like I have nothing else to look forward to except fear, in RL when you’re afraid, you can think “it will be over soon” I never get that kind of relief untill I realize I am dreaming, but then all I have to do is think “oh wait, these freaks are going to huant me in RL for a minute too, just great! :grrr:” and the releif is gone.

I hate my nightmares, and most of them start from a LD in my house, or if I go in any house for that matter, I hate houses, the all creep me out, I’ve never been in a house that I actualy liked, and felt safe in.
All of my LD’s start in my house, and if I don’t go outside immediateley, this crap happens.

8

:hmmm: well, i may have already told this story, but i guess i could again.

Couple years ago i had a nightmare about Freddy Krueger (or howevery how spell it). Now obviously this would be worse when you wake up, because the plot of the movie was killing people through dreams. In the dream he was tourturing me and other people. Kinda like the movie “saw” but worse. I was like 11 and this really messed me up. I couldn’t sleep soundly for like half a year. Then it suddenly stopped, i got over it or something.

Ever since i had been paranoid over scary movies and such.

But then, 1-2 years ago, i had the first nightmare since the incident. This time it was different, however; i wasn’t afraid. People were dying around me and i was totally indifferent. Then i was the only one left, and the killer came up to me. Think the girl from the ring. So anyway, i had a knife in my hand, and instead of dying i kicked her ass… really bad.

We’re talking like Matrix style.

Haven’t had a nightmare since. Still i was paranoid of scary movies. I just told people i thought they were really boring and stupid. :rofl: So then a little while ago my friend wanted me to watch “Hostel”. I was worried and i couldn’t get out of it. So i watched it, and i wasn’t scared at all. In fact, i found it to be a really good thriller! So i thought that was wierd. HAven’t been scared by any movie since then. (yay for me :wink:) In fact, we are having a “saw” movie marathon tomorrow, and i’m totally stoked.

Huzzah for overcoming problems!

Anyway so yeah, i don’t have nightmares anymore, and when i do, i just kick the $%@^ out of the killer.

Good times!

Being in sleep paralysis and not knowing can be unnerving at times, but i think it’s more annoying then frightening, since there is no “old hag”, i just want to get up and do something.

Now, if you wanna see something really creepy, go see “pans labyrinth”! There is this monster in it that is really awesome! It’s not scary in the movie at all, but the monster itself is one of the scariest i’ve seen.

*edit: yeah i think i did tell this story in the post that Duck linked to. Well whatever…