Thread: What is the most traumatizing (scariest)dream you've ever had?

In waking life, right after eating dinner, I went into my bedroom, onto my bed, and laid on my back to read a book. After what seemed like a few minutes, I put down my book and saw my bed sheets rising up several feet in front of me, as if something was under there. All I could do was curl up my legs in fear and look at the risen bed sheets, unsure of what might happen. After a few seconds, I woke up.

What made the dream so scary was it seemed way too early to fall asleep, let alone dream, and I had no intention whatsoever to fall asleep, yet the nightmare made it seem like I never fell asleep in the first place.

I once dreamt of being tortured -- it was incredibly realistic and very gruesome. In a similar way to dolphin's dream, mine kicked off with being kidnapped on my walk home from work. It was incredibly believable and until I woke I had no idea it was a dream. I still remember the pool of sweat I woke up in.

When I was 6 years old and my family had just moved into a new house, there was an old dead tree in the back yard. My mom thought it was dangerous, because me or my sister might want to climb it and the branches would probably break off, so she asked my dad to cut it down, which he did. I dreamed that my sister was sitting up in the crotch of the tree (it was like a big Y shape) and I begged her to come down, but she refused, and then I saw her start sliding down, her body being slowly split in half as she went. One of her legs was on each side of the tree, so as she slid down she was being peeled in half, and I could see the meat and organs, all perfectly straight-cut, inside the halves of her body. Finally each half fell to the ground on both sides of the tree, and they were sort of curled up, like wood shavings.

I also remember a dream where I was walking in the back yard, in fact in the same basic area where that tree used to be (didn't realize that before) and as I jumped down off the retaining well onto the ground I landed on something sort of squishy and I heard a voice - I had just landed on a person who was laying there in a sleeping bag and I could tell I had damaged them badly, like crushed the ribcage. They were moaning in agony, and I was terrified that I had killed them or wounded them terribly, and I freaked out and started stomping on them again and again as hard as I could, trying to perform a mercy killing. There was also a sense of guilt - I think I wanted to finish them off so they wouldn't get me in trouble. I never could tell if it was a male or a female, but they kept moaning piteously and screaming "Stop it - you're killing me!! Why are you doing this??!!" I didn't stop, and they kept on screaming and begging me to stop. Probably my worst nightmare ever.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Finally each half fell to the ground on both sides of the tree, and they were sort of curled up, like wood shavings.

Man, if you ever write a novel let me know. I'd buy the fuck out of it.

Can't remember one which would be on top of others... maybe I'v had one, but maybe it has been too terrible to remember, and my subcosnisousness is just supressing it haha. Hmm, well, tons of tidal wave and meteor strike apocalypse themed dream come to mind, but nothing too bad. Phew.

I've experienced quite a few traumatising dreams, but the most recent one took place about two years a go and yet it still bothers me.

Don't read this if you are squeamish:

Spoiler for Traumatising Dream:

In short, it was about a group of people who wandered around dusty, arid land, and came across large alien maggots that lived in the ground. The group realise this, and get to safety by moving out of contact with the soil. However, one man fell victim.

Basically, the ground suddenly opens, and he was buried (head tilted back, looking upwards) right up to his face.

Looking down, the group see his face on the ground, level with the dirt, as his eyes dart around confused. The alien maggots begin to eat through him. A large one (about 3cm wide) begins to chew through his cheek, squirming upwards into the air, below his eye.

"What's going on guys?" he asks, as his friends watch in horror and disgust, mortified at the unfolding situation, and feeling intense guilt for not sparing him this death. "What is that smell?"

The smell is of the flesh on his face rotting and curling as the worms eat through it with their acidy saliva. As his eyes dart around, and he begins to realise the horror of what is happening, he lets out deranged screams. He is unable to move, now beginning to feel the worms eating through his body. Nobody can help him.

There is something particularly nauseating about the way the character is unaware of the disgusting horrors that are unfolding, and the intense pity of the situation. He is then aware of what must be happening to his body underground, and yet he cannot move. I really hate that dream.

2 different dreams about my ex... 1st dream was when I saw my ex killed a young girl, felt like this girl was me but was not. She was younger, different color hair and different body type. Saw puddle of blood near the young girls head and on the wall. Didn't see her face.

Another dream was when my ex held me hostage in my car. He was driving, I didn't know where we were going and he would not let me out all. I was screaming and trying to get out but somehow I could not open the door no matter what I did... Felt like he was planning to take me somewhere in a isolated place and kill me.

I had a dream the other night where I was hanging out at a lake with some DCs. I was trying to splash a guy when he grabbed me and pulled me underwater. I opened my eyes when I went under and see that all of the DCs are there with me. I heard a voice say something like "We've reached the bodies". I look around and see all of these dead bodies floating around me as we continue to sink deeper and deeper until I couldn't see anything but black.

None of my dreams are really capable of traumatizing me, and none really scare me either. I've had dreams that people would consider nightmares, but typically I find the experience to be more cool or interesting than anything. I do have one experience of sleep paralysis though (of many, many SP and conscious-during-REM-Atonia experiences) that I had back when I couldn't get to sleep and had started on a new sleeping medication. I'll share that and two dreams.

Dream 1:
The first dream was more shocking (or rather, the twist was totally unexpected) than anything else. The dream went all over from place to place, as my dreams are typically rather bizarre, abstract, or otherwise fantastical. It wound up ending with me at my house in my room in the basement when I was younger (about 16) and still living with my parents. I heard and saw the door handle start to turn, and a killer had been on the loose and I knew this the whole dream. I somehow just knew it was the killer trying to sneak in, and that they had a knife and were going to stab me. So, I grabbed my pillow with both hands on both ends of it, and when the door flung open I turned around as quickly as possible and pushed my arms and the pillow forward so that the killer would stab the pillow. He did, and when he did, I twisted/rotated the pillow hard, which successfully yanked the knife from his hands.

I didn't look up and see who it was in the extremely short time it took me to grab the knife and then step into the killer's body and chest, followed by plunging the knife into their back as hard as I could. Oddly enough, it was almost like I was embracing or hugging them as I fatally stabbed them, and it was only a second after it happened that the person I was holding in my embrace was my dad... who simply pulled his head away from my body a bit, looked me in the eyes, and said that he was sorry (in the dream I knew he was apologizing for having to try and kill me, like he was compelled to against his will). End dream.

Dream 2:
After my first concussion around that same time, I also used to have dreams where I would encounter people I knew being restrained or tied down in some way. I would always get an intense feeling that I had to kill them, like some other-worldly force had a spell over me or something, and so I would pick up what always wound up being some kind of blunt object to use for a weapon. I would usually think something along the lines of "sorry, I don't especially want to, but I don't have a choice" in a rather emotionless but still semi-reluctant kind of way, and then I would start beating them... and it was always take a ridiculous amount of me attacking them for them to actually die. Attacks that should've killed them in about 3 blows took upwards of, no kidding, ~46 to finish things.

Most interesting experience, the Sleep Paralysis of pure Terror:
Lastly, and the more interesting of the experiences for me, was the only case of sleep paralysis (or REM Atonia) that's ever caused me any kind of feelings of fear. And when I say I felt fear, I mean it is probably the single most intense experience of complete and utter existential terror I've ever had or ever will have again. I was lying on my belly when the experience started, and I was falling through what seemed like a kaleidoscopic tunnel (despite the space of it all being infinite in size) of multi-colored (but mostly purple) of psychedelic fractals and geometry. It seemed like the fractals and geometry were like stars and other astrophysical in a universe full of it, but I was falling so fast downwards that it seemed like it was a tunnel I was falling down.

At this point I felt uncomfortable but wanted to see where the experience took me, but not too long afterwards, the tunnel whose sides were already an infinite expanse of fractals and geometry suddenly opened up into another infinite expanse of psychedelic fractals and geometry that I perceived as being infinitely larger than the already infinite expanse of the sides of the tunnel. Far below me, what I was falling into, was an enormous void that was not at all unlike what I imagine a black hole to be like, only I could actually perceive that there was literally just a void there--a lack of anything, nothingness. It was almost like I couldn't perceive it even though I could, knowing only that it was there because out of everything that was there, where it was, there was nothing.

It felt as though the entirety of everything contained within the "universe" of the fractals and geometry that was infinitely larger than the previous infinite expanse I previously felt was being forcefully crammed into my being... or perhaps to put it better, like all that there was was in fact me, and the sheer enormity of it all was so alarming that it caused in me pure, unbridled terror. As soon as I entered the larger infinite expanse, I also was picking up speed as I was falling, with the rate climbing exponentially higher. I was falling so uncontrollably faster and faster down (it felt like I had broken past the speed of light several times over), and this in combination with the terror from the sheer magnitude of the infinite universe of geometry around me was the breaking point for me.

I should note now that I'm able to break out of SP/REM Atonia any time I like, usually. I feel paralyzed, but if I really desire to move, I can, and the experience stops. Because of this new sleeping medication though, trying to move wasn't working like it should. I felt as though my dream body was interlocked with my physical body's nerves at several nodal points all over my body using vibrating super-powerful electromagnets or something. Regardless, I wasn't stopping, and so I felt like I was ripping my upper dream body from my upper physical body when I finally woke up to find myself actually propping myself up using my left hand, still otherwise laying on my belly.

I don't generally have nightmares, but my most recent (and most terrifying) nightmare was on October 10, 2016 (I told you I don't have scary dreams that often), and involved me being a little kid who happened to be an orphan; I'll put it right below:

Spoiler for Spooky Dream:

I was an orphan, who had went to an orphanage. There were about four other kids there, and we were all taken care of by a kindly man and their wife. There, I felt welcome, for a while. These kids who had also lost their ways were incredibly nice, and so were the adults. The food was good too.

It was about the second night when it happened. Me and the other kids were roughing around at night, when one of them fell asleep under the covers. I saw their lump move. It sped up, heading for the edge of the bed, where the sheets flapped. I pulled up the covers. There I saw only his clothes remained. I panicked, telling the other children and the adults. They seemed to have forgotten who this kid was. I was forgetting too. The adults said they would look into it in the morning, and it would be best to sleep for now.

So I fell asleep. A demon, whose appearance I can only describe as the conglomeration of all the hideous monsters ever to present itself to me in a nightmare. It spoke quickly, but with presence. "You're next."

I wake up

However, if you're asking for traumatic, my scariest dream pales in comparison to another dream I had;
The general gist of the dream was that I had (probably false in the context of the dream) memories of living a long, happy life, with memories of family and everything. The dream was really just me going about the events of the day.

Then I woke up.

It took me about an hour to shake the bizarre emotions I had about having memories of a life I've never lived, only to have that life ripped away. I was genuinely depressed for a bit because of that. And I would say that it was much more 'traumatic' than the scary dream, but in more of a sad/depressing manner than a terrifying manner.

That dream is gone now, because this was before I started using a dream journal regularly, so that is as specifically as I remember the dream now, and all of my emotions about that dream have since stopped affecting me, but it's still really interesting (to me, at least).

A few nights ago, I had the worst dream I have ever had. The dream is below,but be warned. It doe's contain some pretty dark themes.




I was watching some documentary when my friend suddenly appeared in the show. I said:Hey,I wonder why she's in a documentary. It then showed an image of a severely disfigured man's face. I kind of glanced at the picture because I wasn't completely watching,but when I looked closer, it hit me. Complete and utter terror hit me. I felt a heavy mix of sorrow and horror. I swiftly turned off the TV and spent the rest of the nightmare trying to get the image out of my head. When ever I thought of the image inside and out of the dream,it brought back the same feeling. I later remembered that the reason my friend was in the documentary in the dream was because she murdered the disfigured man,which makes the dream even more sad. I quickly got over this dream though.

A few weeks ago, I had this non-lucid dream, and so far it's been the most terrifying dream I've ever had.

I was in a university building, and I had to go to the bathroom. It was very late at night. A few other guys were going to the bathroom, too. There were two bathrooms, once labeled "PRIVATE" and the other labeled "PUBLIC". Everyone else was going to the "PRIVATE" bathrooms, so I thought I'd go to the public ones -- after all, a restroom is a restroom. What could really be the difference? But the other guys warned me not to go in there. As I peeked in, it was very dark and I got a very strong feeling of foreboding, so I went into the other bathroom.

The other guys were nowhere to be seen. Instead of a bathroom, I was in a dark church building. The only light came from a stand with numbers for the hymns and a fake plant behind it. Everywhere else was shrouded in shadows. Freaked out, I figured that maybe the bathroom was down the hall. So I walked down this very dark hallway, barely able to see. I reached an enormous set of wooden doors, with dark rafters (again, barely visible) above me. I reached towards the brass handle, thinking that I'd finally be able to take a pee. Everything was dead silent.

Nope. Couldn't pee. The moment I reached for the handle, I heard this cacophony of disembodied voices, male and female, young and old, screaming. It was coming from the rafters above me, but I could see no one. Then suddenly I saw a bunch of gray disfigured people with black holes for eyes, noses, and mouths, all screaming from the rafters... and I woke up.

I got out of bed, went to the bathroom and peed my brains out, then sat there with the light on for like 15 minutes. I was beyond freaked out lol. Even now, it still scares me and I opened my bedroom door wide while writing this.

Second place would have to go to the one where wasps were crawling in and out of my ears and nose while I was lying on the ground in some forest. Yuck.

My most traumatising dreams ( haven't had many )

1. Dying the second death - no hope

2. Had nightmares as a kid of 'yowies' eating me alive. Rather traumatising.

I haven't had a nightmare in a very long time.

Mine was seeing myself dead, inside a coffin

I had very traumatising nightmares for quite sometime!! It was haunting me for several months and all were about my worst fears. I’m afraid of water and teenie-tiny spaces. So imagine swimming in waterfilled pipes that becomes smaller and smaller AND THERE IS NO WAY OUT!! They all ended with me drowning because I was stuck.

I was restrained on a table and someone started sawing into my skull. The pain was horrible. I could feel the vibration of the saw teeth grating into the bone of my skull. I became lucid and yelled at myself to wake up. I didn't. I couldn't. Instead I started yelling, "I don't want to remember this. I don't want to remember this..." and I don't remember anything after that.