Nightmare #79 – Hungry Ghosts

(Male) I’m embarrassed to try to explain this nightmare since it sounds so wiggy but I have to tell you that I woke up in the middle of the night too scared even to turn on the light! I was at my Grandmother’s house which still had to be straightened up and sold, which is a little strange because she’s been dead for 20 years now. The house was never in the greatest part of town and in the dream at least, it seems to have gotten worse over time.

…It was near midnight and we were also waiting for a friend of mine to arrive…

It was near midnight and we were also waiting for a friend of mine to arrive. He was passing through town and needed a place to stay just for that night. We wanted to keep the front door open so we could see him when he arrived but we didn’t want to leave it all unlocked. Around midnight a car pulled up across the street and this very tall man gets out and walks up to my grandmother’s porch. I say “Craig, I’m so glad you found the place. Sorry I forgot to leave the porch light on. Come on in.” The man enters and said something about “We knew right where to look.” I noticed that the car across the street hadn’t pulled away yet.

But that all became of second importance when I remembered that one of the reasons we hadn’t cleaned out my Grandmother’s house was that it was haunted. I didn’t want the ghost to embarrass me in front of my friend so I started to say a prayer — in my dream, the ghost was very pious and obeyed God — and in the middle of my prayer, the ghost started talking to me, trying to interrupt me. It even told me its name which it just said over and over and over (and which I have forgotten now that I’m awake.) I became immediately afraid for a daughter I had in the dream. I actually have a daughter who is much older but in the dream my daughter was only 9 years old and peacefully asleep in an upstairs room. I was afraid that the ghost would hurt her even more than I was afraid that the man I had let in the house wasn’t my friend at all. When I got upstairs, I discovered the place crawling with creatures who liked to eat human flesh. They were very calm about it. They strolled through the rooms looking at the furnishing like they were window shopping at a store while they casually talked about their favorite ways to cook people. They didn’t seem to recognize that I was a human yet so I thought I could slip amongst them and get to my daughter’s room. But as I passed close enough to a pair of them, the squirted some kind of poison in my mouth. As I collapsed, I heard them say “And you’re the kind we like to roast.”

Nightmare #81 – Ghost + Cat

I was in someone else’s house, a bright modern style house, on the second story in the bedroom the owners were letting me stay in. I became aware of the fact, somehow, that there was ghost lurking behind this small, gold painted door in the wall. The door was probably no bigger than 9″ or 10″ but it opened up into another full-sized room. I couldn’t resist opening the door and taking a peek. That’s how I learned both about the ghost and the full-sized room. I quickly closed the door and said some kind of prayer that God would keep the ghost on the other side of the door. It made perfect sense in the dream.

But then I realized that the family’s housecat had snuck into the room while I had the door open. I had to come up with a way to open the door, lure the cat out and keep the ghost locked away. At that point the dream became less a nightmare and more an anxiety dream, one verging on slapstick.

Nightmare #65 – Daylight Ghosts?

At this point, I’m hoping this was a dream. I was laying down for a nap the other day in a relatively bright bedroom. I’d pulled the window shades but there was still plenty of sunlight coming through. But I saw a shadow — or something — walk in front of a window. I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was a cloud in front of the sun or something.

But then I lied down for my nap, stretched out and tried to sleep. Just as I was falling asleep, it felt like someone had sat down on the edge of the bed where my feet were. The mattress compressed underneath my feet, like it was sitting on my feet. I tried moving my feet and I couldn’t.

And yes of course I’m familiar with the whole waking dream phenomenon, where there’s dream paralysis and everything. But I wasn’t entirely paralyzed, just my feet. And I wasn’t really scared; I just didn’t think that I was alone.

And the kicker was when I woke up. I would have swore I heard someone in the next room so I called out. No one replied but I distinctly heard the sound of papers shuffling. I don’t believe in ghosts so I’m ready to chalk all this stuff up as dream-related. They weren’t really scary so I hesitate to call them nightmares. Maybe just ghost dreams. Very indistinct.

Nightmare #12 – A Ghost Chase, a Silent Scream

(Male, early thirties) This recurrent dream has changed somewhat over the years. The first time I must have been just starting high school. A ghostly old woman appeared floating outside my second story bedroom window pushing a ghostly baby carriage. She looked in the window at me and said, “I’ve come for you.”

I ran away from her and she followed, screaming at me. In this dream, it’s this chase that is repeated. She chases me through houses that I’ve never lived in, decrepit old gothic mansions, filled will scattered debris and coated in dust.

Then at some point, I turned the dream around and I fired a silver gun at the ghostly woman. Now, I’m the one who’s chasing her. All the while I’m trying to scream at her but even though I open my mouth wide and push with all my might, no sound comes out.

Nightmare #2 – Home, Wrecked

(Male, 40′s) The setting is the house where I grew up, in the late twilight when nothing has much color other than dark steel. Familiar belongings from my parent’s house were strewn around the yard, broken. My dad’s reel-to-reel tape deck was in the driveway, its tape heads ripped out. I picked it up and tried to see if I could figure out how to fix it.

….The knob would not turn. The door was locked and what’s more, I realized, that door no longer existed….

Then I began to fear for my parents, afraid of what must have happened inside the house. I went to the screen porch around back and tried the door. The knob would not turn. The door was locked and what’s more, I realized, that door no longer existed. The whole screen porch had blown down in a storm 20 years ago and was replaced by an addition. In that time, my dad had died and my mother moved away from this house. I didn’t know why I was there or when these events were occurring.

I went next door to see if the people who used to live there still did. The light inside that house was pale orange, the only color in the whole dream. I tried to knock on their door but found my hands had no substance. The daughter who lived there when I was in junior high was there, dressed for bed. She looked out the window and when she saw me, she screamed.