Nightmares

[Joe Nerve]

I figured I'd start this thread so someone can tell me something that'll worry me even more than I've already started to worry...

Ya see, things are goin pretty darn well in my life recently, but all of a sudden I started having nightmares. Pretty much every time I go to sleep. I'm used to various kinds of other fun mental ailments, and I'm pretty much in touch with myself and my feelings - but this is new. Almost like I have a flu that comes only when I sleep. Worst part of it is I can't remember them, and I usually remember my dreams AND nightmares quite vividly... I've even done my share of lucid dreaming and have been able to change the course of a dream more than once.

Anyone ever experience nightmares like this? I don't know what's going on, can't remember them for the most part, and wake up terrified like I really want my mommy.

edit: I'm not eating taco bell bell before my naps and bedtime either. But I'm going to go eat it right now.

 

[Wrong Robot]

A common side-effect with nightmares is sleep paralysis. Where, you will 'wake up' but be unable to move, because you're essentially still asleep. This phenomenon has been ascribed to 'dream demons' that visit your sleep and muck things up. Of course I don't believe in that stuff, but after having experienced sleep paralysis a handful of times I could see how someone would.

It's a very interesting experience, because whenever I wake from a bad dream in this state, I am usually in a cold sweat, my head is spinning, and I can't move. 3 independently terrifying things. But what's more, I almost always imagine that there is something, or someone pressuring me in some way. More specifically, the first time I ever experienced it, I literally felt like there was a picture-esque 'demon' holding me down. Freaky stuff.

So anyway, I bring this up in order to share with you an experience I had about a month ago. I still think about it because it was unlike anything I've ever done in sleep before.

In the middle of the night I awoke to find that I couldn't move; sleep paralysis, a common affliction afflicting those who wake in the middle of the night in a half sleep half zombie state. While lying still I heard a dark and scratchy meowing, and then I felt a small something jump onto my bed. Both these occurrences would be perfectly normal and expected if it wasn't for this small fact.

I don't have a cat.

So, I'm uncertain as to what is going on, and due to the sleep paralysis, I can't really do anything to check it out, but I eventually conjure up the willpower needed to *snap* out of it and examine my surroundings.

The bed is empty.

Perplexed, I start to scan the room slowly, and there it is. Sitting in the corner, a small black and white cat, staring right at me.

I look at the cat for a little while, trying to determine: a) is it real? b) how did it get into my room? c) why is it staring at me? I watch it for a good 2 minutes, and eventually realize that it is definitely a real cat. The final clue being the slightly moving head.

So I get myself out of bed, and go to touch it. As my hand approaches the cat I am still utterly perplexed as to this whole situation, whereupon my hand reaches it's body and the cat turns into a pile of clothing.

 

[Joe Nerve]

Thanks.

Knowing that you're in way worse shape then me kinda makes me feel a little bit better.

 

[Wrong Robot]

Well that's the thing about dreams and such, it's all just hooey anyway. I don't give dreams any more value than for what they are. It can be interesting to note trends in why you might dream certain things, but ultimately, anyone in any situation can have any dream, and it doesn't necessarily reflect anything about their psyche or overall being.

For instance, I have never been a depressive person. My whole life I typically remain optimistic and positive. I have had down and out times, but never anything seriously messed up or persistent. Yet I have had an abundance of really twisted dreams(both nightmares and otherwise) Does that mean anything? not at all.

But, I'm glad I could make you feel better

 

[Against Will]

[post]

I've had experiences like that; clothes turn into animals, trees turn into monsters. Some grass and shadows becomes a skeletone with a hat and a guitar (seriously). I don't usually remember my dreams, only the truly bizarre ones; Stuff like the time I tried to lose a race with a leprechaun so he wouldn't grant me 3 wishes, or the hot dog BBQ with relatives who had been beheaded.

Just last night, I awoke and went back to sleep 4 times and had 4 different nightmares/bizarre dreams. I've been sick, maybe that's been part of it. But I think I'm with Freud with this in that it's a subconcious concern I have that is causing me(or any person) to have these sorts of dreams, I don't know how much stock to put in them, but the dreams I remember have a patchwork quality to them which suggests that it's a bunch of random ideas/events/images being circling through my head while I sleep, when they get too absurd it can get kind of frightening.

 

[FenderHotRod]

Wrong Robot,

It's nice to know I'm not the only one that has ever had that and I never knew what it was called. When I was younger I remember thinking that I was being possessed by the devil(mabe that is why they are called 'dream demons'? )because I couldn't move and my teeth would chatter. I have told my wife and my parents about it before and they always look at me like i was crazy.

 

[Wrong Robot]

Right, well the thing about it is, when you sleep your body goes into well... sleep mode. So when you 'wake' from sleep, you're not actually awake awake, and freaky stuff happens.

So check this out. My little brother just came into my room(he had been sleeping) and was like "I just had the weirdest dream thing!" and then went onto explain exactly what I've been talking about. Heh.

 

[Peter Squire]

I get that too. I will "wake up" and hear someone moving around downstairs - but I can't get out of bed. I struggle to move and get out of bed to see who is downstairs, but I can't.

Some nights this goes on for about an hour (or so it feels)

Dreams and sleep are a very elusive part of our physiology - many scientific studies still can't put the finger on certain aspects of our restive state.

Anyway, its good for all of us to know that we share similar experiences in sleep and aren't strange little weird guys

 

[Microbass]

I wanted to share my 2 weird dreams so I shall in this post. I foudn these to be rather humourous, and the best I've had for a long time.

Sunday night's dream: We did a gig with this band, where the bassist had a 57 Fender stock P bass. It was a rare, wonderful instrument. He let me try it out for a coupla songs and it sung to me. It was a 3 ton burst, beaten, aluminium plate, black headstocks & back of neck, maple fretboard. Simply stunning!
Anyway, I managed to buy the P, since the guy seemed clueless - I got it for a mere £300
The next day, I awake to see my new P. go for a shower, come out looking for clothes. Some bastard has STOLEN ALL my clothes!! I ended up running around the town trying to find the culprit, the dastardly clothe stealer! I ended entering a charity shop to buy cheap clothes, and spent the rest of the day ina bar, depressed. then the alarm went off, and I woke up.

Monday night's dream: Still yet to play my new P, I find myself getting close with an ex-gf. Odd. Now, I find this truely bizarre. I was sort of awake at this point, and I could feel it coming to be "one of those" dreams, until i mentioned to her... Have you seen my new bass? Her, thinking this was me being kinky was eager to see, until I pulled out my P from my now empty cupboard(!). Disgusted, she left me to play my bass!

Really weird how all the details followed on!

I've had a few cases of paralysis, which was indeed a rather weird experience. Last year I had a string of nightmares while my GF went to Oz, and almost everynight for 3 weeks I dreamt of her plane crashing, or to have her come back and split up with me.

The girl in the above dream is now another ex, and funilly enough, I once had a nightmare where I got back together with her

 

[Bard2dbone]

My recurring dream is that I am made to go back into the Navy, now, at my current age. There are variations where I am put back in my old job, that I frankly wouldn'tknow how to do now, and ones where I am a corpsman because I am a paramedic now, ones where I am given random jobs I have never been trained on. Basically all of them are 'No-pressure-but-if-you-f***-up-someone-will-die' jobs.

Part of the reason for this recurring dream is probably that this actually happened to my father-in-law. He had finished his military commitments and been honorably discharged years previously, but the Army lost his records, so they sent some people to collect him at work and drag him to another state. "Captain Smith? You WILL come with us right now." And had him serve another two years.

And I totally could not pass the physical requirements now. So the whole "Petty Officer Roy? You're coming with us." dream is pretty disturbing.

It's 10:00 O'clock. Do you know where your DD-214 is?

It's not as bizarre as the dream with the raven that sounds like church bells in stead of caws, but I only had that one once. And it wasn't really scary, either. I just woke up thinking "That would make a great Bjork video."

 

[BassManJim]

here's mine (shudder):

I wake up in the middle of the night thirsty....... get out of bed and go to the bathroom......... then decide to get a drink of water from the kitchen.

Get my drink....... head back to the bedroom, and suddenly decide to take a look out of the living room window. I pull the drapes aside and am staring right at a decapitated head, which is BTW staring back at me!

Sometimes the head changes locations i.e. corner of the bathroom or kitchen or maybe on the couch. The effect is still the same. I wake up with a scream.

I've notice that the dream only occurs when I am feeling a pretty good amount of financial stress. Since I figured this out, it has all but stopped. IIRC its been two or three years since the last one.

..........Jim

 

[fatbassjazzer]

All of my nightmares are of zombies. I never have nightmares that aren't about zombies. I should probably decrease the number of zombie movies I watch before bedtime.

 

[Josh Ryan]

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

^ I never have this type of nightmare anymore. If I do have one, it's some type of emotional tragedy, like death in the family.

 

[page]

I almost always have dreams where people will be multiple people. To explain this..... A person I know will also be another person I know in my dream... its odd I know.

One nightmare I had most recently was very odd indeed. It started as me at my girlfriends house eating dinner with her family , meanwhile , at this huge Church down the road there is a huge gathering , all of the people, many I know , are like hypnotised and are following this scary man in a huge prayer- proccession thing. The Church is Lighting up with big green lights and I see it through the windows. Then they start chanting , really loudly ........Its is so loud it shakes the windows. Then almost suddenly im not at my girlfriends house anymore , Im at my house eating in my bedroom on the phone with my girlfriend..... I still hear the chanting, it gets so loud it makes the walls of my house crumble.........then Im back at my gfs house , but still on the phone with her, shes not there but her family is.......Then her voice is cut off on the phone and another comes on telling me the weather for tomarrow in a VERY DEMONIC voice. Then it goes on to tell me about the manufacturing of dog collars. Then as if on cue , the people come out of the church all in dog collars and the chanting gets even louder ........................ANd then I wake up !

I was scared ****less............lucky for me , when I woke up it wasnt the middle of the night, it was morning.

Funny thing, The voice was right about the weather.

 

[funkasaurus]

I never have nightmares, but I probably will after reading this thread....Yikes!

 

[Adam Barkley]

Not out-and-out recurring nightmares per se, but I have had some weird dream and the occasional lucid dream.

One dream played out in my current neighborhood, but with the addition of a swamp. Walking back from a concert me and a buddy walk into this swamp and piss off a giant snake (Anaconda the movie sized) and it chased me for a few minutes and then my friend showed up in a jacked up truck and ran it over. Weirdest part of the dream was everything was happening two or three times as fast as normal (like watching a movie in fast foward)

Another strange one, this time a lucid dream, was when I "awoke" in my dream to a floating city of lego-type blocks. Anything I thought about; I could do in that dream, it was really really weird.

I have experienced a sleep paralysis once, it was the worst feeling I have ever had. I woke up from a nightmare and went to my parents room (I was like 7 or 8) in real life. Well they calmed me down and I went back to sleep. I had the dream then. I dreamt a skeleton was standing in the doorway to my parents room, but it never moved and I couldn't. The clock on the wall I was facing was alternating between not functioning and moving at ridiculously fast speeds (hours past in the span of seconds). I have never been more terrified. It gives me the willies to this day.

On a sleep paralysis note, check out Dredg's El Cielo. It is a great concept album in which every song is dealing with sleep paralysis.

 

[Nick man]

Why am I reading this right before going to sleep?

 

[jay_t]

I have nighmares every once in a while. I do have recurring dreams about the end of the world tough. I'm almost 30 and I've been having them since about 14 years old. There are always the same people. People I don't know in real life but know well in my dream. It's post world war 3 or something like that and I am in charge of the security of a camp of survivors. We have weapons and gear and have to constantly move in the mountains to keep the "raiders" from taking our supplies and things of that nature.

I'm not sure I've ever experienced sleep paralysis... but it sounds familiar. Maybe when I was much younger...

 

[FenderBender]

Hey Joe N,

First off don't be terrified of whats going on in your sleep. Dreams are just our resting minds way of revealing something thats going on in our daily life, that which we don't want to examine too closly when we are awake.

The scarier and more vivid a dream is, the better, It just means that "whatever's " bugging us is burried a little deeper. Somtimes you need a tap on the shoulder, othertimes you need to smacked with a hammer

Repeat after me "dreams are our freind, dreams are our freind" JUst kidding

Whats most important about a dream is the feeling that it conveys. Try to relate that feeling to whats going on in your life. You say things are really good right now, well if they've been bad before, having it all good can be scary as hell!!!

If you go over different senarios in your life that could be causing fear, you may touch on something, that will trigger you to remember your dream. they will eventually reveal themselves to you if you embrace them.

Good luck.......and oh yeah I used to wake up every night screaming and moaning out loud from terror. I tryed to talk or yell out in my dream but I couldn't , in till I screamed for real. Reason : I used to never express my true feelings and was getting suffocated, so I had to scream out in my dreams. So I speak my mind now and the dreams stopped

 

[bassturtle]

It's easy and fun. Of course, if you like the dream - "wow, I can't believe I scored these front row tickets to Queen, and they're playing all these great Clutch and Morbid Angel covers to boot"

Yikes! That would be a horrible nightmare!