Dreams/Terrors

[Tabasco]

Originally Posted by UltraCulture

Does anyone find themselves able to wake themselves at any point during a dream?

Yes, and it's kind of a drag. I used to always have nightmares of being chased when I was a kid. Half the time I'd wake up screaming and I'd have no clue what was chasing me. I remember clear as day that one night I was having this dream, and got so mad at being chased, that in the dream I just turned around on the subway platform and went looking for whatever it was that was chasing me... and I was PISSED lol. I've never had the dream since, and it seems that everytime I do dream now, I usually realize it's a dream and wake up. Typically, if the situation seems strange, I'll just remember that yesterday I was doing whatever, and this couldn't possibly be happening.

The absolute scariest thing with dreams I've been near was when I was little, and we were living in Brooklyn, I woke up early to use the bathroom. It was just starting to turn light outside. All of a sudden my mom comes running out of the bedroom, and looks out the window. I asked her what was wrong, being kind of freaked, and she asked if I saw anyone outside. I said no, and she told me she had a dream that Indira Ghandi walked down the street and around the corner. I had no clue who Indira Ghandi was, but it was freaky because I think it was even around Halloween and all the days before had horror movies on TV. So I got ready for school. My mom got ready for work. When we were in the car for her to drop me off, we heard on the radio that Indira Ghandi had been assassinated. I was maybe 10 or 11. I spent like 3 nights awake staring out from under blankets.

[Nikitta]

I suddenly remember having a nightmare, as a kid, about two people from a very known children's program, which I used to watch. I dreamt that they were in a freezer singing that if you fall asleep in a freezer, you will wake up and be dead.

No, I don't know why.

[Nikitta]

Originally Posted by UltraCulture

Does anyone find themselves able to wake themselves at any point during a dream?

Some people can do that?

I never even know it's a dream when I dream. A lot of things just happen and I find them perfectly normal - even though I'd find it very surreal if it were to happen in reality. I don't have any sense of the dream and reality being two seperate things when I dream.

I thought that was how all people experienced dreams most of the time?

[HoopyFrood]

Well, whaddya know, I dreamt about zombies again last night (well, technically this morning, seeing as I didn't sleep until the sun came up). I was running around my house, which was full of people, turning off all the lights so the zombies wouldn't know that we were there. I also dreamt there was an alien in my kitchen, crouched in the corner (probably also trying to hide from the zombies surrounding my house!) and he had telekinetic powers, which he showed to me by making a sandwich float in the air!

Thankfully I woke up before the zombies managed to break into my house and eat us. Which makes a change, usually my dreams end in a very bloody manner, with me using sharp tools to kill them, or getting eaten by them.

And nyet, I can't wake myself up when I'm dreaming. Hence these zombie dreams are even worse because I have to see them through to the end, despite knowing that I'm probably going to be caught by them! And it's rare for me to be able to realise I'm dreaming. I had a recent dream in which I drove off the edge of a cliff in a car and I thought to myself "Well, this is it, I'm dead, there's no way I'll survive this..."

[dustinzgirl]

How did I ever miss this thread?

I let my kids watch most movies short of Hills Have Eyes and Devils Rejects (anything with an overly sex theme, excessive gore, is rejected, lol) We love zombie movies. I mean really love them. So much that on long drives we pretend we are 'escaping' zombie hoardes....anyhoo....a few months ago my oldest was staying over for the weekend. I went in to check on them (I'm a crazy mom, I check on my kids often at night...read too much Dean Koontz and John Saul)....so my 12 year old was sleeping peacefully and I hear him mumble something....of course he is dreaming, not really thrashing around but sleep talking. So I get a little closer to hear what he is saying. He opens his eyes and yells

I'LL KILL YOU $&**(%)#&^^& ZOMBIES!

Then he lays back down.

Wierd. He didn't even remember it. Thiis was double wierd because it was the first time I ever heard curses coming from my son's mouth. That's kind of the point as a parent where you are like....woah! Back up! but I suppose it is ok.

My daughter likes to sleep walk. I have no idea what she dreams about but we sometimes find her asleep on the bathroom or hallway or her bedroom floor. I guess she's not much an in-bed sleeper.

As for myself, I've had nightmares forever, but mine are more like Red Dawn kind...I'm always running trying to grab my kids and get away from military invaders. And some others that aren't really sci fi or fantasy. However, my most memorable sleeping moments.....I once dreamt the house was on fire. You know when you wake up in the middle of the night and your eyes are blurry? Well I confused that with smoke. I sat up and hit my ex husband. In his male parts, screaming "The house is on fire" He was curled up in pain and was soooooooooooo not happy with me. HA HA HA.

[mirinda]

Dreams happen to be a particular interest of mine. I've gotten to where i can be in a dream and KNOW it's a dream and actually control it(can anyone else do this?) , which comes in handy as most of my dreams center around me attacked, chased, kidnapped, or killed. Oh once i had a dream when i was a young kid that someone was trying to kill me with rubber bands. No i don't know why, talk about funny! As for dreams stemmed from Sci-Fi well yes i had a dream once after i read a book called Pilgrim by Sara Douglass where the time keeper demons were trying to kill me.

[Nikitta]

I don't believe that I'm the only one who occasionally dreams of World of Warcraft. Does that count?

[Tabasco]

Originally Posted by Nikitta

I don't believe that I'm the only one who occasionally dreams of World of Warcraft. Does that count?

I'm fairly certain most gamers experience that stuff. As long as you don't wake up with a racing heart and blurred vision, it's cool.

[deathwizard]

It's not my dreams, so much, that are affected, but rather my waking moments ... in the dark of the night. In my writings, I have imagined some truly horrific situations. What if those situations might somehow exist, as forms of punishment? Gives me the sweats, at 3 a.m. Doesn't bother me at all when I wake up in the pure sunlight of morning.

[manephelien]

I was a very sensitive kid and had nightmares all the time for some reason. I was 10 when ET came out in 1982. I slept at the top of a bunk bed at the time, and used to dream about an evil ET stretching his telescopic neck and scaring the living daylights out of me. I guess I grew out of that nightmare in my teens. I didn't dream it every night, but on and off for years.

I also had a horrid nightmare of being chased and eaten by sharks in a swimming pool. At some point I got sick of dreaming that, and just turned around and bopped the shark on the nose with my fist. It turned and swam away, and I never had that particular nightmare again.

[Hilarious Joke]

Ha ha ha. Well I want to be able to control dreams, because the only times I can remember actually recognising that I was a dream and trying to control it I've woken up shortly after. One time, I was running across a field away from a purple buffalo and in a fantastic moment of awareness I realised I was in a dream, and with that, flew up into the air away from the angry beast. I woke up just then, but it was bloody brilliant.

[Timewalker]

I've had some truly terrifying nightmares that I still remember nearly 30 years later.

I've also had some really frustrating ones where I finally find something I've wanted for a long time, and when I wake up I realize I don't have it, or it never existed in the first place -- like a new volume in a favorite book series.


And there was one particular dream where I was wandering in a beautiful rock garden, with lovely green grass... and a sprawling buffet of Chinese food. I went over immediately, because it smelled so good. Then I saw who was hosting the buffet: the characters of Gilligan's Island. The Professor handed me a plate and gestured to the chicken balls and other wonderful-smelling food, and said, "Dig in!"

I was about to dig in, when I woke up.

[Serin]

In some of my dreams I am aware that I am dreaming, and there are times in those dreams when I find myself panicking because I know I need to wake up.

[Tau Zero]

I have had many sci-fi related dreams all my life. Many of them are very emotional, where i'd wake up feeling extremely sad or with deep yearning for things lost.

I was able to lucid dream only once. I was dreaming something quite ordinary and realized i was dreaming, so i decided that since i can do anything in a dream, flying would be fun. I started flying around this very large room and was so surprised it worked that i woke up. A friend of mine is a lucid dreamer, who can do it every time! How i envy her for that ability...

[Ice fyre]

I have bad night mares bout every six months or so, those are night terrors soooo scary.

They usuallly involve a force of darkness flowing/moving forward to my home. Once it was vampires (where's the temperence leauge from Terry Pratchett when you need em!!!! ) who were coming down the street (my home was on the bottom of a slight hill) and my Mum refused to shut the door and they were getting closer and closer and I'm trying to get my Mum to shut the dang door. Urrrgh I was so frustrated, think my Mum wondered why I spent the better part of the day miffed at her

Of course my wife spent the better part of a day miffed at me cause she dreamed I had an afair...... now that was a confusing day! Finally got it out of her when she sheepishly admited thats why she had been in such a bad mood with me that morning.