Thread: Feeling fear in dreams

I've noticed that I rarely feel any intense fear in my dreams.

I do have quite a lot of disturbing and scary dreams which should terrify me, but don't. In fact, I'll often feel more genuine fear while remembering the dream afterward than I do while experiencing it.

I'm not saying that I'm completely courageous in my dreams. I can think of plenty of examples of dreams in which I'm afraid to do or confront something. However, the fear is always mild. The fact that I'm afraid is more just a part of the storyline, rather than being any intense feeling. My point is that, during those nightmares which feel downright disturbing and creepy, I feel little to no fear.

In my more disturbing dreams, I do tend to feel a sense of unease, an underlying creepiness, but it's sort of subconscious, and never leads me to action because it isn't exactly the same thing as fear. It's very hard to describe. It's almost like, the part of my brain that is able to feel fear is shut off. Perhaps that part is too conscious. So even though I'm still feeling most of the things that normally lead to fear, the fear itself doesn't manifest. No matter how creepy the situation I'm in is, I'll never feel a desire to get out of it. I'll continue to walk down a dark hallway, dig up a dead body, etc.

Don't people often claim to have nightmares in which they're running away from things and feeling fear? It occurs to me now that I almost never have such dreams. Can anybody relate to what I'm saying, or is my case odd?