blather: weird question

[arrow00]

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?

Comments

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. Your second fever dream is very much like mine, except that the looming hugeness in my case was enormous trees or logs. Nothing ever actually happened... but they were still the most hauntingly dreadful dreams I've ever had. *shivers*

[meresy.livejournal.com]

I used to have apocalypse/warzone dreams. It usually involved running and hiding a lot, and various relatives. (I don't even know.)

[tipitiwitchet.livejournal.com]

I had a recurring dream wherein the three wise men had me dragged away kicking and screaming to have an operation to "fix me". I always woke up when the masked doctor came at me with a needle to put me under.

No, I don't know why it was the three wise men.*was odd even then*

[torra.livejournal.com]

I did, but I don't think you'd like me to describe it. Even the most hardened of doctors and counclers pale when I used to describe it to them. My nightmares are based in very real fact, very much grounded in reality, and the brutality man can inflict upon man. I actualy had two or three that would rotate around. I actualy have nightmares every night, pretty much without fail, and have since I was born (aint brain chemestry fun, kids? ::G::), but these three are always pretty much the same, and when triggered, shift into not just nightmares, but night terrors.

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.

[grey853.livejournal.com]

I dreamed I was in a freezing dungeon with a drawbridge like door. When the door would lift the slab of stone, a skeleton would rise up and come after me. I'd stab the eye socket with a wooden stake, but it never stopped it. I could vividly feel the wood rub against bone, hear the scrapping sound, and smell the moldy dank rot of the place. Even now, just thinking about it makes me shudder.

I lost count of how many times I had that same awful dream of feeling trapped and terrified, but still fighting back.

[spuffyduds.livejournal.com]

As a kid I had recurring nightmares of a bear looking in the window. It never ATE me or anything, or even came IN the window, I don't think--I'd just glance over and THERE IT WAS OH NOOOOO BEAR!!!

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.

[secretlybronte.livejournal.com]

I did, indeed. I had/have what I call "the Nazi dream." In it, I am living in some sort of rural area with rolling green hills. Someone comes to the door and pounds on it. I have to come downstairs really quickly. I'm scared. I walk for a really long time. We come to a barn and there are all sorts of atrocities - people being kills in various ways. It ends with me bleeding to death in a field and the last thing I think before it goes dark is that I'm alone.

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. :)

[imwalde.livejournal.com]

No matter what scares me when awake, in my dreams: velociraptors. Awake, I don't find Jurassic Park all that scary, but apparently my subconscious has decided that they are the ultimate scary thing. Awake, non-corporeal malevolent entities scare me much more than monsters or psychos, but when I watch something scary (for instance, I remember one recent example of a Doctor Who episode that scared the BEJEEZUS out of me) later that night it'll be velociraptors in my dreams. I don't/didn't have a recurring nightmare, per se, it'll be different dreams and then all of a sudden, dream me will be all, why are we fleeing in terror? And then dream me'll be all, oh right, velociraptor attack, right, time to run now.

[nos4a2no9.livejournal.com]

I don't really remember specific dreams, and yours sound really terrifying. Poor wee/ill!Arrow! *snugs you*

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

yeah! something so huge and monolithic for some reason just made me sick with dread. I'm glad I'm not the only one. :)

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

Which ones would you want with you in the nightmarish post-apocalyptic landscape?

I remember dreaming about environmental apocalypse (all the oxygen leaving the planet because all the trees were dead) too.

dreams

[southerndue.livejournal.com]

when I was teenage, i had a recurring dream of being in public (usually in school) in my night gown. I was never able to get home or get changed.

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

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

eep! wise men! they are creepy.

I don't think you need fixing, sweetpea.

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

The light thing is interesting. What do you feel it represents?

I'm going for childhood dreams here, the top recurring one. You don't have to tell me if you don't want, though.

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

eep! amazing how visceral that sound is (wood against bone.) gave me shivers just now.

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

yay teddy!

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::

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

the last thing I think before it goes dark is that I'm alone

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.

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

That is a recurring dream, though. What are velociraptors to you?
(btw I find them hugely terrifying.)

[torra.livejournal.com]

I think both the light and the scream are as simple as they seem. Expeicily the light. It's a simple task, flip a switch, and yet it fails. The more I try it, the more the panic rises. I am unable to do even a simple task to save myself. If I could just turn that light on, everything would be okay. The attacker would have a face, the wolf would be chased off, the shadow would be bannished, etc. But only with the light. And no matter how many times I try, I can not make it work. I can not save myself.

The scream is the same. It's a simple, primal thing, every human down to the last babe can do it to save themselves. It draws attention, brings aid, startles an attacker, and so on, but I am unable to do so. Once again, it is a simple thing everyone else can do to save themselves, but it fails me.

As for the dreams themselves, I wasn't kidding about the details freeking people out. It casues nightmares in others when I used to describe them, so I learned not to. But the basic detail of the most common one was being hunted. Usualy a man with a knife or a shadow creature I can't see until it's finaly cought me. He or it wanted to eat me, rape me, or skin me alive in some horrid combonation in which I would be awake and alive for every minute.

Sometimes I'd wake up before I was cought. Sometimes I'm not. When I'm not, then I really do live though it, even die in my dreams, feel my heart stop and pass out from blood loss and so on. The details of the attacks very, but the hunting aspect, the running and trying to fight back, searching for a wepon to use agasint my attacker befor he reaches me...that is fairly constant. Even when I wake up, I never actauly get away. Even if I find a knife, I never do more then cut him. Even if I find help, they turn on me as well, or are actualy the person hunting me all along.

Basicly, every aspect of the helpless child imaginable. Pretty strightforword in it's pschology.

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

aw, pooks.

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.

Re: dreams

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Do you ever try to write down the stories?

[arrow00.livejournal.com]

It's kind of fascinating how the paralysis that comes with sleep bleeds into our dreams. Similarly I dream I'm in terrible danger but I can't open my eyes, no matter how hard I try, so I can't see it or run fast enough because my eyes are squeezed shut and won't open.

I've also had a number of dreams where I am gutted or skinned by a knife, and one where I was being vivisected by a surgeon while conscious. So not fun. But the only dreams where I actually die are falling dreams, and I die when I hit the ground.

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

I had a bunch of them, most of them coming down to being chased by animals. The worst, and most common, was being chased through a haystack by a black boar. The weirdest was being chased through a maze of giant kids cartoon style lunch boxes by a giant rat-terrier puppy.

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

[tipitiwitchet.livejournal.com]

They were creepy! Standing there in a line all stony-faced and judgmental.

Yay! That's one vote against-I shall mark it in the ledger:)

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

I used to have this dream that the street would split open while I was riding my tricycle (in the street instead of on the sidewalk) and that there was always this danger I would fall into the world underneath the street. There may have been devils or something down there. But I have this distinct memory of that dream and having it more than once. It was also an extra vivid dream too.