The Lion - I'm in my grandmother's basement near the foot of the stairs. It's dark and the bottom half of the stairs are gone, broken off halfway down. Escape is impossible. On the wall facing the stairs is the head of a lion, like a hunting trophy, but it is alive. Below it's mouth are two rusty oil drums filled with blood and what look like body parts floating in it. There is a hunter complete with pith helment overseeing the ceremony or whatever it is. My uncle and my grandmother are there and he is hysterically begging the man in the pith helmet for mercy. "Kill me, but please don't soak me in it!" They start to feed him to the lion and I'm so scared I wake up screaming and crying.
The Spider - I'm lying in my bed at night and on the ceiling above the bed is a spider with a body the size of my head. At first it isn't moving and it looks trussed up in it's own web but then it begins to move and slowly descend towards my face. I am unable to move and I'm so scared my screams come out like a whisper. As I try harder and harder to scream loud enough for someone to hear me I wake myself up screaming and crying at the top of my lungs.
The Wolf - I'm in the large, dark and empty library of the house where my mom used to babysit. It was a creepy place at the best of times. The bookshelves all had backs so you couldn't see between the stacks and the books all looked more or less the same. Thus it was a huge scary maze to someone 3 feet tall. Anyway I'm in there alone and the wolf from Disney's Peter and the Wolf is in there with me. I still think that wolf is WAY too scary for a 3 year old. Anyway in the dream I'm trying to hide from him but eventually he finds me and traps me under a desk. As he slowly approaches clearly intent on eating me again I try harder and harder to scream loud enough for someone to hear me and again I wake myself up screaming and crying at the top of my lungs.
The Wolf - I'm in the large, dark and empty library of the house where my mom used to babysit. It was a creepy place at the best of times. The bookshelves all had backs so you couldn't see between the stacks and the books all looked more or less the same. Thus it was a huge scary maze to someone 3 feet tall. Anyway I'm in there alone and the wolf from Disney's Peter and the Wolf is in there with me. I still think that wolf is WAY too scary for a 3 year old. Anyway in the dream I'm trying to hide from him but eventually he finds me and traps me under a desk. As he slowly approaches clearly intent on eating me again I try harder and harder to scream loud enough for someone to hear me and again I wake myself up screaming and crying at the top of my lungs.
Anyone want to share their childhood nightmares?
6 comments:
When my dad was on leave during his Navy days, my mother would often be left home alone, with me. During one of those times, someone tried to break into the house. The nearest neighbor was far off, and the naval housing she lived in didn't have a phone. She finally threatened to shoot through the door (bluffing, she didn't have a gun) and the guy ran off.
My nightmares have always rotated around lack of telephones. Someone's chasing me: No phone. Or, someone's chasing me, I find a phone...with no dial tone. Or, I actually get thru to a dispatcher who is busy filing her nails and popping her gum while the guy with the machete splinters down the door...
Oddly enough, since cell phones have come into the picture, I have that dream less and less.
Spiders used to be a big theme in my nightmares also, until I married an Ag. Scientist. "Spiders are the good guys!" he'd used to say, merrily. I'd try to get that through my head, repeating it every time I saw one that didn't look so good to me. They don't terrify me as much as they used to.
Mine involved me being chased by the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. She would chase me through my neighborhood, my school, everywhere. My heart would be racing. Then I would get home, where I thought I was safe, and my mom would be in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. I would accidentally knock the bucket over and she would shriek at me about my stupidity, then slowly melt into a puddle on the floor as her features changed to those of the witch before melting completely.
My nightmares now have to do with being cheated on, things happening to my children and being powerless to protect them, and being attacked and being unable to make a sound. Oh - and the one where my teeth crumble and fall out. My doc says that last one has to do with feeling powerless, as do most of my dreams. Hmmm.
I used to have nightmares about death a lot when I was little-nothing violent, just visions of fall leaves blowing through a northern graveyard, with all of these half bare trees around. I'd wake up in terror, crying until my parents would come in and take me out of bed. Later in life, I kept having a recurring dream about my uncle chasing me through a house with violent intent. He never caught me, but I would wake up with my heart racing, in terror that he would catch me. One day I got tired of the nightmare and made myself go back to sleep to create an ending. I shot him in my dream, and never had that dream again. Drastic, I know, but something had to be done-I couldn't keep having that nightmare!!
freaky, i used to have the spider nightmare too.
also every time i had a fever, without fail, i had the same dream. it started out with tinkerbell skating in a darkened ice rink with only a spotlight on her. then the giant from jack and the beanstalk started throwing bouplders at her until she was buried under a pile of them. for some reason the giant had no face though, only 2 eyebrows knotted in fury.
the other recurrent nightmare was of being chased through the woods by a grizzly. the bear could go through all the pbstacles i had to go over or around. i'd run until i found a little cottage and go inside. i'd wake up crying when the bear came through the door.
for a couple years after my folks divorced i had a LOT of dreams about being kidnapped.
Interesting dreams! The Jungian in me wants to go analyzing, but I won't... :)
Strangely, I rarely remember my dreams...
I had one where I was in the water in the middle of the night and the water was choppy. It was raining. I was trying to get back to my boat but there were sharks in the water. No matter how long or how hard I swam the boat never seemed to get any closer. The sharks were always between me and the boat.
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