Nightmares? Fear of Sleep?
 

I just lisetened to a erally interesting and odd episode of "This American Life" on NPR and it was all about people who fear sleep.

One complained about being scarred by having walked in on friend's parents having sex (and not understanding it) while attending a sleepover. Another confronted his own father about letting him watch THE SHINING with him late at night when he was six years old.

***SIDE NOTE***
Personally I don't know why either of these things would upset any but the most repressed personalities. My own children know about sex and death and the difference between fantasy & reality and they love watching horror movies with me with no ill effects.
******

I tend to have nightmares maybe a half dozen times a year, but being a writer, I appreciate them (after the fact) as a wonderful tool, so I wouldn't consider a problem.

How about all of you?

Nightmares?

Fear of sleep?

Other than the occasional once-in-a-full-moon one about big, hairy raging beasts ripping human flesh apart and loud howling...

...none.

I sleep like a log, and through bombs exploding. Maybe its because my whole day makes me tired as heck by the time I hit the pillows.

Most of the nights its a long, dreamless sleep.
And most of the days are nightmares...

I smoke too much and never remember my dreams, good or bad. *shrug*

I have awful and VERY vivid nightmares regularly, and no I don't sleep well. I stay tired, but kind of used to it, I just don't like to sleep much, though I am a little better about it now. Usually I sleep better for an hour or two nap than I do at night, and often during the night I find myself waking up every hour or so. I talk and cry in my sleep, sometimes scream (and the first time this happened while living here, it completely freaked my husband out...LOL...because apparently I was babbling pretty incoherently and he couldn't actually tell it was ME for a minute).

I write as well, and it has helped with a story or two....but I can't say I appreciate them. This has been REALLY bad for me at times. And I'm pretty sure why I have them and it isn't because of horror movies :p, but can't really see that I can do anything about it. And I tend to shy away from taking sleeping pills.

I have nightmares all the time. Right before going to sleep, I always get these terrifying images that I have to fight off to get to sleep completely. Used to have Night Terrors too, but not so much anymore.

The acid reflux related choking thing is something I'm constantly concerned about...I mean it doesn't stop me sleeping, but I just know it'll happen again at some point.

i cant consider my dreams to be nightmares ... even when they are 'scary' i think they are like movies - pretty cool.

i did go through a bout of fearing sleep a while back ... i was getting acid in my throat - plus i was going through the 'dealing with mortality' thing ...


but since i'bve gone back to playing volleyball - getting back in shape - i'm to damn exhausted and distracted to do anything other than sleep like a rock recently.

Nightmares aren't that bad. Night terrors are worse... for me anyway, when I know I'm dreaming and there's nothing specific or identifiable I'm scared of, but an intense sensation of fear that something intelligent and malignant is near me, something amorphous and without form but somehow real.

Well, those and the zuni doll from trilogy of terror. That thing fucked me up for life.

Hey Kemal
http://www.yameen-shmal.com/wp-conte...-zuni-doll.jpg

I had a series of zombie dreams beginning 6 months ago and they became worse and worse.
I had a harder and harder time fighting them off every time.
The last one I had was 3 weeks ago and the zombies finally caught me and ate me.
Haven't had another one since.

My friend told me it wasn't about zombies at all but the way I have completely lost who I was in marriage so now that the zombies ate me, I can have a "rebirth".

Whatever, it sure as shit FELT real having my flesh devoured.
But while all that was going on, I HATED sleeping.

I can't remember the last time I had a nightmare.Hell I can't even remember the last time I had a dream.

I dont have nughtmares at all. I will however spook myself after a good horror movie, I dont know why I do it but I do. lol

you just reminded me my grandma...she used to talks in her sleep too and I can't forget...once she was sleeping & start babbling, I get close to her to hear clearly what she was actually saying and then...suddenly she slapped me!!! and she slapped me hard! Later she told us that in her dream she saw some kids were trying to steal the cattle from the farm & she ran over & caught them one and starts slapping the kid...!:mad:

Anyway, whether in a simple dream or nightmare, sometimes (rarely) I do a funny thing...."to let know others in the dreams/nightmares that it's just a dream or nightmare, nothing to get so worried about..." And then the other characters reacts very strangely...like it seems they begin to feeling quite uncomfortable or hate to be with me...pretty funny experience.:)

I rarely have nightmares or trouble getting to sleep and any trouble I do have isn't out of fear. Usually it's too hot.


Those things you described, Rod wouldn't scare me or anyone I know.

i actually had a dream last night .... i couldnt find my camera bag ... i'd left it somewhere and someone took it ...

now THAT was a nightmare

most of my dreams are simple "frustration with life" dreams. bad traffic, running late for things, arguments with producers, etc

but as of late, my dreams have been really vivid and typically quite funny

I just dreamed that I ran over two squirrels--one bright pink and the other bright purple.

I usually just repeat the same nightmares I had as a kid over and over again. I'm either stuck in a haunted house, being chased around a really old house with lots of secret passage ways. I always get lost, and I grow older in my dream as I get older irl but the scenario stays the same and I'm just as scared as if I were still 10. Most of the time I have to protect my little brother in these dreams too.

Some of the ones I find most disturbing are one where I am in my old church but everything is different and something is very wrong on some profound level. I start out in a Sunday School classroom, when I get the feeling that something isn't right about religion, and I run away through these secret passages to get to the top of the building to confront God about it (cause you know... God is up. This is dream logic) but when I get there I am terrified and always wake up. I've been having this dream as long as I can remember but I know if must have started when I was about 7 and I looked at a picture of Jesus on the wall and asked how we knew he had blonde hair and the like. I got kicked out of Sunday school class more or less for not just believing everything I was fed.

I have other dreams that actually scare me so much, where I am being chased through a winding, confusing sub division. All of a sudden I realize where I am and I cross the street to see this old, run down hotel. It's fenced in with one of those wire fences, and there is an empty pool outside. As I go in, it's like I step into the past. It's the 70s now, and people are in this resort running around and getting ready to play tennis. I'm whisked away to a girls change room to get my bathing suit on but everyone is staring at me and I feel uncomfortable. I remember every detail of this dream. The macrame plant holders, the hems on people's clothing, even colours (and I don't know if you can even dream in colour). It's the mix of the detail, and the fact that I have this dream only when I notice I gain a bit of weight that makes this nightmare so bad.

Anybody else have dreams where you know a particular perfectly innocuous object is the scariest/worst thing on earth for some reason? Like there's a pencil sitting on a table and for some reason it's absolutely horrifying?

never ...


most of my dark dreams are of armageddon .. 3rd world war etc .. in particular there are huge airships hovering overhead.

the airplane crash in Knowing had the same feeling as some of my dreams

Wow.....I haven't hit, or slapped anyone....yet....:o But I have hurt myself on rare occasions.

Anyone else here ever experience sleep paralysis? Happened to me once, and I didn't know anything about it at the time. Scared the hell out of me. Really terrifying.

That happened to me once, when I was around 18. Hasn't happened since then. But, yes, it was terrifying!

I don't normally have nightmares and I have no fear of sleeping. I have strange dreams that cause me to say WTF when I wake up. :D

Once.

Couldnt breathe, couldnt move my hands, couldnt roll over, couldnt yell out...nothing. It was as if an invisible power was holding me dead still.
Felt absolutely terrified.
Then slowly (and thankfully), all sensations returned.

Back in my early twenties I had a dream that I had to pee really bad....and finally found a urinal to relieve myself. Luckily I wasn't sleeping with anybody that night. :o


the perils of beer drinking

I actually had one last night. I don't very often, but it's so exciting to have a nightmare, even though the sweaty wake up call is kinda gross. Last night I dreamed the Freddy Krueger came to kill me every night (which is odd that it was a nightmare, because I was never really creeped out by him, even as a kid). The part that scared me though, was the last 'night' of the dream, I was waiting for him to show up so I could try and fight him off again, and Novakru was there (cool huh). She was really scared that he was going to kill her, and I was trying to calm her down a little, when I thought "Nova wouldn't be scared of something like this!?". I looked at her and called her out, and her eyes glazed over red and she turned into Krueger. And ran at me. Whether I lived or died wasn't really relevant. In retrospect, the part that probably made it a nightmare was the deception. It reminded me a lot of the climax of Dog Soldiers, if you remember that infamous scene.

Ah, I am the woman of your nightmares.
Very Cool:cool:

I know a couple of people that have done that exact same thing :D

Thankfully I haven't done that myself.

Agree! I have experienced this 'sleep paralysis' thing several times and yeah...it's truly frightening, every time it scared the hell out of me! The most terrible thing about it is at first you may not realize that you're sleeping/dreaming...but as soon as you get that, the thing started to get worse as exactly V described...it'll make you feel 'paralyzed' and you can't do anything but pray & hope to get wake soon. A total nightmarish experience.:(

Sleep paralysis is the sensation that was once attributed to a succubus and in contemporary mythology is often attributed to alien visitation or alien abduction.

The feeling of consciosness coupled with fear, paralysis and a sense that a weight is bearing down on your chest as if something or someone is sitting atop your chest. I've experienced this a couple of times and it is quite upsetting.

What causes it? Are you semi concious but still asleep or something?

I thought wet dreams were blamed on the succubus. I had sleep paralysis once, couldn't move and thought a jealous fat ghost sat on my chest and was crushing me. for a couple days I thought I was crazy, then I saw it on TV.

I have nightmares about 3-4 times a week. each nightmare usually spans like 3 or 4 scenarios

last night I dreamed that these killer mutated badgers were killing people all over the city and I knew I was dreaming so I woke up in the middle of the night and went to the living room. my boyfriend was watching the news and I was like "whoa what are you doing up! don't you have to work in like 3 hours? l had the weirdest..." at this point I was rudely interrupted "shh the news is on" the news was talking about recent mutated badger attacks at a grocery store. I was like "no... this was my dream this can't be happening" and he was like "what do you mean your dream, there has always been mutated badgers" I was like "I think I would remember mutated badgers! it was a dream" he then laughed at me. I was just about to get angry when a mutated badger came crashing through the window and ripped into his throat. that is when I woke up for real.

it is akin to a minor seizure. Your corpus collusum, the organ that allows both hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other, misfires. It can be brought about by stress, sleep deprivation, an epileptic seizure or even stimulated artificially... but yes, you are "semi-conscious."

The feeling is that you are awake, but are suffering from an inability to move and a pervasive sense of dread. But the truth is that you aren't quite conscious, you are in a "twilight" state in which your eyes are open and your senses are responding to external stimuli, but your brainwaves resemble those of beta-wave sleep. It is like you are dreaming with your eyes open.

Thanks to jenna & V for brought this topic here and thanks to Sean for this valued info.:) In wikipedia I found elaborately what Sean has just said about it.
I have experienced enough of this freaky state, now want to get rid of it badly.:mad:

I don't think you grow out of them or anything. tons of people get it once, if you get it more I think you will have them for life.

Noooooo....!:eek::confused::(!

The sleep paralysis thing just reminded me of something...I'd actually forgotten, because thankfully it hasn't happened in over a year.
On about 3-4 occasions, not close to eachother or anything, I've woken up blind in one eye. My eye isn't closed, but all I see is black/red colour. When I look at it in the mirror the pupil is super dilated. It lasts about 2 minutes then gradually comes back over the next few minutes.
Tell ya, I don't know what's more fucked up, that or the choking.

I used to get weird temporary blindness in my left eye like that. I used to not sleep much/treat my body well and I blame that.

I've been trying to get at least the minimum recommended at least every night for the past couple of years...I got migraines that fucked with my vision here'n there, but nothing like the complete nothing I got those few times I woke up.
I could understand it if I'd sunk acid or some shit like that...but generally aside from vaping/eating weed I'm pretty healthy.

I'm not sure which eye it was...kind've panics you when you wake up though...

I've also heard it attributed to spirits. When it happened to me, we had a very large cemetery behind our apartment.....I was convinced that a spirit was trying to possess me!

about 20 years ago when i was working shits and not sleeping worth a damn during the day - i woke up a couple of hours after falling asleep and for about a minute i didnt know who i was.

i remember rollong back and forth because i didnt know if i should be getting up or staying in bed - or anything.

that was pretty weird .. probably the weirdest sleep thing i've ever experienced.


i'm sure this will be the norm once i hit my 60's