Nightmares (keepin' it PG-13).

[Tricky]

Spill 'em.

Well this one isn't my worst, but it's definitely my worst recently. I had a long chat with a friend last night, so I got to bed at an exceptionally late hour. And not before I raided my kitchen cabinet either. I slept for a total of three hours until I was woken up by my nightmare so violent that I couldn't sleep any more.

I dreamt I was with my family back in the village where I was born. Lightning struck in the street behind us, and we all went to see what the damage was. Turned out a power relay station was hit, there was electricity arcing all over the place. My parent's godchild (she's been like a real sister to me since childhood) got too close and got herself electrocuted. She let out a really weird scream that ended with an exclamation and a crack as though she broke a rib trying to scream her lungs out.

I was so shocked I couldn't sleep anymore. I went outside and ran a few blocks instead, like I do every morning. Only earlier to get the stress and sleeplessness out of my body. I can laugh about it now, but christ I was crapping my pants. I was so glad it was only a dream.

Isn't it amazing though how the mind can conjure up such wildly intense imagery seemingly out of nowhere? I mean, I dream a scream. It's like in my memory still. Kinda.

Now, let's hear it.

[AvatarOfLight]

How about no, you crazy Dutch bastard!

[Tricky]

Aww.

Pretty please? For the children.

[AvatarOfLight]

Aww.

Pretty please? For the children.

Thanks for being a sport about it

I haven't had any nightmares since I was a lot younger and so don't remember too much of them. There was one that kept coming back though. I didn't seem to feature in it myself, it was like I was looking out over a chessboard and silvery walls kept closing in. A voice, my my mother perhaps? keeps saying something and I had to deny it every time. Waking up sweaty and tired.

My sister and I tend to only have waking nightmares these days. Sometimes just getting a bit feverish in the evening. Feeling like distances are distorted, fingers are too big, etc.

This makes it sound like I'm the crazy Dutch bastard here!

[Xandax]

Don't remember many of my nightmares, but I usually have enough control over my dreams that if I dream something I do not want to dream - I simply decide to wake up. Don't know why I can do that, but I just can.


However the other night I dreamed that I was sleeping and was having a nightmare in that dream within the dream. Now that felt weird
Is that a meta-dream?

[Tricky]

My sister and I tend to only have waking nightmares these days.

That doesn't make you crazy. No more than me anyway. Several times when I took care of my nephews plants and cat, I thought the cat suddenly jumped on the couch I was resting on (not quite sleeping). I'd move my hands to push it away, but then there wasn't anything there. Cats are creepy.

Anyway, that's not why I'm posting now. That weird scream I wrote about, I couldn't get it out of my head this morning. Why did I remember it so clearly anyway? I took a shower just now when it suddenly hit me (the clue, not the shower). I was staring at the water running down the drain when I realized I had heard the exact same scream before in Bioshock, while I was busy I electrocuting female splicers. The thud/crack at the end would probably have been the other end of my wrench meeting their ugly heads, not ribs cracking.


Hmpf. My subconcious is... unoriginal.

Is that Australian researcher still lurking around these forums? I may have to adjust one or two answers.

[AvatarOfLight]

Too late! I think we've just proven games make you psychotic o_o

And haha, better watch out. 2K games will sue your subconscious for all it's worth!

[Tricky]

That's indeed putting a spin on 'intellectual property'. Probably worth its own thread in twenty years or so.

[Nightmare]

One of the only nightmares I remember was when I was 3 (probably my earliest memory, actually) the night after having seen Return of the Jedi for the first time. It was about the Emperor, and I think he had stolen my mother or something (no joke).

Needless to say, it still kicked off a lifelong appreciation/obsession with all things Star Wars, so...

[Kipi]

In my case it depends on wether we take in account recent nightmares or all the nightmares in my life.
Recently my nightmares has been about basketball. As some of you may know already, I'm basketball referee and during last season it was my responsible to ensure that at certain leagues of games had proper referees (men's 2. division, junior championship and women's 1. division). Well, at regular basis I still wake up after nightmare where I'm in other city, and someone calls me that their game is lacking either one or two referees. This is due the fact that I was attached to that job almost 24/7, though I resigned myself after the season. Nevertheless it still haunts me.

For all time record, perhaps my worst nightmare was about mass execution. There was a execution going on, hundreds of people were gathered around to see it. There was line in the ground, and if you crossed it you were selected to be executed next. Well, in my nightmare I accidentally crossed the line, and so was chosen to be next. I was trying to beg that they would leave me alive, but my family was there also saying that if you cross the line, you are executed and that it would be over in a seconds. Luckily it has been many, many years ago when I saw that nightmare.

[Curry]

I also see similar nightmares where I'm supposed to be somewhere else and I know I'm gonna get in a big trouble. These are actually more agonizing than the ones where I'm about to die

[Argonian Thief]

I had 3 nightmares 'bout going back to school one time. infact they all happened this summer.... I can't think of any other ones, Except for one of when i got shot in the back

[Chanak]

It's been many years since I had an honest-to-goodness nightmare of gripping power. Despite the rather considerable passage of time since those days, I recall most of the recurring ones. What follows is the most lucid one of them all:

I am in the sitting room of a large Victorian-style mansion. The place is gloomy to the extreme. I am seated with approximately half a dozen people of my age...though none I recognize from life (my dreams typically never feature people I know in life). Our host is a rather austere woman, tall and willowy, wearing a particularly unimpressive dress of drab hue and pattern. She is serving us all tea as we sit in the shadows of her ancient house. The people around me are chatting amongst themselves...and none seem to notice the hostess excuse herself from our little gathering, gliding across the hardwood floor towards a hallway shrouded in shadow beyond. No one notices, that is, except for me. I experience a rising sense of alarm in my chest as I watch the gloom swallow her...something feels terribly wrong and out of place.

I am not sure how much time passes...in the dream it seems like a few minutes, I guess...when my eyes meet something approaching from the darkness of the hallway beyond. Eyes burning crimson hate are coming towards us, and my heart jumps out of my chest as I jump up and scream for everyone to get the hell out of this house. I yell and scream but it is as if no one hears me...they notice nothing until this - thing - is upon us all. It is like a void of blackness where a body should be...blackness, and blazing crimson eyes suspended above long fangs of stark white. It tears into our midst...

...and that is when the other people with me finally take notice, albeit too late. It is as if I am frozen there, watching people being torn to shreds by this ...thing. There is an immense amount of blood as everyone starts screaming. A body flies against a window on the wall behind where I am standing, smashing through and presenting an avenue of escape. That is when I begin to run, I run until I can run no more...

The dream ends when I am the last one left. It saved me for last. I wake up just as it jumps on me.

Anyway, that was the most vivid one I had back during those days. I pretty much measured a dream's fright potential vs. that one.

[Ronan]

I've had a couple of nightmares I can remember:
1. I only had this once when I was really little. My dad was kidnapped by some gang and the leader had a crocodiles head. I had to sacrifice myself in order to save my father. I woke up when I agreed to give myself up.

2. I've had this nightmare many times, but it has changed a bit as I've grown up. There's a suprise attack and for no obvious reason I know it. I all over the place to warn people. I run to a battalion of soldiers, but they are already dead, then I run to a flowerfield where a blond girl in a flower dress is throwing flowers all over the place from a woodbasket and smiling. I warn her, but she's killed when we are running away. I run to other places and watch the fighting, but everywhere we are losing. That's the farthest I've seen that dream.

3. I've had nightmares where my life is going to hell. When I wake up, I don't feel like I've had a nightmare. They usually just are about things like my friends have abandoned me or I have to do something I'm scared of a lot, not just some public speech, but something: you must clime 10 000 metres to the top of a building, the wall is slippery and I feel like falling and when I get to the top, I can't get down.

4. This is weird. I saw a movie called "The Last Horizon" or something like that, when I was 6-8 years old. I saw a dream where a guy from the film stepped into a room in the spaceship, there was a short glimpse if something coming behind a corner, it seemed like a zombie. When they show the room a little bit later, the zombie had ripped the man apart and put the pars of the man's body to dry in some clotheslines.(?) I thought the scene was in the movie until a friend of mine asked me if I had lied to him.

My friend even feels pain in her dreams/nightmares.

@ Kipi

A referee?! HAH! I guess you have reasons to have nightmares. I mean look at the job. If you ever make a mistake people will shout at you a lot. I mean I would shout and everybody I know. Of course even if you make the correct decisions you will get yelled at.

[Kipi]

@ Kipi

A referee?! HAH! I guess you have reasons to have nightmares. I mean look at the job. If you ever make a mistake people will shout at you a lot. I mean I would shout and everybody I know. Of course even if you make the correct decisions you will get yelled at.

Actually, that ain't the thing that causes nightmares to me, for following reasons:
a) Referee is always right. Even if you know you made a mistake, to others you are right.
b) Most of the time (and I know this from experience) the yelling is result of yeller (player, coach, audience) is caused by either bad knowledge of rules and/or the philosophy of game or bad viewing angle to event. Usually referee is (or at least should be) in good enough position related to event so that they can make the correct call.
c) If player or coach doesn't understand to keep their mouth shut, you can always throw them out from the game
(shame that you can't do that to audience anymore, couple of years ago it was possible )

The thing that caused the nightmares was the fact that I was responsible that each game had both referees. It was not only once or twice during last season when I got a call in middle of my own game about missing either one or even both referees. Couple of times it was my own fault, few times it was someone's else. Nevertheless, that cause a quite bit of stress to me, which resulted nightmares.

[Tricky]

Ok, here's a nice one. I dreamt I overslept and was two hours late on my second day at an office job. I actually did dream about working the first day there as well, so it really did come as a surprise that I slept in. My boss had to call me out of my bed, talk about embarrassing. I also had just moved to a new apartment and was more than ever short on money, everything depended on that job. I hated that I had to move to a new flat, I really liked the old one. And love my old flatmates to death. I packed an empty lunchbox, thinking it would look better if I at least looked prepared for work, then I ran for it. I think the physical exercise of running through downtown Utrecht woke me up (in my bed, of course). And woke up thinking about how awesome it is that I have no job to worry about.