blather: weird question
Feb. 1st, 2009 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A weird question for my flist:
when you were a kid, did you have a recurring nightmare? if so, what was it?
I had one that was the usual monster-somewhere-in-the-house-coming-to-get-me, but whenever I had a fever and was delirious I had another that was very hard to quantify. It came in various forms but the theme was the same. there was some gigantic piece of machinery, ponderously heavy, made of wooden cogs and levers and chains, and if I touched the wheel the machine would creak into motion and I knew I was destined to be chained to it forever keeping it moving. Or a giant pyramid of stone was suspended above me and I was holding it up but knew it would crush me eventually.
Something about responsibility, or adulthood, but there was also a sense of my insignificance in the giant scheme of things.
What about you, oh my flist?
when you were a kid, did you have a recurring nightmare? if so, what was it?
I had one that was the usual monster-somewhere-in-the-house-coming-to-get-me, but whenever I had a fever and was delirious I had another that was very hard to quantify. It came in various forms but the theme was the same. there was some gigantic piece of machinery, ponderously heavy, made of wooden cogs and levers and chains, and if I touched the wheel the machine would creak into motion and I knew I was destined to be chained to it forever keeping it moving. Or a giant pyramid of stone was suspended above me and I was holding it up but knew it would crush me eventually.
Something about responsibility, or adulthood, but there was also a sense of my insignificance in the giant scheme of things.
What about you, oh my flist?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 01:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 01:55 am (UTC)I remember dreaming about environmental apocalypse (all the oxygen leaving the planet because all the trees were dead) too.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 10:43 pm (UTC)No, I don't know why it was the three wise men.*was odd even then*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 01:56 am (UTC)I don't think you need fixing, sweetpea.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 11:15 pm (UTC)I have two triggers which would turn any dream into a nightmare, or any nightmare into a night terror: I would try to turn a light on (it would never work, ever, any light not already on in a dream, will never turn on), or I would try to scream (I can't scream in real life, either, I can yell, I can holler, I can sing a note to shatter glass, but I can't scream; when suprised, I only ever gasp or remain silent; my rapests were quite insistant on this fact, I was never alowed to scream...it's held over). If I tried either one of these things, I would imideady realize it was a dream, and then things would get bad. The dream, if it was not already one of my reoccuring nightmares, would imideatly become so.
In recent years, the three I had as a kid have become less frquient, though. My dreams and nightmares are both more varried now then they ever were when I was a kid. Which is nice in it's own way. But the old ones can still be triggered if I try to turn on a light or scream. Those triggers never go away.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 01:58 am (UTC)I'm going for childhood dreams here, the top recurring one. You don't have to tell me if you don't want, though.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 11:21 pm (UTC)I lost count of how many times I had that same awful dream of feeling trapped and terrified, but still fighting back.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 11:30 pm (UTC)Weirdly, I kind of BROKE this dream--after having it recur many times I finally had a dream where I glanced at the window and it was a TEDDY BEAR, with shiny green eyes. And then I never had it again.
I don't have a whole recurrent dream now that I can remember, but there is one recurrent event or theme which is, whenever I'm having a bad dream and I need HELP in the dream, I cannot ever, ever get a phone to work. Ever. This is probably something about being rotten about communicating when I'm fucked up and need help, who knows.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 02:01 am (UTC)me, too: I had a recurring monster dream (pounding slow footsteps, always coming) and I remember the time I finally decided to wait for him. When he showed up I talked to him and found out he was more like the funny monster in the Bugs Bunny cartoon (Bugs puts his fur up in curlers.) I never had the dream again.
The phone thing is interesting. ::peers at you::
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 11:35 pm (UTC)I die in dreams a lot. I think that's supposed to mean something like new opportunities, but I'll be honest and say that it doesn't feel even *remotely* like that to me. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 02:03 am (UTC)Oh, man. ::smishes you::
I've never understood the dying thing to be anything but dying. usually if I die in a dream it's a falling dream, and I die when I hit the ground.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 02:04 am (UTC)(btw I find them hugely terrifying.)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 02:09 am (UTC)one time when I was very ill, I woke up standing in front of a mirror pointing at myself and saying, "It's you! It's your fault!"
I have no idea what was my fault. everything, maybe. my parents were heavy into guilt. ;) but the weird thing is, I vaguely remember I was dreaming about the easter bunny at the time. I've always wondered what I did to him.
dreams
Date: 2009-02-02 01:56 am (UTC)I have had a similar theme recurring dream all my life in which I dream about people and scenarios that I am not familiar with. These dreams are like watching movies, as I am not a part of the action, and I don't know the people in the dream. It's weird. No two are alike and I've always wondered if the ppl I dream about actually exist somewhere, and I am tuning into them some how.
Lisa
Re: dreams
Date: 2009-02-02 02:10 am (UTC)Re: dreams
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 02:36 am (UTC)I should note that I lived (still live) on a farm and had been chased and bitten by geese, muscovy ducks, and dogs. Nobody I know even raised black pigs, though, and the one in my dream was like a European Boar.
Julia, I also dreamed about being chased by fighting bulls, a la Pamploma
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 10:01 pm (UTC)Did you ever read "This Immortal" (...And Call Me Conrad) by Zelazny? There was a gigantic mutant black boar in that one. :)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 10:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 05:23 am (UTC)I had a phase of recurring zombie nightmares a few years ago, but I know exactly where those came from. (Watching 28 Days Later while drunk.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 10:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 06:35 am (UTC)Your ponderous machine shook loose a recurrent thing I'd forgotten: a huge (pirate?) ship crewed by monsters and general unpleasantness. There were steps up to the deck - not the usual sort of steps for a ship, but a wide staircase - and I'd walk up it. As I climbed the stairs I knew I was walking into nightmares, and I'd will myself - so hard - to turn around but it rarely worked.
Free associating: I spent my childhood being taught to hide (intellect, skills, knowledge, emotions, desires) and being trapped in situations that made me bored and unhappy. I could, theoretically, have walked away from these situations since there was no physical restraint, but parents and guilt were forces too powerful for me to fight.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 10:52 pm (UTC)There is no more powerful force in the universe than parents + guilt.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 11:50 pm (UTC)Do you drive underwater? Can you breathe there?
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 11:29 am (UTC)I don't think I've have recurring nightmares, unless I don't remember them. Usually when I have nightmares, they're caused by something really obvious, like dreaming about war after watching some gruesome TV footage, or dreaming about being speechless on my Ph D defense on the night before I did it (most obvious dream I ever had, that one). *g*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 02:46 pm (UTC)When I was growing up in the 1970s the biggest bogeyman that was flashed all over the pop culture/tv was Bigfoot. I would dream he was coming after me. The version I kept having the most was one where I was at my aunt and uncle's home in the US. They had a lot of cats (mostly feral ones that lived in the woods) and one - Calico - who had habituated to the house was meowing out on the front entrance. I would open the door to let her in and all she would do was spin and meow in front of the door. Then I could hear this very deep thudding noise and Calico would take off into the woods. Scared, I then would close the door, lock it, and run to lock the backdoor. The thudding got louder and when I looked out the front window, this big hairy thing vaulted over the longfence between the road and part of the front lawn. I went and hid in my aunt and uncle's room, in their closet, which was in two parts on either side of their bed, closed with curtains. The thudding got louder and louder, I could hear the door break open and all this crashing, and the thing scrabbled down the hallway...
Then silence. I held my breath, squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to make any noise. It seemed like hours passed before I felt ok to breathe, and when I let out my shaky breath, the curtains whipped open and the thing was there, growling.
I always woke up before I could scream.
I was a pretty fucked up kid.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 11:48 pm (UTC)