Ask Lemmy

If I had to relive a nightmare, it would be the one where I was pulled into a world that seemed alive, where reality warped under the influence of DMT. The shadows weren’t just shadows—they were entities, dark and seductive, drawing me closer with every step. LSD twisted my perception until nothing felt real, and heroin dulled my senses just enough to keep me trapped in the terror.

Then came the heat, a suffocating fire from within, as if the DNP had turned my body into a furnace. Those shadowy figures became more than just observers—they were lovers, pulling me into their embrace. But their touch was tainted, carrying the threat of something deadly, a disease that felt all too real. I tried to fight it, but the nightmare looped, dragging me deeper into its dark, suffocating grip, making me relive every terrifying moment as if escape was just an illusion.

The other night I dreamed I was leading a squad of mercenaries or something through an abandoned and overgrown industrial city, hunting something. Guys had been killed and mutilated by a wild monster. We found what seemed to be its den, and there were blankets, still warm. Nearby we captured a little girl, maybe 8 or 9. She really put up a fight. Eventually she said she was hiding from the monster too, and the den was her shelter.

But then one of the guys found a leather roll containing dried and still fresh human scalps of the dead guys. Turns out the little girl had been killing them and mutilating their bodies so it looked like a bear or whatever. The dudes wanted to kill her, but she said she only kept the scalps of the most honourable warriors, so I was able to talk them down.

Later, alone, she confessed to me that was a lie, she actually scalped them to shame them further, even in death. What a fucking brat.

There's one instance of nightmare from my childhood that is too vivid to forget. It involves my failed attempts of running away from a monster at school, and then in the neighbourhood, and then at home, and then get myself in an asylum but it still waits for me on the ceiling.

Then I realized I was actually too focused in reading a novel about running away from the monster ... that's a relief. I closed the book and open the door ... and saw the monster is waiting for me.

Then I realized I was actually in the dream.

But no, it's not recurrent, and never again thank you very much.

Dreams, yes. Nightmares, no.

Some of my nightmares would make awesome mystery movies. I'd totally "rewatch" them.

Rewatch, yeah almost all of them. Relive? Not so much

I can think of one nightmare. It evolved into a mgs/silent hill mashup of a sort with me sneaking around corridors and hearing slow footsteps dragging something.

When it got to the sound being right behind a door, I somehow noped out and woke up. In hindsight it might have been interesting to see more.

Most others, no way in hell.

My nightmares usually involve running from the police, gangs, mobs, trained killers; experiencing brutal torture along with my partner, being stabbed, shot, losing body parts, dying... and my mind can resume dreams after some amount of time. Dream X on Wednesday, two weeks later on Friday it's like my brain unpaused that one dream and oh god oh fuck.

So in short fuck no.

It wouldn't be a nightmare if it was something I looked forward to. But I tend to prefer them over dreams I have reminding me of the people and things I lost and miss.

Used to have this reoccurring nightmare about once a year where my parents had to put me through this "rite of passage" where they would lock me in a cabin for like a week. At night a beast or entity? that looked dog like, but bigger, made of just muscles with sharp teeth would show up in the cabin and I'd have to survive.

The first time I was with an old man who saved me and showed me the ropes. The second time the old man refused to help me but was there to help me and give me hints. The third time it was just me and I had to make it all on my own. Really interesting series honestly.

I've had creepypasta-esque nightmares and I love those. I've also had dreams that would have probably been legitimately traumatizing if I had a better memory.

None that I can recall. Not that I can really recall any of them anyway. All the ones I remember having were ones that woke me up in the middle of the night. Not really ones that you'd want to revisit.

Of course, that's what makes it a nightmare IMO.

No but, I have a dream machine..

Yea, there was a cool old abandoned church I was walking through and where the pulpit would be was a large mass of floating, writhing black tentacles glowing red kind of Princess Mononoke like, and they began pulling me in and then wrapping around me and suffocating me.

I was practicing lucid dreaming at the time though, and i had recently become skilled enough that I was able to sort of stop myself from being suffocated and emerge out of the monstrous energy and dismiss it while staying inside the dream.

and that experience was so cool I actually did will myself back into the nightmare a couple times just to "defeat the evil" again in subsequent dreams.

I have a lot of dreams that, from describing the "content" of the dream, would sound like a nightmare, but without a lot of negative emotions associated. (Not to say I don't have challenging dreams sometimes too.) But, I think it was last night that I dreamt I was in college (but not at my real-life alma mater) and there was a mass shooting on campus in the building I was in and I was trying to escape from the shooter. But I didn't wake up terrified or anything. I do remember trying to convince dream characters of the seriousness of the situation and having limited success.

A lot of these dreams that seem "nightmarish" from the content are also very enjoyable. The one I described above was... kinda take it or leave it material. Not particularly enjoyable or distressing.

Once I dreamed that I dreamed, and didn't like the dream, so I decided to wake up, then I woke up, but I was still in the dream. Then I was confused, because now I wasn't sure if I was still dreaming, and somehow I found out that I was...

Then I really woke up, and I wanted to continue dreaming just for clarifying the whole mess :)

Absolutely. I've had two episodes of sleep paralysis in my life that we're accompanied by some intense dream imagery and audio hallucination. And I've had one extremely potent nightmare that easily could have otherwise passed as an alien abduction incident.

Those three were a rush to fully awake from. The abduction one woke me from a dead sleep as they were inserting an instrument into my navel. 10/10 would do again.

I rarely dream. But when I do, it's deleted from my RAM about 10 seconds after I wake up.

Super fun to wake up sweating buckets absolutely pants shitting terrified and by the time it registers where you are and that you're safe it's completely gone.

Definitely. There was this lucid dream where I was excited that I actually realized I was dreaming and could experience it conciously. There were certain things I couldn't do and eventually people in the dream revealed I couldn't control those things because I wasn't actually dreaming, but was dead.

It was a good twist. Freaked me out and I couldn't wake up so I figured it was true. Of course the double twist was that I wasn't actually dead and was just in fact dreaming, but it was a good ride. It's got kind of a lynchian vibe that I'd be down to just watch it as a movie.