Sleep & Dreams

[funkimunki1984]

I’ve always been a terrible sleeper from being a kid. Think it started because I was living in a home with an alcoholic father and mum who was working every hour god sent because he was a bum. She split with him when I was 5, but even before then I’ve sleep walked, talked in my sleep and vivid nightmares to the point I’ve hurt myself.
I remember always dreaming about wolves and trying to hide from them in a cottage in the woods. I managed to hide in a cupboard in a place filled with sewing machines on tables, the wolves got in and turned into people with grey coats and hats and just as they find me I wake up screaming.
I also have sleep paralysis quite bad. One time I dreamt the demon from insidious was behind my bed (I slept in a loft conversion so the bed wasn’t flush to the wall) and stopped me from moving. It reached down to grab me and I started screaming. In reality my husband had grabbed me because I had started screaming in my sleep. He says I’m the most entertaining and terrifying person to share a bed with.

 

[Snippysnips]

When you’re falling asleep and jolt awake what is everyone’s reason for the jolt if anybody understands what I’m on about lol. Mine is tripping over a kerb. I’ve asked a friend and they trip over a tree root!

Mines is usually falling down a stair or missing a step

 

[Ineedmorecoffee]

I can tell when I’m stressed or worried by a particular type of dream I have. No matter what the story is, I’m always driving a car and can’t quite reach the pedals properly to control it. And the steering wheel is really heavy so i can’t avoid things. It’s horrible because I just have this awful feeling of trying so hard yet being completely out of control.

In a way it’s good tho because its like my subconscious telling me I need to look at what I’ve got going on in my life and make some changes.

 

[mg89]

If I hang something up in my room, for example a coat on the wardrobe door, sometimes my brain will sense it as a foreign object in the pitch black middle of the night and I'll jolt awake terrified that there's an intruder in the room. Does anyone know the sensation I mean? It must be something deeply primeval, it's a horrible sensation.

I get this! It's awful. I get it if I leave something at the bottom of my bed as well, like it'll wake me as ill think it's something sitting on the bed or similar

 

[asunder]

I dream so often about this stream, it doesn’t exist in real life obviously, but in the dream I’m so familiar with it and I always say to the person I’m with that’s it’s my favourite place. The stream is like crystal clear and slow flowing and it’s always near the bottom on the garden of my childhood home. It’s such a lush relaxing dream, whenever I wake up I’m always gutted the place doesn’t exist!

 

[Tide'sout]

It freaked me out a bit when I googled sleep paralysis and the images of a woman were exactly the same as the one that was pinning me down!

You mentioned a woman with really dark hair. My is the same. If it's her, there's no way I'm googling it

 

[#botsforlife]

Definitely, I prepare all my clothes for work the evening before but can never leave them in my room hanging up, I leave them in the hallway. Ditto I have a mirror on the inside of my wardrobe doors, after hearing the horror story of bloody Mary I cannot sleep with the mirror door open in case I accidently glance at it at midnight

I can’t sleep in a room with mirrors. My ultimate fear from watching too many horror movies I think

 

[themuffinwoman]

I used to have loads of weird dreams, not so much now except for last night. Dreamt someone I used to be friends with was pregnant with twin girls, then wasn’t (not sure why, crazy dream logic), then I was pregnant with twin girls, the father wasn’t my husband but was my neighbour’s husband, and everyone was ok with it?? My friend told me she was pregnant yesterday and said neighbour also text me, and I’m going through a very very rough patch with my husband. But I have 0 feelings for my neighbour’s husband

 

[WhatABore]

My dreams baffle me at the best of times but this one I had just last week has freaked me out! So I dreamt about 1 of the mums I speak to on the school run that she was pregnant. It was a really vivid dream and I remember waking up and thinking that's weird she's never been in one of my dreams before. She's always said she was done having kids. Anyway I saw her the next day and said oh so weird I had a dream about you last night that you were pregnant thought it would just make her laugh. Literally a few days later she's told me just found out she's pregnant I thought she was joking but she's not

I've had a similar dream to this.
I had a dream my friend was pregnant.(We don't even live close or see each other in person) Hadn't spoke to them for months. Messaged them and said, funny, I had such a vivid dream that you were pregnant.
She then replies saying she is but they weren't telling anyone yet as they only found out a few days ago!
I was shocked!

 

[WhatABore]

Great thread @WhatABore. Sleep paralysis is horrific and that's no exaggeration. For me I can see every detail of my bedroom, even clothes hanging up. A grotesque figure, normally with a mask like face, comes gliding in. Glides so close, I swear I can feel its breath on my face and there's not a damn thing I can do as completely paralysed.

I've noticed Tattlers calling them "Sleep Paralysis Demons" and having a bit of a laugh about them. Giving them a name and belittling them has really helped me. Glide off you ugly gits and never return

It freaked me out a bit when I googled sleep paralysis and the images of a woman were exactly the same as the one that was pinning me down!

 

[Mamacita]

Do you find that you have mostly negative or positive dreams?
As long as I can remember I've always had a lot of nightmares and generally negative dreams but other people I know have a lot of happy dreams

 

[yankydoo]

I have a recurring nightmare where I’m driving but can’t control the pedals.

I think this is a version of sleep paralysis. I get this maybe once every few months. I’m having a nightmare (can be anything) and I know it’s a nightmare and not real but no matter what I do I can’t wake up. I keep reassuring myself but it panics me more I can’t wake up. Yuck!

 

[WhatABore]

I've always had very vivid dreams and occasionally nightmares I do remember a lot of them I used to keep a dream diary something I want to start up again. I also turn some of my dreams in to short stories as I like to write.
I have dreamed in languages I can't speak and understood every word I have dreamed about things i wouldn't normally understand irl and understood them.
I dream about lost relatives too sometimes in everyday life now and I have experienced sleep paralysis once I also sometimes have an experience where I feel like I'm free falling and I can feel the stomach drop feeling like if you're on a fairground ride I have no explanation for it.

I feel like the free falling thing is something a lot of people experience

 

[Lalalalaaaaaa85]

Do you find that you have mostly negative or positive dreams?
As long as I can remember I've always had a lot of nightmares and generally negative dreams but other people I know have a lot of happy dreams

I definitely go through phases and I think it depends on stress levels in my life. Luckily I get a lot of positive and neutral dreams but find nightmares come in chunks so I’ll have a few bad weeks

 

[WhatABore]

I dream regularly the same few dreams about catching a bus or train or plane. Or getting lost in a big city.

I have quite a lot about flying on a plane and the plane never taking off. It always tries but never can.
Nothing bad happens... We don't crash... It just keeps landing and trying again

 

[FabulousDarling]

Yes and I'm pretty sure I have it. Used to happen more when I was a kid, like I'd shrink in to my bed, have to lie really still to trigger it. Happens less now but it still happens. Its never felt scary to me.

Same. Laying very still triggered it for me.
Never scared me but I think my son was terrified as he would have night terrors on top of it. He would be screaming for me and I’d be right beside him soothing him.

 

[GeminiMoon]

I’ve had sleep paralysis at times of acute stress. I think that my blankets are coming up over my face and I’m suffocating, or I think a cat has jumped on me and is walking up me (I can “feel” it walking over me so realistically), or that someone is lurking in my room It’s truly terrifying and I have to fight it to wake myself up.

My dreams are very weird… I’ll often be in places that feel so different and alien, and I feel different, though people from my past are always there with me. I have some that have recurred over a long time - that my home gets invaded by a gang of strange men; that there is a local town completely unknown to me that I must visit; that I go to a huge supermarket or mall and I feel acute stress not knowing what to buy and how I’ll get home; other ones where I remember I own an abandoned stately home and I explore it and it’s labyrinthine and I become lost… The dreams leave me feeling confused and somehow bereft, I feel desperate to go back in and resolve them.

I also often have dreams of going to places that are unknown to me (or vaguely familiar but not in my real life) and it’s imperative that I get home but there’s some stress around it. I agree it’s related to stress in waking hours and maybe something to do with not feeling ‘at home’ in my life.

 

[emmer_moans]

I've had the sleep paralysis a couple of times. Probably last seconds but feels an age, a shadowy figure hovering at the side of the bed, inching close. I could feel and hear myself trying to scream but no luck.
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My husband keeps waking up sitting bolt upright thinking there's an attacker in the room. I have to pat him on the back and say don't worry there is nothing there and then he falls back to sleep. Usually this happens when he is tired.

 

[#botsforlife]

I’ve had sleep paralysis a handful of times, it hasn’t happened in a while though. It would always be someone coming into the room holding me down, always a male for me. I’m glad they don’t happen anymore as they really freak me out. Seems so real. Apparently happens when you are really stressed or in a negative headspace as you attract the negative energy.

 

[CrazyGiraffeLady]

Oh thank fuck I'm so relieved.

Normally I have this weird horrible sleep paralysis thing where bugs are crawling up the bed, or are walking above me on the ceiling but this is WAY worse.

My sleep paralysis creature is a gnome