(Male, 40’s) This nightmare made me sick to my stomach when I was in the dream, when I woke from it and again now when I’m trying to write it down. It’s the worst nightmare I’ve had maybe ever.
It was a sunny afternoon and my wife and I were feeling like taking a ride in the country. One of us said “Let’s stop in on old JH. We haven’t seen him in years.” That part is true. We’ve been friends with JH for years but we only seem to see him every few months at really accidental moments. JH in both the dream and in real life lives out in the country so we though it’d be a fun little drive. In the dream, JH didn’t have a phone so we couldn’t call to let him know we were coming and since it was all so impromptu and carefree, we didn’t really mind if he wasn’t there when we showed up. Besides, we knew that JH’s wife had left him and we thought he might use some company. After a nice ride in the sun and fresh breeze, we pulled down the long gravel driveway to JH’s house which in the dream was really very small, nothing more than a four room shack, water stained and disheveled. We stopped in the driveway and there was an extremely odd feeling about the place, a deathly quiet. My wife didn’t think we should go in.
What we discovered is that JH had just that instant finished a murder spree. He still had a bloody hammer in his hand and his whole arm was drenched in gore. He had killed his youngest son while he was strapped in a high chair, his older son who was probably 3 or 4 and his wheelchair-bound mother. The bloodshed everywhere was unspeakable, nauseating. JH had a dazed look on his face, a numb, dead expression like he wasn’t at home in his head anymore. When we knocked on the screen door, he was just about to take his shotgun and kill himself. He had it all loaded and sitting ready on a cardboard table. He looked at us with total uncomprehension of who we were or what we were doing there. We didn’t know either. The silence was horrifically awkward, an aching, wrenching discomfort. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if he was about to kill us. I didn’t know if I should try to call the police or whether I should just let him kill himself, whether that would just be the easiest thing for everyone concerned.
And it was in that stifled instant of indecision, of terror that I woke unable to breathe.