(Male) I dreamed last night that I was waiting in line at the bank. As I neared the tellers I realized that I was carrying a handgun with me. I was flooded with a sense of embarrassment and fear but I figured the best way out of the situation was to rob the bank. So I stepped out of line and yelled at everyone to get down on the ground. I waved the gun around a little bit to show everyone just how serious I was. And I dropped the gun. I didn’t just drop it but rather I let go of it and watched it go sliding along the floor ending up probably twenty feet away from me.

…As I neared the tellers I realized that I was carrying a handgun with me…

There was a painfully awkward moment when the crowd at the bank wasn’t sure what I was going to do and when I myself didn’t know what I was going to do. At just about that point I saw someone I knew in line. He was extremely angry at me. I guess we had gone to the bank together that day with the idea of robbing the bank but that now I was messing things up, he didn’t know if he could save the situation. I felt so clumsy and alone. There were guards and security cameras. I was going to jail forever.

(Male, 30’s) This dream was very convoluted and crazy and parts were just so very sick and tawdry. I kept trying to do the smart thing but the situation just kept getting worse and worse. I was a college student and I was trying to fit in. There was a group that seemed very popular, not quite as organized as a fraternity, but perhaps more like a secret society. It was made up of at least 40 athletic guys and one very attractive brunette girl. They let me hang out with them for awhile but then, for no apparent reason, a half dozen of the guys beat me up, knocked me to the ground and kicked me until I couldn’t move. I think one of the guys peed on me when I was lying there nearly unconscious. They laughed and said it was part of the “hazing.” I wish the nightmare ended there but it just continued on and on.

…this secret society of thugs would do something simply horrible if they had that key…

I knew that this secret society of thugs would do something simply horrible if they had that key so I asked them for time to think about it. I used that time to gather together my family, my mother and father and our pet dogs (?) and get us all into a station wagon so we could flee. I didn’t know exactly how powerful this society was but I had reason to believe they could hurt my parents and it would be best if we just re-located to someplace far far away. This station wagon was a mess by the way, it barely ran at all. It was gray and dingy on the outside. I drove it down these heavily rutted gravel roads because I was trying to avoid the major roads that might have been watched.

As I turned a corner, the car flipped over into a ditch. There was another vehicle there, conveniently, a small red car. We piled out of the station wagon and started carrying our luggage over to the red car. It was clear we were going to have to leave many things behind, probably most of our things. Just then a big truck appeared with a dozen or so of the society thugs. I stopped loading up the car we were using to escape. I turned to face the truck as it pulled up and right then, I woke up.

(Female, 20’s) - Maybe this isn’t exactly a nightmare but it was pretty exciting and I remember it vividly to this day even though I had this dream about ten years ago.

…There were many men, a whole carload full of them, all with guns…

I was riding in the car with my mother and we pulled into a convenience store to get some gas. We were getting ready to pump some gas when we looked over at the store and saw it was being robbed. There were many men, a whole carload full of them, all with guns. At that moment they saw us and started to pour out of the store. They ran right toward us. My mom said “Get back in the car.” But even when I got in the car, I wasn’t safe. The robbers started firing their guns at us. The bullets shot right through the windows and the doors of the car. My mother said “Get down” while she started the car and pulled out of the gas station. It was just like she was an action adventure heroine!

(Male) I was a movie star and I was researching a new role. Since I was going to portray a policeman, I was riding along with some policemen in their car, just out on patrol. A call came in suddenly that there was an armed robbery taking place just a couple blocks from where we were. We had to respond. We pulled up in front of the bank along with several other police cars. There were apparently three robbers and they had taken some hostages. It was going to turn ugly. But then without thinking or asking anyone I started walking toward the bank. I was already in costume, that is, I was wearing a policeman’s uniform and I had a gun in my holster, a real gun with real bullets for some reason. Without asking anyone, I walked into the bank and said something like “Hey cut that out.” Then I smiled broadly with my movie star smile. The robbers recognized me immediately and let down their guard. They said “Hey it’s {whatever my name was} What are you doing here?” And I say “I’m doing research for my new movie and I saw some guys in here who might be fans of mine.”

And then I took my gun out of my holster and shot each of the men square in the chest - one, two, three - and then I shot them each again - one, two, three. The expression on their faces didn’t change. They didn’t understand what had happened. They just sort of melted down to the floor, dead. Situation resolved. When I woke up I was horrified at how cold and callous I had been, that’s the part that was a nightmare.

(Female) This dream is probably as much embarrassing as it is scary. It involves a man I work with who is deceitful and underhanded but in a bumbling, doltish way. For instance, he recently stole a set of computer speakers from a co-worker’s office and tried to pretend he hadn’t, even though they were sitting right on his desk, connected to his computer. When questioned about it, the speakers appeared back in the co-worker’s office, unceremoniously dumped in a pile and this guy acted like nothing had happened.

Regardless, in the dream this jerk is trying to be a serious bad guy. He’s got a handgun and he’s robbing a whole room of people. It felt a bit like a “Great Train Robbery” set up. But he was sort of bungling this robbery too. I thought to myself I’d be damned if I’d let this idiot have my wedding ring so I slipped it off and buried it deeply in my bra. When he came around to me, I told him I had nothing. He leered in “Give me your JEWELS” like he was a bit more trying to be a pirate now rather than a train robber. And I showed him my fingers and there there were no rings on them. So he pats me down, quite roughly and thoroughly in fact but he is still too stupid to find my ring.

(Male, 40’s) A friend of mine was performing in a play that was being staged in someone’s living room. There must have been 30 people in the “audience” sitting on couchs or chairs or standing. I was in the kitchen and was able to watch the play through the doorway. I started making myself some tea when the front door is kicked in and probably two dozen policemen pour in all dressed in riot gear. They forcibly subdue everyone, and I mean everyone, from the people sitting on chairs to the actors on stage. I drop to the floor and roll myself under a shelf full of cookbooks to a place where it’s highly unlikely anyone would see me. I can overhear what’s going on and watch a bit of it. Once about half the people have been dragged out of the room, bleeding and unconscious and in shackles, there’s a team of policemen who begin scouring the house looking for something.

“It’s in the couch.” I hear one of the policemen tell the sergeant. “But it seems to be wrapped in animal hides.” The police start tearing the couch apart and sure enough there appears to be a large trunk, like a foot locker that is wrapped in what looks like the pelts from male lions, complete with shaggy manes. But these pelts also still have their paws and claws.

There are six of these skins draped over the box. The police suspect a trap and they are right to. What appear to be skins are actually werewolves that have been hibernating during the journey while the package was being shipped. Now they are exposed to light and the noise and commotion of the police action, the top werewolf comes to life. It growls and actually inflates itself with breath while it snarls and howls. As the police begin to fire on the werewolf that is fully re-animated, the next werewolf on the pile begins to stir. It is clear that the police weapons are going to be totally ineffective as they begin to be torn apart by the monsters that rise from the pile, one after another. The lucky audience members were the ones who were beaten and dragged off first. I cowered in my hiding spot, hoping that the werewolves would be too busy with the police and with securing their cargo and wouldn’t pay attention to me.