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Nightmares

Nightmare# 299 – Bad, Bad Roommates

(Male, 20’s) I had this nightmare about an hour after I fell asleep and when I woke up, I seriously considered just not going back to sleep.

I was in a house with a half dozen other guys. It felt like we were in college and we had rented a house together. What a weird house though. It was like a hollowed out tower but a loft had been built inside that stretched up three full stories. The top floor had a floor entirely covered with mattresses, so I guess that was the bed room.

Most of the guys seemed friendly but shallow, always smiling but just skin deep. I didn’t know if they really were dumb or if there was something else underneath that silly happiness.

One of the guys was very disturbed and very disturbing. He gave off “serial killer vibes.” Tall, wore a wide brimmed hat and a black raincoat that always seemed to be wet. On one occasion he was actually dragging in a plastic bag that looked like it could have contained a dead human body.

I accidentally crossed his path. I was using my computer and I was watching a movie / playing a game about a serial killer. It was a horror survival thing. But then I realized that I had somehow hacked into his computer and I was actually seeing what was live on his screen. And worse, he knew I had seen him. He used the camera in my computer to spy on me all the time.

I was freaked. He was coming for me but I figured I’d be safest if I climbed up to the top of lofts, to the bedroom floor. There were two other guys there. They told me not to worry, that the crazy serial killer guy never climbed up the ladder. We started wrestling for some reason and then I discovered gradually that I couldn’t move my arms or legs. One of the guys laughed, “That’s because we drugged you.” I started to foam at the mouth. “We’re going to rape you and then give you to the serial killer so he can chop up the evidence.” I fell over face down on the mattress, paralyzed, my mouth filled with foam. I was unable to scream but eventually I shook myself hard enough that I woke up.

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Nightmares

Nightmare #294 – Again, bloodier

(Female, 40’s) This nightmare was obviously modeled on *Groundhog Day* or *Run Lola Run*, but scarier and bloodier.

I was sitting in a room with my husband and 4 other people. The other people were not real people from my life, just dream characters. We were sitting and talking at a round dining room table. Then there was a knock on the door. One of the men stood up and answered the door. A tall man dressed in a black officer’s uniform came in the room holding a gun and shot him dead, immediately, for no reason we could see. Then the man with the gun herded us out of the room and down the hallway, where there were more soldiers. A woman from our group tried to run away, and she was shot and so was another man. There was a short old man who started laughing then and said to the officer, “See, I told you it would work!” I realized he was on their side. “We don’t need you any more,” said the officer as he pulled the trigger and shot the old man. They led my husband and I out into the forest, and I knew any minute we were both going to die.

Then I was back at the first scene of the dream again, everyone alive and sitting at the table talking. I looked around, worried and nervous, but the other people in the room continued their conversation. I said, “Something terrible is going to happen.” “Why would you say that?” my husband asked. Everyone looked at me, curious. Then I realized that I was the only one of the group who knew what was going to happen next. “Someone is going to knock on the door. Don’t answer it!” But when we heard the knock on the door, the man stood up and answered it anyway– just like before. And was shot by the officer. And the action went on.

Then we were back at the first scene again. This time I knew I had to be more assertive. “If you don’t do what I say, everyone will be dead in 10 minutes.” I pointed at one of the men. “Go lock the door. Don’t let anyone in!” “She’s crazy,” said the old man. “Don’t listen to her!” I told my husband and another guy to hold him down. There was a knock at the door, and the old man kept shouting, “They are in here! They locked the door!” Shots were fired at the door knob and the officer strode into the room…

Then the first scene again. I stood up. I said to my husband, “He’s a spy! Knock him out!” pointing at the old man. I don’t know why, but he believed me. He stood up and grabbed a chair and hit the old man over the head, knocking him out. “Turn off the lights and hide!” But still the knock and the shots and the man with the gun…

The first scene over again. But this time I pointed to the knocked out old man and said to my husband, “Kill him now.” My husband and another man beat in the old man’s head with chair legs. Thud, thud, crunch, crunch. “Everyone grab a chair leg. Arm yourselves. Smash the light bulb. They will be here any minute.” We waited in the dark for them, armed and ready.

One of these times we were going to get it right and survive.

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Nightmares

Nightmare #337 – Too Realistic Hell House

(Male) In this dream, I went with my buddies to one of those “Hell House” productions. They’re basically a haunted house done by a church so everything is heavily slanted toward religion. Compared to some I’ve heard about the one in the nightmare was pretty effective.

One by one, we were let into the first floor of this small factory. Ruined equipment. Strange stains on the walls. Just a bizarre vibe. We all sort of mulled around. On the floor, there were painted outlines like where corpses had been removed by the police. They were everywhere. Some of the lines were strong, like the death was recent and others were faded and scratched out like they’d happened a long time ago. On the walls of the factory, written in brown paint – I don’t know if they were going for dried blood or what – were ominous phrases like: Here another one died without the love of christ in their heart. It was interesting but things got a little dull.

Until all of a sudden a woman screams and collapses. All hell breaks loose. There’s panic and the real sense that nobody really knows what should happen next. A crowd forms. The woman isn’t just dead; she’s fallen apart. Her torso has become separated from her head and arms and legs. Someone in the crowd gathers up her parts and puts them on a gurney after someone else paints her outline on the floor. At that point I realize that this is all part of the show.

One by one, we’re each escorted out of the factory. I ask why and the person says Don’t you want to know what happened to her? Sure why not. It’s all part of the show, right? But as soon as I step out of the room, I’m grabbed roughly and tossed in some kind of a restraint. It’s pitch black, well-padded and there is plenty of air which means someone has really thought this through. It’s scary but not panic inducing. I scream as loud as I can and it’s entirely muffled. I start singing “I wanna be sedated” at the top of my lungs partially for the benefit of my friends who must be right beside me but the novelty runs out when I realize they probably can’t hear me.

I’m being moved somewhere, very quickly and the next thing I know, I’m lying on my back in a hospital room. And this place is creepy as shit. Everything is gray and black. There is some kind of veiled window high up which made me think I was in a basement. The room is done up like a WWI hospital. I’m the only patient. There is absolutely no way that this scene is part of the cheesy hell house I was just in. Standing next to me is a nurse – or at least what I take to be a nurse. She’s got a fright wig mass of hair. She’s long and gaunt and her face is so emaciated it might as well be a skull.

She leans in close to tuck the covers over me and says “I’m sorry, dear. You didn’t make it.”

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Nightmares

Nightmare #290 – Frozen Sleep

(Male, 50’s) I had the absolute WORST night of sleep last night. I’d wake up every hour or so, look at the clock then settle back to sleep. One time when I woke up but not fully, I realized I was actually sleeping in the middle of a field. There was the stubble of weeds all brown and brittle because it was late autumn. I tried to move but I found I was half buried in the ground! Then I realized that instead of blankets I was covered in about 4 inches of snow. It was light, powdery snow but it was bitterly cold.

I reached over behind me and pulled on what I thought was a blanket. But it was a suitcase. It was open and the lid fit right over top of me which gave me a little protection from the cold gray wind. All of a sudden my mother was there, even though she’s been dead for a year. She put her hand on my shoulder.

“It’s OK, dear. Lie back down. Get some rest.” she said.

What I thought was a suitcase was actually a coffin. I must have been dead. But instead of fighting it, I settled back to sleep, more of that crummy sleep.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #282 – Arms Full of Mom

“…the weirdest part was that she didn’t have any legs. I had to carry her…”

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Nightmares

Nightmare #279 – Washday Blues

“…It was a dream about my own utter annihilation…”

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Nightmares

Nightmare #278 – Murdered Friends

“…The videotape was the true nightmare…”

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Nightmares

Nightmare #277 – Of Dogs and the Dead

“…I looked at the wallet of a soldier I had killed earlier in the day. I was an assassin! …”

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"What We Fear" Other Haunts This Just In

This Just In – Shrunken Head UP FOR AUCTION!

I’ve heard it said that two heads are better than one but honestly who wants to drag around yet another hairy brain-cage the size of a football?

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"What We Fear" Other Haunts This Just In

This Just In – Murder

“…we humans have been shooting each other in the back for a long time…”

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Nightmares

Nightmare #272 – Things Went Boom

“…Everyone you know is going to hate you now and you are probably going to hate yourself…”

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Movies Other Haunts

Other Haunts – Crotch Rocket to the After World

I’ve often wondered if my 1990 Electra Glide will take me to the grave but didn’t think it might be the actual vessel used. Shows how little imagination I sometimes have.

This youngun’ – shot dead while young enough to leave a beautiful corpse – was allegedly embalmed and mounted on his favorite motorcycle to lie in state. Even if this is a hoax, it’s a pretty fun one, eh?

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Nightmares

Nightmare #266 – Dark Wake

“…They had brought blankets and pillows and made beds in the long hard pews…”

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Nightmares

Nightmare #262 – Execution of the Empress

“…A death threat had been made on the Empress’ life and these three gentlemen had gone grave ends to protect her…”

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"What We Fear" Art

Artwork – Mansion of Death

…notice how the house actually BLEEDS…

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Nightmares

Nightmare #228 – Dead Horses

(Male, 40’s) I have this enduring fear that I’ll end up living on the street in a damp cardboard box and this nightmare for some reason called that up.

“…the carriage itself was jet black as were all four of the horses…”

I was downtown in a big city. It had a pretty thriving city life, though things were very grimy and a big run-down. Like there were two extremely tall wooden houses built with timbers probably a foot or two thick and covered with dirty yellow clapboards. These houses must have been ten stories tall and then BETWEEN them, that is, over the street another house had been built that was supported by being wedged between them. It was a busy street and the supports to the middle house were obviously falling apart. It was just a matter of time until it fell.

I was dressed like a street person. I’m not sure that I actually wasn’t a street person. In one hand I held a large clear plastic bag with ice water and a couple dozen cans of soda. I guess I made my living selling soda to the commuters as they came out of the buildings to evacuate the city and go home to the suburbs.

There was a crowd of people. I had made enough for the day to cover expenses and get a meal so I was about ready to sell the leftovers to this other street person who had the same gig. Then a loud clackitty clanging sound came up the street. It was a horse drawn carriage. It looked like a couple had just gotten married, because the woman was dressed in a frilly white dress and the guy was in a tux complete with a tall top hat. Except the carriage itself was jet black as were all four of the horses.

And the strangest part was that three of the four horses were dead. They hung lifeless in their harnesses while the fourth and final horse dragged the whole carriage along. The people in the carriage acted as if it was nothing to have three dead horses attached to the carriage, perhaps as long as things kept moving along they didn’t really care about how it happened.

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Other Haunts

Other Haunts – Cremation Urns that Resemble the Deceased

personalurn

This clever marketer produces cremation urns that actually resemble the deceased. Seems to me, you could keep it on the same shelf as the honey jar that looks like a beehive or a cookie jar that looks like a chocolate chip cookie.

Cremation Urns that Resemble the Deceased

( http://www.cremationsolutions.com/Personal-Urns-c109.html )

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Nightmares

Nightmare #215 – The Death Hospital

(Male, 30’s) Only part of the dream was a nightmare but it occurred at the end of a longer dream that was just disorienting, probably not exactly a nightmare, where I was wandering lost through a college campus trying to find something to eat. I knew there was an excellent restaurant around someplace but when I found it, it was closed for some holiday. I looked in the windows. There were huge steaming trays of food. They were prepared for a celebration and I wasn’t included or invited.

“… It was extremely contagious but no one was exactly certain how it spread…”

The nightmare stared when I stumbled into a hospital. It looked like any of the other college buildings – dark red brick with ornate stone insets. The hospital was dedicated to treat people suffering from some very dangerous illness. It was extremely contagious but no one was exactly certain how it spread. I was on the nursery ward. There were only a couple real nurses, people who knew what they were doing but there were several volunteers who more or less just kept getting in the way. I was a volunteer. The first task was to carry these infants in and place them on these high folding beds where the intake nurse could assess them. The intake nurse was very beautiful but very mean and she looked sort of like someone I work with. She yelled at everyone constantly.

None of these babies looked very good: they were waxy, barely breathing if they were breathing at all. They were all tightly wrapped in white blankets. One of the babies I carried in was black and I don’t mean African-American. The child was black like it was carved out of black wax. The intake nurse started yelling at me. Wasn’t it obvious that this child was dead? And worse, wasn’t it obvious that this child was a fruiting body for the infection. She started scrubbing down the area, though it’s strange to call it that because nothing she did involved water. The intake nurse wrapped the baby in the blankets. Then she used a flat thin piece of metal to scrape the top layer of wax off the floor. She yelled for assistance from another nurse. The other nurse was extremely ugly in the sense that she was physically deformed. She was bald and her face had huge round growths on the forehead, some the size of a softball. But she was patient with the intake nurse’s abuse and understanding with the volunteers who were all doing as best as we could, as best as we knew how. As soon as this second nurse was in the room, the intake nurse scooped up the dead infected baby and started to leave the room. But I seemed to be standing exactly in the place where she wanted to move. So she kept yelling at me and swearing over and over again, “Get out of the way! Get out of the way!”

It was possible that we all had been infected and would die

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Nightmares

Nightmare #213 – Crime Gone Wrong

“…The other men were dead, shot in the head…”

(Male, 40’s) Last night I dreamed: I was in some caper with two friends and an out of towner. We stole some money, or played a harmless but elaborate trick on someone I’m not sure; the kind of “crime” that gets you on Jay Leno instead of cell block 4. Anyway, the one new guy- our hired schemer was funny, and charming and after the whole game was played and we met back at the agreed place, we shook hands to make our congenial get away, he reached into his coat and shot the other two grinning guys, and he shot me twice in the back. I felt it. It was shocking, like being hit hard with a phone book with a nail in it. I fell face down. He stepped over to me and set the gun down in my palm, so I could finish myself off. With his finger he tapped the back of my head, “Just here, can you do it?” I just nodded. I heard his footsteps move down the hallway. I was in pain, but I rolled over, and sat up. The other men were dead, shot in the head. I took the gun and wondered if I would screw it up. The gun was a tiny silver .22 with red trim, like something you’d see in an arcade. I could feel my insides, damaged, no blood yet, but a terrible soreness, and it was getting hard to breathe.

I went out to my car and drove to a friend’s house. Her name is Dawn. She was outside busy on her cell phone, so I had to wait till she got off to tell her I was probably going to die. I felt happy, and sleepy. I began coughing up what looked like red oatmeal, so think I couldn’t talk afterwards. She hung up, and ran off to a nearby hospital to see if anyone could come get me. I sat on the dark street, and lay down on my side, then rolled over on my face- this is how I sleep at night and felt the cool wet blacktop. The pain was less, but the weakness overcame me. I could people yelling and footsteps, but it all seemed very far away

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #212 – An Old School Tragedy

“…I see something small hanging on a chain in the opening, dark against the sky…”

(Male, 30’s) It is the end-of-the-day school assembly, a routine gathering of students in the gym bleachers. Here we chat and laugh and have the energy of a group of young people who’ve been told to be patient. We are gathered in self imposed groups; athletes, clowns, the ill-tempered. I’m well liked, others are turned toward me, wanting to talk, tell me a joke, listen to mine, or look at drawings I’ve made in the spiral notebook, where biology notes should be. Over the PA system, music is heard. The song is Bernadette by the Four Tops. I can’t seem to find one of my classmates.

A bell rings, and we all stand as in church and wait until the row of kids before us files out before us. The way out of the gymnasium, and out of the school altogether, is a ladder made of mud and sticks, a kind of crude hillside with steps carved into it. You climb up and out through a small hole, a burrowing animal would make. I get to the ladder and begin my climb, I see something small hanging on a chain in the opening, dark against the sky. It’s been quickly, hung there, it’s a book, taped open to a certain page, so you must see it, even read it before leaving the school. I see outside on the lawn, a splitting of the student body- with boys going off right, the girls stepping left and waiting in a long line. I move in line with the girls to see what they’re doing, but no one speaks. It is the 18th Century. The girls do not speak. All are dressed in drab, homespun dresses, with green felt scarves, a kind of puritan school uniform. We are all in a line that leads to the doors to the tower. It is a severe structure, dark, mottled with years of weather, with tin gray shutters at the top and a long spiked steeple, but otherwise featureless. There is no church connected to it. We enter and ascend a long ladder to climb to the top, up and out one of the open windows, a look out perch, where one can see miles of spring green trees and the harbor beyond. I’m suddenly next in line. The wind up here is strong. In front of me is a girl I know. She’s pretty, about 8, much younger and is greeted by a sobbing woman who is at the top. The woman is a servant of mealtimes at the school. She is horrified to see her daughter is next in line for this moment. It is known that we are forbidden to speak during such trials. The girl quietly takes the rope and a short wooden sled that’s given to her. She ties it around her waist. How is it that such young hands are to affix a thick rope in a safe manner, secure enough to allow her to climb down outside the steeple in such a wind? The knot she makes is absurd, like a pretzel. She pulls back from the reaching hands and sobbing face of her mother safe within the tower’s shadow. The girl climbs over a short railing and begins her spider like descent. The knot immediately fails and the girl and the board both fall from the great height to the church yard below. There is no scream. Just the rope dangling in the wind. I pull it back in, crying and hand it back to the woman who numbly readies it for the next girl in line.

What happened was this; a young student, angered by something said to him during the day by a girl, hung the book of verses in the doorway, open to a certain passage; a challenge, a proverbial task designed to prove one is under, and worthy of the hand of Grace. In our time, in our world any open page from this book, must be read, understood and acted upon immediately.

It is the 18th Century’s version of the Columbine massacre.