dreams wtf?

[JayzusB.Christ]

and then he asked me "what was the most defining moment of your life?" 

That's one question I'll never be asking HIM.  I've only heard the answer about a hundred times. 
That said, he does indeed seem to be a nice bloke.

[shaolin_monkey]

I've had really vivid dreams all my life, and freaky ones combined with sleep paralysis. I posted something a while back about some of them.  I can't be arsed to type any new ones, as they resemble the old ones in tone and clarity. A lot of my recent ones involve pirates, for some reason.

Here's my old post. Apologies if you've read it before.

I have some ferkin bizarre dreams, but when I was younger I used to sleepwalk a lot too.

I remember one time when I was about 14 I remember waking up, fully clothed, with my newspaper bags slung round my shoulder, looking up at the town hall clock and thinking 'If it's 2pm why is it so ferkin dark?'. Of course it was actually 2am, and I'd gotten up, dressed and out the door at about 1.30am and walked down the hill to the town centre to be there for 2am, all while still fast asleep.

When I got home and got through the door my dad came downstairs with a baseball bat. He thought I was a burgular breaking in! He seemed even more freaked out when I told him what had happened though.

I went through a spell over about a 2 year period at the height of my martial arts training when I used to dream of sparring and tournaments and suchlike only have my partner wake me up cos she was sick of me lashing out in my sleep. I think she was secretly very glad when I finally had to quit.

My favourite dreams always include zombies though. It's like being in a film! I always get away, but barely, after watching everyone else get ripped apart.

My most vivid dream happened when I was a kid, about 8 or 9 years old. It was so vivid I remember it with absolute crystal clarity, and still like to review it from time to time for it's absolute insanity.

In the dream for some reason everything, every inanimate object, starting growing these horrible pale green tentactles. Some would grope about randomly, while others would seek out anything alive.

Nothing was safe - if a human or animal got caught by a tentactle it was dragged to the object it came from (chair, bus, tv, whatever) and be absorbed into it. The whole dream I spent running and running, trying to find somewhere safe to stop and catch my breath and hide. Of course, nowhere was safe, 'cos the tentacles grew from every surface.

I escaped my own house, ran through my streets, even into shops and down the local park, but everywhere I ran these tentacles would soon start growing. I was even sat on a swing, and they grew from the chains!

In the meantime everyone I tried to help, or tried to help me, was eventually dragged off to be absorbed into something. I was about to give up all hope when I stumbled into what I thought was an empty flat. The tentacles sensed I was there and started growing immediately, but I ran into the kitchen and there was a kid and an old bloke both armed with buckets of ice cubes. They threw the ice cubes around, and the tentacles when struck would immediately retract and not come probing again.

The rest of the dream was all of us just wandering the streets throwing ice cubes about and rescuing the few survivors. Cracking dream; really empowering - a long hard fight, a struggle to live, and eventually victory.

I will add something else - I used to think my first bedsit was haunted, until someone explained I was experiencing lucid dreaming combined with sleep paralysis (apparently).  I would wake up immobilised, with a weight pressing on my chest, making it difficult to breath. I could see the shape of the room, but as if through a must, usually blue, or very faint green. I would hear a child giggling, and felt a mischievous presence, verging on malignant. I'd be trapped like that for 10-15 mins each time.  Until I found out what was actually happening I found them tremendously disturbing.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Awesome stuff! On my second one I tried to force myself to move, as I knew what was happening and the feeling you get as you strain and strain to move and shout is quite something else! Once your mind knows what it is, you should try and have some fun with it

[shaolin_monkey]

Indeed! As soon as someone gave me a scientific explanation about what was going on, it was fine - every time I've been in that state since I have relaxed and explored the experience. There have been times I've been able to guide it, and create imaginative semi-lucid reasons for my entrapment. As you say, good fun!

[Mardroid]

I've felt pressure on my chest and sometimes even face when waking up. Sometimes it would move around, I.e pressure in one place then another like I was getting pawed. There was never a sense of skin, it was just like raw kinetic energy, if there's such a thing, pushing on me. Its weird to feel your nose pressed down although it strangely never hurt. Just a little bit of pressure on the nose can cause a bit of an ache, but not in this case.

I've never been actually paralized although I've often kept still of my own volition so as to not provoke the entity, big coward that I am. If I did move (roll over for example) it would usually stop.

It doesn't happen any more but it happened a lot in my twenties. It got to the stage that it happened so often it would stop bothering me too much, although I'd usually keep still and keep my eyes closed, even then. The most frightening moment was waking up to that pawing sensation. Pressure on my chest moving about. I was used to it then, and wasn't particularly phased.I remember kinda mentally sighing and thinking "Here we go again." Then the evil voice came, loud and clear, right in my head.

That freaked me out something chronic, and I woke all the way up sharpish. I think it has only happened once again since then and it was vaguer and not particularly scary. More recently (in the last year or so) I have woken to my dad's voice calling my name. On asking him about it, he told me he never called. I found that kind of sweet and melancholy for some reason.

As for a decent lucid dream, I don't get those any more. Most of my dreams are just like nonsensical thoughts, disparate nonsense. Most of the time I rarely remember them. I have had dreams which were somewhat realistic when dozing on the way to work on the bus. Nothing exciting. I'd just dream someone got on the bus. Then wake up and realise it never happened. Heh. Probably just as well. Imagine if I dreamt they turned into a monster and attacked me! That could be embarrassing.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I would wake up immobilised, with a weight pressing on my chest, making it difficult to breath. I could see the shape of the room, but as if through a must, usually blue, or very faint green. I would hear a child giggling, and felt a mischievous presence, verging on malignant. I'd be trapped like that for 10-15 mins each time.  Until I found out what was actually happening I found them tremendously disturbing.

That sounds freaking terrifying.  Even just reading it gives me a shiver. 
I remember as a kid I dreamed about an old hag sitting on my back, trapping me and laughing evilly as she pressed and punched the knobs of my spine.  It was only as an adult I found out that it was a very literal version of Old Hag Syndrome. 

[shaolin_monkey]

The whole thing about your brain using sleep and dreams to process and repair was really brought home to me after a nasty accident I had.

About 12 years ago, I was cycling down Newport Road, a huge main road leading out if Cardiff. I was doing about 20mph down a bus lane, when a car turned across my path to get to a side street. The driver obviously hadn't seen me. I went into the side of it, flipped up and over, knees going through the front passenger window, cartwheeling over the roof, and breaking my fall with my head (no helmet, though I've worn one ever since!).

All I can remember is thinking 'This is gonna hurt', a flash of pain, then coming around in hospital. It should have been absolute agony, but somehow my brain had prevented it, hidden the pain away somewhere.  I didn't fracture my skull, but it did tear a flap of skin away from my head (the docs stapled it back on) and I had really bad concussion. Apparently I acted like scratched records for a couple of hours. I'd come round, ask 'where am I?'and be reassured by docs and nurses, say 'oh, that's fine then' and relax. A few seconds later I would look startled, ask exactly the same questions, and give exactly the same responses. I did it over and over again, and drove everyone nuts in that two hour period. I can only remember asking it once.

Anyway, you get the picture - serious head trauma. I should have died from it, but I'm a stubborn bastard like that. Months off work, months of physio, best part of a year before I was able to return to my martial arts, cycling and weight training.

In the middle of this was the dream. It was incredibly vivid.  I was a member of some organised crime. I had seriously fucked up something the mobsters had asked me to do. I was tied to a chair while they castigated me, shouting in my face, intimidating me, generally freaking me out. The main guy, the head honcho, picked up a baseball bat. He pulled all the way back, and took a terrific swing at my head. I thought 'This is gonna hurt', and then my head fucking EXPLODED with pain. I can't begin to describe how painful it felt in this dream - it was like an extremely loud white screaming NOISE that wouldn't abate. I can feel it now, thinking about it. It went on for an age, but then I woke up. Coming round I realised I wasn't in any pain whatsoever.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure that was my brain finally deeming it safe to recover the memory of the pain it had hidden away at the time of the accident and process it, file it away, and allow me to safely deal with it.

The human mind eh? Crazy shit!

[JayzusB.Christ]

So yeah, I'm pretty sure that was my brain finally deeming it safe to recover the memory of the pain it had hidden away at the time of the accident and process it, file it away, and allow me to safely deal with it.

The human mind eh? Crazy shit!

Fuck yeah, that really is insane.  Now you mention it, I might have a similar thing myself - I'm a bit prone to depression; it only hits me every few years but nowadays I take medication just to safeguard the old mental faculties.  With the help of these and other methods like meditation and CBT-based self-help, I'm generally a cheerful, upbeat and sociable type these days. 

However - occasionally I get dreams where I'm incredibly, irredeemably, suicidally depressed.  Whatever happens in the dream, I feel like the future is utterly bleak and hopeless, and that there's no point in being alive to have to put up with it. 

As soon as I wake up, though, I'm back to my normal self, and like most of the time can't even remember what depression feels like.  Again, maybe the brain's filing the feeling away and letting my subconscious do the dirty work while I'm out for the count?  If so, it's a great little instrument, that blob of grey matter in my skull.

[Recrewt]

One thing I have noticed on occasion is that I will actually carry those feelings/emotions from my dreams into the real world.  So, lets say I dream that a friend has died, I wake up and know that it was a dream but still have that sadness with me for a bit.  Now that is weird. 

[shaolin_monkey]

One thing I have noticed on occasion is that I will actually carry those feelings/emotions from my dreams into the real world.  So, lets say I dream that a friend has died, I wake up and know that it was a dream but still have that sadness with me for a bit.  Now that is weird.

I know EXACTLY how that feels!  In fact, what I'd term as the only nightmares I've ever had both had that effect, in an extreme manner. The first was where I dreamed both my sisters had died in a tragic accident, and the other was where I dreamed I saw one of my kids run over by a car. In both cases I woke up screaming, bawling my eyes out, inconsolable for such a long time. In both cases I knew I was now wide awake and fully aware I had just had a bad dream, but still could not stop sobbing with grief or distress. So yeah, I get where you're coming from.

So it's not all cool tentacles, zombies, pirates and kung fu!

[The Doctor Alt 8]

Sulk.... I never get tentacles in my dreams....

[Hawkmumbler]

Sulk.... I never get tentacles in my dreams....

Do we really ned a Japan thread for this stuff? Just bung it here!

[shaolin_monkey]

Sulk.... I never get tentacles in my dreams....

Is that a euphemism?

[The Doctor Alt 8]

I doult it....

I don't get those in my dreams either.


closest I got was dreaming about being pursued by a drunken Oliver Reed though the grounds of a stately home because he'd found out that I was a Virgin and was determined to make a woman out of me. But that is hardly ephamistic....

[The Legendary Shark]

I think I may have had two "sleep paralysis" experiences after reading this thread. Both of them centred around a monstrous black 'dog' thing with long shaggy fur, wet snarling teeth and burning red eyes.
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It was the earlier mention of 'boundless kinetic energy' that struck a chord with me because that's a perfect description of how this thing moved - it seemed to be doing a "wall-of-death" around the room, halfway up the walls, at a phenomenal speed whilst also seeming to be everywhere at once. Curiously, its hideous, screaming face was *always* snarling directly at me and it was howling like a hurricane through a cathedral. The sheer unbridled motion of the thing seemed to be the force keeping me down and unable to breathe. The first time it happened was absolutely terrifying - I thought I'd died in my sleep and was being dragged to Hell!
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The second time it happened was no less terrifying but in this instance I got mad and started howling back at the thing until it simply dissipated. I have the uncomfortable feeling that I might have been actually howling like an enraged gorilla when I woke up.
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This was some time ago now and it hasn't been back.
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My worst nightmare was that I had murdered my father and hidden the body many years ago (my dad died in the late 90's, a decade and more before the nightmare). For all these years I'd got away with it but now the murder weapon had resurfaced - a rickety old pistol that didn't fit together properly and kept coming to bits - and I had to get rid of it. The bottomless guilt I experienced in that horrid world was so powerful that it haunts me yet. So much so that I now sometimes experience dreams where I'm not sure if what I experienced was a nightmare or a memory. Most unsettling.
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