I don't know how common this is, but I have nightmares. A lot. As in an average of one a night. Mostly they are standard nightmare type dreams. Someone is trying to kill me, or some movie monster is after me, or someone has captured and is torturing me. The dreams themselves are what you would consider standard nightmares, but I have them all the time, and they are all I have. (If I have good dreams, I don't remember them.) Some of them are lucid dreams, and most of those are chase dreams, where something is after me and I spend the night running away from said thing. On those nights I wake up the next morning exhausted, and have a rough time at work the next day. Psychologically, they don't seem to effect me that much. My brain is pretty good at waking up, realizing it was just a dream, washing it away, and going back to sleep.

Until this week. This week has been a noted change in my nightmares. I started dreaming about other people dying.

Sunday night I had a dream that I went to go visit my dad in his house, and when I went in, he was dead on the floor, unknown how he died. I called up everyone and soon my entire family was at my house morning my dead father. Strangely, my dad then "wakes up" and tells me he wasn't dead after all, but I am positive he was, and probably still is, either strangely resurrected or some kind of zombie. I woke up at 2AM, convinced my father was dead, and could not get back to sleep, unable to shake off the dream as I had previously.

Last night, my dream had me in what seemed to be a series of sewer tunnels, where for some reason my six year old son was running around playing. As I watched, he was running carelessly and slipped and fell into a strong current water and was sucked under. I jumped down, reached in after him, and somehow got a hold of his jacked and pulled him out, he was not dead, but was coughing heavily and I was freaked out about how close to death he was there if I hadn't noticed him slip. I woke up, and the same feeling was there, that my son was dead. Again, I couldn't wash away the feeling, and couldn't go back to sleep.

I remember when I first started having nightmares all the time (around 17), I used to have this same kind of problem, but I overcame it pretty quickly. But this feels a lot different, and a lot scarier, which is strange to say coming from a 38 year old.

Has anyone else had anything like this? Any solutions or ideas? Any TL;DR's? :P

And for the lighter hearted crowd, I have included a glorious pole for your amusement...

Ray

Heh, what a bizarre poll.

Seriously though, are you on any type of medication? Some prescription drugs cause very lucid dreams. Either way, you should probably go to a psychiatrist, because this type of behavior is far from normal.

Yikes Ray, as a victim of incessant nightmares in the past, I really hope you are able to find some relief. Hard to feel rested with crap like this going on all night

One interesting thing I've noted is that anytime I take a nap in the middle of the day or fall asleep with a light on in my room, I will have nightmares every time.

Not sure why.

Solids:

I am on zero medication, nor have I ever really been on any that are sleep or mentally related.

And yes the poll is totally morbid and bizarre.

FFK:

Thanks. Seriously the nightmare every night really doesn't bother me any more. Its been going on for 20 years. if I let it get to me I'd be a serial killer or locked up in an insane asylum by now I would think. I kind of got used to not sleeping much very early in life because even if you can teach yourself to recover mentally for the nightmares when you wake up, it doesn't mean you can just go right back to sleep.

I never have a good full night's sleep. *shrug* what ya gonna do.

z28:

I never nap. Perhaps I should, maybe it will have a reverse effect for me. :P

Ray

That would be a wet dream for me if that "someone" were Jessica Alba

Are you on medication for other things?
Nightmares are a fairly common side effect.

I feel you, raypowers. I just woke up from accidentally murdering 4 people I vaguely know in real life throughout my nightmare, in each of their individual houses, with their families and friends present. the core of the dream was spent as I tried to hide each of the bodies to keep anyone else from finding out while still trying to mingle socially with everyone so not to arouse suspicion. Dreams are just chunks of your subconscious though. For most of mine I can take them apart and find that most parts were on my mind at one point during the day. Maybe you're starting to worry about death more because you're getting older and this worry is reflective in your nightmares.

I recently quit smoking pot and the whole remembering your dreams thing has came to bear on me very hard. I have 2-4 nightmares a night, I used to have normal dreams(?) but would seldom remember them unless they were very moving. Now I'm noticing they're all nightmares and have nothing to do with my day to day activities. I actually had the sewer tunnels dream the other night, so that was crazy to read you had the same. There where huge monsters coming after my small group and we hid in a small box and the dream ended in darkness. I also have been having weird poker dreams where I lose even if I show a winning hand at the end, doesnt matter ship the cookies to my opponent. These aren't as frequent but I had one that went on forever last night, it was the last dream I had before waking up. I saw they're nightmares too because they are extremely unsettling to me. I can't "win" even if I win. I probably should start smoking pot again. Or 86 myself.

Sorry Ray this sucks I know.

This happens to me all the time, mostly home invasion type stuff, though. Another strange element is that when all these bad things are happening, my wife is never around in the dream.

I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad.

I've only had one or two truly lucid dreams and they were a long time ago. Around that time a friend and I were reading some books about the subject and talking about it a lot.
One of the things I remember is that if you're having genuine lucid dreams and you're being chased just turn around and confront what's chasing you and tell it to stop(lol) or whatever. There's a bunch of stuff to read on the topic.

Steven: I wish I could identify my nightmares as part of the subconscious process my brain uses to break down the day, but no such luck. In fact the Dad one is very weird since I honestly do not interact with my dad very often.

King: heh, here ya go, my old defunct blog has a link to one of the weirder dreams I have had: http://raypowers.blogspot.com/2007/03/say-what.html

Wet: strangely, in lucid chase dreams, since I clearly can identify that it is a dream, and can't hurt me, I often in my dream mental state decide it is more fun to make it a game, and see how long I can last. At dream time this makes perfect sense, and is like enjoying a good horror movie. The next morning, I always wake up exhausted thinking "why did I do that?!"

Ray

So you've had these dreams for a while, you claim to never have had a good night of sleep, and you haven't gone to a medical professional?

Dude for real go see a psychiatrist asap. You could probably have these easily solved by a few meds. If you don't want to take meds, I'm sure they can talk to you and get your demons out.

These are not lucid dreams. If they were, you would know you were dreaming, therefore know you could do whatever the **** you want, and kill said thing chasing you then go bang some chicks or something like I do in my lucid dreams. Unless this is what you choose to do in your lucid dreams, then you sir are sick.

==The next morning, I always wake up exhausted thinking "why did I do that?!"==

Not lucid, or you would wake up knowing full well why you did it cause in a lucid dream you do what you would do in real life if you were in that situation but knew nothing bad could happen to you, imo.

I've had some ****ty dreams before but recently my dreams have just been really weird (usually awesome though). I'm starting to be able to control a bit what my dreams are about when I'm sleeping. Last night I met my 11 year old self in my dream - he talked like I used to, looked like I used to, and thought like I used to. I couldn't believe it was actually me until he showed my hockey scar on his leg. He (I) was pretty happy with how he would turn out to be, which made me happy when I woke up. It was one of the trippiest dreams I've ever had.

Not true. From wiki:

As I said, I was well aware I was dreaming during those dreams. Nothing about it being lucid or not is defined in my crappy decision making ability WHILE lucid dreaming.


To the earlier poster about meds or seeking help, a good friend says something similar.

Historically, my body does not react well to medications, and in fact many meds just plain don't work on me.I wish it were otherwise, but apparently I have a screwy immune system in that respect. Considering I can't take good medicine to cure a runny nose, I have little faith in finding medicine to help me not have nightmares.

I have never sought out professional help simply because I like to (arrogantly?) think that I should be the master of my own mind, and I should be able to conquer these kinds of issues myself. This line of thinking has gotten me through 20 years of nightmares pretty much every night with little to no ill side effects, so its hard to argue that I can't figure out my way through this problem.

Possibly foolish, probably the hard way around, but the way my brain works.

Ray