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The Fucked up Dreams and Nightmares thread...
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I had dreamt that the world had been destroyed, ala Chrono Trigger. Everyone was dead but myself and a handful of friends, who persisted by living in an environmental dome on Earth. We had nothing to do, but no needs that weren't handled by the dome, so we just talked for millennium after millennium until the universe was approaching heat death. We couldn't stop that, or do anything afterwards, so we built a time machine to send us back earlier. The machine was limited such that it could only send us back to time after the destruction of the world - so we couldn't really visit Earth, as it was, but we could persist indefinitely with each other's company, just going back to immediately after the cataclysm each cycle and continuing to enjoy talking.
The way the time machine worked was similar to the time travel in the most recent X men movie. You don't send a body back, you send a consciousness back. In the dreamverse, consciousness flows along with time - so, basically, for example, each instant in time from the end of the world to the end of the universe, all our consciousnesses were moving forward together, we were experiencing the world together.
Well, the machine fucked up, and scattered our consciousnesses. But bodies didn't need a consciousness to function. So after traveling back, I was surrounded by husks of friends, who were exactly like them in every way, but there was no ghost in the shell, so to speak. Or at least, I could never know if there was. Perhaps at some point, during some universe cycle, I'd happen to enter the universe at the same time as another friend, but there is no way either of us could ever know that the other was there. I could continue conversations and play games and such for the rest of eternity, with the completely perfect zombies of friends who probably weren't there. Carry on deep and meaningful conversations, for the rest of forever, while being completely alone in the universe, never actually sharing a moment with another human being.
So that is the form my nightmares take sometimes.
Everything I'm looking at is in sepia. I'm leaving a decrepit brick building, there are hooks hanging from the ceilings and blood both in pools as well as splattered across the walls. As soon as I step outside, the heat of the sun strikes me and you feel like you're being slowly cooked alive. It's the desert. It's Iraq. It's my old living area.
There's no audible sound anywhere, I try shouting, I try whispering, nothing. There's no one else anywhere. I'm leaving the compound and walking along a brick wall which seems to stretch on for miles. I place my hand against it and it's cool to the touch, providing some relief from the heat and the sun. Very quiet, lower than a whisper, radio static starts up. Like, if you aren't paying attention you won't hear it, but if you focus, you can definitely make it out. I see a corner of the wall, where it looks to end and am heading in that direction. As I'm getting closer and closer to the end of this wall the static is getting louder and louder, and it's still the only sound I can hear.
As soon as come to the end of the wall I'm maybe 100yds away from a blown up tower, that is on fire and is the only thing not in sepia. It's brilliant orange and red and yellow. Below the tower are just piles and piles of corpses and dismembered body parts. Suddenly, all of the sound kicks in and it's just a full out war of senses: everything stops being sepia, a wave of heat starts over taking the body, the taste and smell is rotten, and it feels like the ear drums would rupture from all the gun shots and explosions. As soon as all the senses kick in, I'm now face deep at the tower. I'm being pushed against it, I can see every pore in a brick, every crack, every feature. The bricks are ice cold, depth perception is failing, and I start shivering. As soon as I start shivering, I'm 100yds away from the tower again, at the end of the wall, in the shade and I see the fire. The sense of smell and taste disappear, all the explosions and gunshots stop, but the radio static stays and it's louder than ever. The fire is raging, vision is blurring and starting to pinpoint black out focusing around the fire. I can feel the heat from the fire, even at 100yds away, and it's burning. I'm roasting alive it's so hot.
Then I'm face deep at the tower again, smashed up against its bricks. Shivering. Then 100yds away, burning. Cold, hot, cold, hot. Near, far, near, far. Over and over and over again. The senses are being overloaded then shut off, for what feels like hours. I wake up in a cold sweat, my ears are ringing, and I'm out of breath.
The entirety of that dream takes place usually over a month or so. Like, it'll start off and I'm back at my old living area in Iraq. As soon as I recognize it, I wake up. The next time I have the nightmare, I'm back at the old living area and I'm walking out of the compound and once I realize where I am, I wake up. It's almost like, I'm developing structure and foundation for the terror that is about to come. However, over the course of the nightmare, prior events are starting to be forgotten. Like, 3 weeks in, I'm just walking along a wall and I had completely forgotten where I walked from, or where I am, so I don't wake up, there's nothing that snaps me out of it. That, "ah yes, I remember this wall and area" don't happen, so I don't wake up. At the end of the month, I forget there is a wall at all: it's just the tower and radio static.
I've had some of those.
Not pleasent.
This one has persisted me throughout my life, just a few times a year, but it is horrible.
Apparently it is a common nightmare.
like I had a dream I forgot to feed my dog and it died and I woke up and was like
the dog is at your mom's house, you don't have to feed the dog, wat r u doin brain
Have you played the game "no one has to die", out of curiosity?
I had no idea what it was until I was much older, I guess... it happened with such regularity I could actually feel it coming on, the rushing wind sounds, etc. It was never the same woman, but it was always the same message. It stopped happening immediately when I moved out of that house, and stayed gone for probably 13 years... it happens some now though. It made normal dreams sort of cheap by comparison.
Article Explaining
I don't remember any of these dreams, except for one which was recurring, and would often lead me to my worst episodes.
The dream itself was extremely simple. There was a huge sphere in front of me, as though it was as big as the whole universe. In fact, I do not know how I could have known it was a sphere, because due to its infinite size I would've just seed a flat surface facing me, yet somehow I just knew it was round. The sphere was divided in two hemispheres: one dark (more like a perfectly black void) and one light (more like a soft, white shining light).
The dream would start with the sphere of infinite size being there, laying on top of me, the bright side of it towards me. Everything would feel fine. Then it would slowly turn, exposing its dark side. As the dark side same would take over, a crushing sense of dread, terror, fear and anguish would slowly take over me. I could not breath. I felt like I was being crushed and drowning at the same time. I would feel fear, dread, terror, pain, sadness, like I have never felt even to this day. This would reach its peak when the sphere had done its half-rotation and the dark side of it was all I could see. Then, it would pass, as the sphere retreated, and would come back, over and over and over again. I would wake up due to my parents waking me up, hearing my screams. Often, they would find me screaming, banging my head on the walls, as if I was trying to bash my skull.
A second dream recurring dream I often had went as follows:
I would be standing outside, and it was pitch black. The air was humid, as if it had just stopped raining. I could see absolutely nothing in the darkness, except for the ground at my feet, because I was inexplicably being illuminated by a spotlight. The ground was made of wet, dark stones, shining from the spotlight.
I would then hear a sound: footsteps on the damp stones. I would turn, and there he was: a shadowy figure with no discernible details, also being illuminated by a spotlight. I would look closer, and see he was walking towards me, and carrying an axe.
Depending on the instance, the next events would change. More often than not, I would try to run away, but he would catch up and strike me with his axe in the back. I would fall to the ground, and all I would see is his shoes turning to face me, and him killing me with a final blow. Sometimes I would slip while running, falling to the ground before he would catch up to me and kill me. Other times, I would kneel and beg him to spare me, and he would laugh and kill me with the axe. I would sometimes yell at him angrily to stop and threaten him, or even fight him, but would always fail and die to his axe.
I had this nightmare often, multiple times a year, for many years. Then, one night, I had this nightmare again and decided to go for the "running" option. As I was running, I remember thinking to myself: "Oh no not this nightmare again!". I then realized I was in a lucid dream, because I was aware this was a dream.
I turned around and yelled at the man to stop. He laughed as he kept rushing towards me. He caught up to me and struck me with the axe, and I stopped it with ny hand. I then pulled the axe from him, and suddenly he was the one trying to run away. Being in a lucid dream and being a huge Star Wars fan, I "force-pulled" him back to me, and threw him to the ground. He then started begging for his life, asking me to let him go, swearing he would never bother me again. I refused. I then hit him with the axe, and he screamed. I started hacking, and hacking, starting by his ankles and moving up his body with each strike, as he would scream for mercy and slowly die. When I would be done, I would revive him, and start over and over again.
I woke up in the morning, and I never had that dream again. I like to think I killed the nightmare itself
I was trying to convince folk we should run and hide in caves. I managed to persuade one person, and we head off underground. We are eating a sort of picnic, and he's arguing that maybe it isn't the aliens' fault, and we don't need to be afraid.
I'm almost convinced, but hold out. So he tells me it is alright and pulls me in to give me a hug, and then he blows my brains out with a pistol.
There is no figure looming, the only thing looming is the feeling of dread involved while all I want to do is wake up or move.
It starts out waking up suddenly in bed but I can't move my limbs, I cant even turn my body, or my neck, all I can do is look around and then this feeling of anxiety and dread washes over me but nothing is there, nothing looks out of place either but it doesn't feel right. I try to move but nothing happens and then I start to fixate on the door into the hallway and it starts to feel like the room is slowly getting darker, the darkness is creeping in and when the darkness feels like it is right at the edges of the bed I spring/lean forward for a few seconds like I can move again, but no I wake up again in the same state of not being able to move, the covers of my bed haven't moved an inch so at no point did I lean forward in bed.
I'm now frustrated, it feels like its going to start all over again, I cant move still and I start screaming into my head to wake up!/move! I close my eyes, I keep them shut hoping it just passes and after what feels like a long time I can move finally. So I get up and I have no idea what the time is nor am I thinking too hard about it, I just feel glad its over and step out of bed and go into the bathroom. Then the dread suddenly starts to wash over me again and as I try to exit the bathroom I wake up in bed again.
It repeats like this over and over and over and over again, something changes each time, sometimes even escalating to the point where once I can move I bolt through the doorway and just barrel into another room and scream at the top of my lungs for help and then I wake up in bed again.
Each time I wake up in bed I feel more and more fatigued, and by the point where I actually wake up for real I'm exhausted and I'm covered in sweat and the first thing I do is bring my arms up and stare at my hands as I move my fingers for a bit, then I just let my arms collapse and I take a deep breath and try to relax.
I think I did once but it only lasted for a minute before I woke up.
I hear you should keep a dream journal if you want to try initiating a lucid dream, but I remember my dreams so infrequently (that last one is the first I remembered in months) that I can't see the point.
Not... yet...
But based on what caused this inquiry, I'll check it out.
I tend to lucid dream on nights where I'm especially tired due to having accumulated a sleep debt. However, most of the time I only have mere seconds between the moment I realize it's a lucid dream, and the moment I wake up.
Netroid, I had a very similar recurring dream to yours when very young. I was aware of a round object and it was simultaneously tiny and huge. That contrast between the two impossible states terrified me more than anything I've had since. I knew that if I ever understood and accepted the sphere was both I would learn a great secret. Kids are weird!
And I always think in my dream: "Why is it so goddamn hard to move?" Usually just precedes waking up.
It doesn't sound too different than the sort of DMT driven imagery produced during near death and psychedelic experiences.
Mine, common semi-lucid dream states and drug experiences, are basically pretty constant and very tied to cosmological themes. Brane, string and sort of spheric field interactions between light(comforting, good, but sort of unsustainably absolute) and dark(terrifying, bad, creating room for chaos). A strong desire to turn, rotate towards light, but an understanding that it will subsume existence if I get too close, and chaotic energy/rotational/orbital motion blending(light and dark are still absolute, but over a region both exist... think sort of dense fractal representations) the light and dark are the only way to allow interesting(allowing life and thought) existence.
They have always been very emotionally extreme and memorable, so they have built on each other. Like, the memory that I have created universes out of this no longer fades, nor the facts that it is destined to end(collapse or fade due to heat death) or contains me, never seem to diminish, so it is painfully fatalistic when it is not awe inspiring.
Type one is like a normal nightmare, but extremely realistic. Usually very painful things happen, which I feel happening. This doesn't wake me up. I usually wake up after a slow death from one thing or another. The most vivid one I can recall, I was part of some special forces team or something about to push into these old tunnels, chasing after...someone? When suddenly these tendrils come bursting out from around the piece of wood covering the tunnel entrance and going through dudes like they're butter. We all take off, and we're getting picked off one by one by whatever the fuck the thing is, because shooting it isn't doing shit. Funny thing is, it didn't get me. One of the other guys was so panicked he accidentally shot me in the gut with a shotgun when I came around a corner. The rest of the dream, I'm just sorta laying there in pain and disbelief listening to dudes get murdered. Then I black out and wake up. I'm always honestly, truly surprised to be alive after one of these.
The other is harder to explain. I usually figure out that they're dreams very quickly, and they stop being 'dreams' so much as 'unbearable nonsensical senses of urgency'. Like I'm lying in bed, and I'm not moving because I'm more or less asleep, but I know this, but I also KNOW, FOR A FACT, that I need to finish building a radio tower or healing my raid or finishing an assignment for work. I'll lay there for hours in extreme anxiety, feeling the need to do these things, aware enough to realize this is nonsense, and not quite awake enough to shake it completely. Like I'm laying there thinking something like 'Shit, why are my heals coming out so slow, my party is dying. Am I lagging? Oh, it's because I'm in bed, not at my computer. Fuck. Are they already dead then? Am I really raiding? I need to go push the buttons. Why can't I get up? Oh, I'm asleep. But why can't I heal them?"
edit: I consider myself very fortunate that I only sleep deep enough to dream (or at least, to dream dreams that I remember) if I go to bed exhausted. I'm usually like...one muscle twitch ffrom waking up.
Yep, I have this one all the damn time. Anxiety-related, apparently.
Decide on the next line by the rhyme when I choose it.
Also I put songs on YouTube
The musings of this lonely rube.
I made a thread once. It didn't end well for me.
I would then wake up, thinking the dream was real, and have a very short moment of panic (4-5 seconds) where I'd mentally get ready to rush to get prepared and run to school (I lived at a walking distance from campus).
I would then realize: "Hey wait a minute! I'm done with school!" and sigh in relief.
I assume this was due to me adapting to a "normal" life, devoid of midterm/final exam/general university stress.
I tend not to recall dreams, but that one stuck with me.
Some nightmares are just dark, sinking, muddy, crying mess without reason. It's better to be alone in those.
I had a particular one in the lead up to the launch of the original Scribblenauts, which I was looking forward to getting. In the dream, I was playing it, but it was way too complex and I was paralyzed by all of the choices. No actual detail, just experiencing the vague idea of not knowing what to do. Even in the dream I tended to realize just how stupid the dream was, but I was still stuck with it until it ended.
My boyhood friend and I have contracted AIDS. It's a death sentence, but a miracle cure has been found. It's all very hush hush, however, so my friend and I are standing in a long line of patients in the middle of the forest waiting to be administered the cure. The line stretches far enough and the forest is dense enough that we cannot see the area where the cure is actually handed out. So imagine our surprise when we are at the front of the line and in a small clearing, there is a lizardman. He looks a lot like Grieg from The Last Starfighter, only with dull animal eyes and an obvious lack of mental capacity. This is clearly and animal, but it looks like a man. Hesitant to receive medical treatment from a non sentient monster man, I gesture my friend forward for the first dose. The lizardman instantly jumps on his back and violently begins humping him, glassy eyed and completely on instinct, like you would see a dog humping a pillow.
It is at this point that I decide I am content to die from my AIDS. I bolt over a small creek and dash through the woods, but this is clearly a mistake. You see, fear only goads on the lizardman, who drops my friend like a bad habit and gives chase. He is fast and relentless and it is only a matter of time before he is close enough to leap upon me. I'm wailing like only a 13 year old in the middle of a potential rape can wail, which wakes me up. This is the oldest I've ever been and still had to grab my blanket and camp out on my parents bedroom floor.
Under the fear of being raped was a twinge of guilt for leaving my friend in the clutches of perverted wildlife, which was actually scary because it made me wonder if I had subconsciously realized I had left somebody with stranger danger. It was only a slight twinge of guilt, though, because I was more afraid for my own body and he was being cured of his AIDS, after all.
Last night though, I had a unpleasant dream. A couple days ago, a co-worker brought me a tub full of gummi worms. Last night, I dreamt I was happily munching on the worms (in this case, they were bought from a dollar store, not the gift from a co-worker), when a person pointed out that due to the cheapness of the worms, they were going rotten. I picked up a worm to inspect it, and lo and behold, there were little skinny maggots slithering inside. My first reaction was, "heh, worms inside worms, that's pretty funny" and then it hit me that I'd just ate at least a dozen of them.
Thankfully, my dream veered off track to some other place, but no matter what I was dreaming (Egyptian tombs, going to the mall, Playing some Diablo III) I'd always get the feeling of something slithering inside of me.
So, this morning I woke up, hungry, and went to the kitchen. There, on the table was the tub of gummi worms. Now I'm not so hungry.
WoW
Dear Satan.....