Running from something that is trying to kill me and being chased. Occasionally it catches me and I start screaming in my sleep. That was a fun one to explain to my boyfriend when he moved in.
When I was younger, I had recurring nightmares of one particular place; it was kind of a big gothic castle-type house (mansion, something like that) in an outwardly nice grassy and wooded area. I could actually realize when I was there just from the landscape, even before I was near enough the building to see it.
Once I arrived at the building, the outside was just sort of creepy but ultimately harmless, but for some reason my task each time I had this dream was to get into the house, and start to go lower and more and more through locked or private areas of the castle into the darker basement and sub-basement, until it was almost like air ventilation ducts made of stone that I was squeezing through. The lower sections were dark and haunted with some kind of severe evil presence that sometimes I would run into or get near to.
It maybe isn't coming across as all that sinister just typing it out, but it was fuckin freaky being in the abandoned haunted basement area.
Have you ever had sleep paralysis? The combo of severe evil presence and severely constricting environment/feeling at often tied with sleep paralysis and have some correlation with dyspnea in real life while you're dreaming
No, nothing like that. I definitely had a whole class of nightmares that was the "severe evil presence" variety, but usually I would be fighting it, or like with some kind of capability, not just pure helpless terror about the sinister presence of it.
Packing/moving. We're almost done, but discover another part of the attic around a corner. It opens up into a multi-level mall-like area (but with narrow stairs) full of dining room and bedroom furniture sets. It all needs to be out by morning.
Getting shot is probably the most recurring element in my nightmares. They say you can’t feel pain in dreams, but I always do. Very often I feel the bullets lodged in me and collapse and lose strength as I watch the shooter(s) come to finish me off. Sometimes I have friends or my husband there with me also getting shot, sometimes I’m just alone.
I deal with a lot of nerve pain and usually wake up in physical pain when that happens, so I assume it’s just pain I’m already having bleeding into my dreams.
I’m not particularly afraid of gun violence IRL so I’m not sure why my subconscious latches onto that, other than it’s scary.
When I was younger, it used to be falling down a large hole, getting swallowed up by the darkness, and never knowing exactly when I'd hit the ground (or worse).
Now I have a family, my most frequent one has been losing my 9yo daughter, usually when we're camping or at a busy shopping centre - something like that.
I'm not really sure if I remember any of my dreams (or if I even dream anymore), but sometimes I'll suddenly wake up because my mind thinks it hears a restaurant kitchen printer going off.
That's a bitch if you haven't experienced it yourself, lol.
Shit shit shit, I just remembered I haven't attended English class all semester.
Shit shit shit, I can't remember my locker combination, and I can't find the orientation sheet that has it, also I can't find my class schedule, I have no idea what class I'm supposed to be in right now.
Plus a few other variations. All High School. I dunno why the focus on High School, I'm 34. I get one of these once or twice a month.
Large animals hunting me. Usually big cats (lions, tigers, jaguars, not house cats). But the last few times I remember these types of dreams I have been safe inside some structure, with just the threat they will find a way through a door or window.
In terms of Nightmares that induce fear: Usually something that is there that poses extreme threat that I'm unable to make out. Often I'm able to make out that it's a beast of some kind