Fear in Dreams

[Stupot]

I had a really scary dream last night.  And by scary I mean real life-or-death fear... at some point I was in a lift (elevator to you crazy Americans) and I was supposed to be going to a pub I used to frequent, but when I reached the top of the lift I came out into this open, rocky space hanging over a masive chasm.

The only way to get to the pub was to move along this really narrow ledge, while holding onto posters and other things that were merely blu-tacked to the wall and could eaily be pulled off... below the ledge was a drop so deep I couldn't even see the bottom.  Thing is I was sure I'd been there before and that I knew what I was doing, but I didn't remember ever having to try and move along this ledge before.  However, I carried on because I needed a pint.

But for that 10 minutes or so that I was gradually shifting along the ledge, I was genuinely fearing for my life.  I was holding onto the posters and using peices of blu-tac like suckers to keep me close to the wall.  About halfway through I actually began to accept my inevitable death... there was no way I'd make it to the end... and I seriously considered just giving up and falling back into the Abyss.

But actually, I did make it... and got to the entrance of the pub, and it turned out the place had shut down long ago, and I'd have to go all the way back across the ledge to get to the new location of the pub.  But thankfully, like a well-edited movie, my dream didn't show me that sequence, and I found myself having a snowball fight in a bar, laughing and smiling.

I thought that dream was sufficiently fucked-up enough for me to re-tell it, and spark another long-overdue conversation about dreams, but the main point was the sheer, genuine fear I felt going across that ledge... It was horrific.

Does anyone else have any examples of genuine primal fear from dreams that they can share?

[EDIT - My English is terrible ... so I've just gone through that again and corrected nearly 10 mistakes and typos]

[RickJ]

Just wondering ... did you wake up with  a hangover?

[Anian]

Wow, you can remember that pretty well, I usually have very mixed up memory of my dreams and are gone within an hour.

Hmmm, trapped in an old mansion, only black could be seen outside the windows. Suddenly the wooden boards beneath my feet started to creak and old rusty nails pierced through my bare feet and I tried to avid the nails but the whole floor was covered with them...that was not a fun dream.

[InCreator]

I don't know if I've written about it already (dream threads pop up once or twice a year) but

When I was in early teen age, I spent summers at my grandma's apartment, mainly since I didn't want to go to our country home with rest of the family due drunk and abusive dad of mine.

And there, I always saw similar nightmares -- most common was this: I'm in a car, doors are locked, and car goes toward river. Our country home has river flowing through lower end and house is on a hill. Car always started from hill and went downwards. I was afraid, yelling and thinking what the hell could I do to stop the car.

Sometimes I wasn't in the car, simply sat on trunk or stood beside. Sometimes I even wasn't that much afraid, but practical and had seconds to think of something. I never did figure out anything that would stop the car, even though I tried. And I always woke up before car actually reached river. Over 4 summer breaks, I saw variations of same dream dozens of times. And few times I saw a tiger chasing me. Yes - a tiger - and I've seen tigers only once or twice in my whole life - at a zoo.

Over years I've been thought why this car dream and I guess I see where it came from.
Grandma lives in north-easternmost province of Estonia, heavy mining area - stone throw from Russian border so majority of local folk are Russians and area is very poor - ghetto-like - and crime is high.

Especially was back then. So quite often there were all kinds of criminals lurking around house, break ins were daily thing and I couldn't understand how grandma sleeps with windows open on first floor if more than once someone crawled in at night and lifted something for quick drug cash. Tenement also had private cellar area for tenants - where everyone had a little storage with a door and lock - and even those were often lifted at night, with old bicycle as good and few jars of homemade strawberry jam as shittier "loot".

There was case where someone ringed doorbell, when grandma opened the door, started to push door open. She asked me to help push the door back and thug fled hearing male voice - he probably counted on elderly lone female as easy target and was surprised to hear anyone else in apartment.

I even used put a knife under pillow... But were always afraid that if mugger came into apartment, I was too weak to protect grandma. Probably that fear of being defenseless transferred into my dreams.

In conclusion, I'm not quite sure which one was the nightmare - they way I felt at day or the stuff I saw in dreams at that time... Kids afraid of scary monster under bed? Pfff... Those monsters were very real.

But I guess that either way, it does classify as primal fear.

[Snake]

The scariest dream I had ever had, which is the same fear you speak of, Stu, is the dream I mentioned in the Space Elevator... Beam me up, Scottie! thread last November.

It was about a black hole that wandered our way and began to suck us in.

I remember my wife and I being at home (although it wasn't our home, it was the home I grew up in as a kid) and I was in the dining room. We just came back inside from saying bye to guests (I remember it being bitter cold). I was standing at the big window in the dining room looking up at the sky and the stars. It was slightly cloudy, but those ones you can see through, those light and "thin" ones. The moon was full and lit everything up brightly. The stars were absolutely gorgeous.
Anyway, I'm looking up into the sky and I see this thing moving. Can't really tell what it is (it kind of looked like a cluster of abnormally bright stars), but the moment I notice this, whatever it is, the clouds part and form a circle around this object in the sky (much like "word wrap" does around pictures in a document). Then suddenly they... I don't know, imploded or something, and a black sphere formed and started moving slowly across the sky. I could see the clouds being affected by it.
Damn, my heart jumped in my throat and I called Kristen into the room and it dissapeared.
I remember a huge sigh of relief and I thought of everyone I knew as I began to think everything was okay.
Then it came back, even bigger this time. I can't explain the fear, but it was the worst fear I had every experienced to date. Trees were starting to be uprooted and darting up into the sky, the clouds were gone and everything started to shake. As this is happening I could hear this sound as everything was being SUCKED up into the sky. It can only be described as those old hand-cranked sirens. It reminded me of the siren heard in Silent Hill when your world shifts. Fucking unexplainably scary.
We ran from the dining room and into where our daughter was sleeping, grabbed her and ran down into the basement (like that was going to do something).
We got down there and picked a corner to huddle in.
We just hugged there in the corner while the siren sound continued and debri started floating upwards.
As the shaking and siren increased, I started to wake up.

It was after three in the morning and I was on my back on the bed, on top of the covers, blinking as I woke up and staring at the ceiling. The only light in the room was from the alarm clocks on our nightstands. I glanced out the window, still a bit delirious, to make sure none of this was actually happening. I wrapped my arm around Kristen and that's when I realized for the first time, that out of all the disasters that could happen, a black hole is something we have absolutely no control over, no where to hide, nowhere to be safe. A bomb shelter would be as ineffective as using a squirt gun to ward off a pack of ravenous wolves. The end would be inevitable.

[Snake]

BUMP

Sorry for giving your thread lead shoes, Stupot. It's funny how often threads sink to the bottom after I post in them.

I thought this was quite the topic myself

[Andail]

yeah I was about to post something awesome, but then Snake posted...and...well I just lost all motivation

[Snake]

Heh, see?

[Dualnames]

BUMP

Sorry for giving your thread lead shoes, Stupot. It's funny how often threads sink to the bottom after I post in them.

I thought this was quite the topic myself

You wiN!

yeah I was about to post something awesome, but then Snake posted...and...well I just lost all motivation

In my dreams I always trip on something. holes in the ground, thresholds, stairs, ladders. Clumsiness incarnate!

[mkennedy]

It's not death I worry about in my dreams, While the pain is rather bothersome In dreams I am pretty much immortal. What is truly frightening are the ones that give you an over whelming sense of evil, the kind that can threaten your very soul.

[monkey0506]

I once had a dream that I was sitting on the couch in the living room with my two younger sisters watching TV. My parents were in their bedroom asleep, behind us.

That's when I started hearing my parents voices coming from the laundry room, which would have been in front of us. The thing is, I knew they were in their room.

So clearly the only logical explanation was that there were ghosts in the laundry room. I don't like ghosts.

Somehow and quite suddenly the house was gone and there was just me and my sisters. The sky was all shades of red and orange and there was some type of horrific meteor shower going on.

And the riders of the apocalypse thought it would be a good time to show up.

It all seemed very real at the time and left me quite scared when I woke up.

For some reason I seem to have subliminally linked that dream to the knowledge that our house does (or at least has) play(ed) host to (a) ghost(s). That's a story for another time but me and my younger sisters were, you guessed it, watching TV in the living room when it happened. All three of us distinctly and individually recall it and have reaffirmed each other that the event did take place. But as I said, that's another story.

[Jim Reed]

I dream mostly harmless dreams. Although they sometimes involve destruction, death and such, I feel no fear as I know I am imortall like mkennedy says it in the post above.

But, lying in bed before going to sleep, in the phase where you aren't fully asleep, I see different things (insects/spiders/people), and if I look at them directly (or in their eyes if they're people) they sort of jump me, and then I snap fully awake and pretty scared.

I understand what it is, so I try to avoid getting myself in that particular "half-sleep" frame of mind. Coincendentaly, I found myself in this state last night, and I woke myself up as soon as I relised what was next on the menu.

[Domino]

I had a dream a couple of days ago where myself and a couple of people were leaving a building and headed across a road that was near some mountains.

My ex-girlfriend was also along with me too. I then followed them across the street, but when i turned to my right, a large yellow sedan was going full speed and hit me dead on and i flew up on the hood of the yellow car. I was lucky, because i did not hit the windshield, I just ended up on the hood of his car, while yelling at the driver to stop because he had just hit me. (My Dreams are very vivid)

The driver was an older man with dark hair and glasses and I was yelling at him to stop his car, because i was injured, but he kept on going and then ran over my ex.

From what i remember is that the yellow car was full of people and I can still remember his face. He had a look like he didn't care what he did.

I woke up from the dream a little bit shaken....only a couple of hours later..the Yellow car came into my head and I had some really bad anxiety because of it.

Some people don't remember their dreams, but I seem to live them while sleeping.

I hope someday they can hook a video recorder to your brain and record dreams.

I also have alot of dreams where I travel alot, but I don't. Last night in my dream, I went to Europe and got mad at my dad (who was with me) and smashed my camera, and then remember flying home to the US.

I have an entire movie theater going through my mind when i sleep.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=35980.0

I still cannot run in my dreams.

[Ryan Timothy B]

When I was a very young I had this really angry babysitter/daycare.  We were brought to her house after school for a few hours until the parents were done work. 

Well one night after she had babysat us, I had a nightmare that the she went angry and was trying to find me so she could punish me for something (probably for not eating my cold and gross oatmeal that she loved cooking, haha).  In this dream I was hiding under the piano while she walked around looking for me.  Then the oddest thing happened, this little fairy-like creature, similar to tinkerbell I guess, appeared floating around my head under the piano.  She/he/it tells me, "You're having a bad dream. If you ever have a bad dream, just blink twice."

Well in my dream I blinked twice and I suddenly woke up.  For some odd reason it worked.

I actually remembered this method for waking up during a bad dream, and for years I used it until I either stopped having bad dreams or until I forgot about it.

It was pretty cool how a bad dream had given me a technique to wake up from future bad dreams.


I also had a few dreams when I was younger that I was aware that I was dreaming, and started to control the dream.  I remember being in an office building and I started controlling my dream to do what I wanted since I knew I was dreaming.  Then someone handed me a clipboard and I woke up with my arm in the air. lol

[Chicky]

Dreams are a great start for writing stories because you don't consider the rational and therefore don't get held up on the little inconsistencies.

Most of my scripts have started off as dreams.

[Timo.]

Dreams are a great start for writing stories because you don't consider the rational and therefore don't get held up on the little inconsistencies.

Most of my scripts have started off as dreams.

I agree with Chicky, these dreams might prove to be great starts. Well, many great AGS games start off as a dream, a nightmare or whatsoever and to add on to that, many available commercial games like some of Half-Life 2's concepts were also dreams themselves. Do not underestimate the power of storytelling dreams/nightmares you make have, in case they might help you in your near future.

[m0ds]

This was the first of four people randomly telling me they had a "scary" dream through the week. No-one (IRL) has mentioned a scary dream to me for years. Strange! I have "angry" dreams when I get drunk, ie people just seem to be pissed off at me in them, but I haven't personally had a "terrifying" dream for a long while - though I know what you mean. I think you only really experience primal fear when something 'interupts' your dream, something very unexpected. For example, happily dreaming of a beach but then catching a glimpse of a strange figure can often prompt the dream to enhance your fear. At some point in the last few years, I was happily going about my dream business when I spotted a shadow on the walls stalking me, and an immense sensation of fear struck me. But I remember being able to wake myself up from that one. Like booze, dreams enhance every emotion. And if unproved theories are correct, sometime's you're actually strumbling into other realms where these things that strike absolute fear into you actually prowl. But they are lower-end entities with predatory like nature; harmless, but it's all they know. But because it's a dream you cannot stop it, and so the situation and fear grows. Only if you became lucid would you have a good chance of turning the situation around.

[Babar]

My dreams are much too bizarre to work as plots for stories. Even when I dream that I am in a movie script.
(reproduced exactly as jotted down on a bedside notebook):

Titled: That Awful Portrait of Ours
Starring: Sean Connery, who first has a beard which he shaves

-Movie Style-

Sean (not the name used. Henry?) first explains about portraits. There is a war going on. During the fighting (MOHAA style) he shoots enemy 5 times in the face, amo finishes (he/I wonders why it doesn't shoot/kill). He pulls out someone from a tank and kills him with his hands. Another enemy comes to take him away. Some reference to an awful portrait is made. Henry's (?) friend is allowed to escape, but reference is made to Henry being brutally killed for punishment (Not shown).
Cut to after the war, where his friends talk about him, not knowing (or not wanting to admit) he was so brutally killed, thinking he died in a bus. His friend (the one who was there) denies this, but is not taken seriously. Another friend comments (humourously) on how he shaved is beard.


Or another one:

Eating dinner with group of people, host was foreigner. I think it was dark. I think I stabbed the person to my left with a kebab skewer, but he disappeared. A succession of people showed up at the table, threatening to kill all (usually with a document showing how they were wronged). Dream ended when the skewered man (he didn't look injured) popped out from behind the curtain with a gun.



EDIT: as far as the original topic, I RARELY have nightmares (I got a similar trick to Ryan as a kid)- haven't had one for years now. Still, I do sometimes feel real chilling fear in dreams, although they aren't really nightmares, if that makes sense.

[Calin Leafshade]

Babar is not afraid of nightmares. Nightmares are afraid of Babar.

[Babar]

Verily. I will skewer them in the face, or set a bearded Sean Connery at them.