Thread: Strangest creatures/monsters you've seen?

I really can't remember imaginary monsters other than ones from video games in my dreams, which don't tend to be threatening, since those dreams tend to be set in the game's world.
Maybe doesn't really qualify to answer your question, but: I've had a few nightmares with spiders and in the last one I had, which was a few months ago, there was a horse-sized spider.

Apart from those and the game creatures, in my normal dreams people didn't use to have defined shapes, except when the dreams were vivid - they were more like black silhouettes, even if it was a person I did know, though over the years this gradually stopped happening, never quite understood why.

Likewise skipping characters from media. Boy, there sure were a lot more than I thought:

-Dream from many years ago during my childhood. While exploring an Egyptian temple, I fell into a chamber, where I encountered a colossal serpent that spoke with a woman's voice. The creature wasn't outright hostile, but it also refused to release me from its coils, claiming me as a trophy or somesuch.

-Nightmare. It was the eve of a cataclysm, the sky blood red. While my brothers and I boarded up our house, we were approached by a bipedal beaver the size of a child. It offered us a plank of wood. While me bros and I debated what this meant, the creature vanished.

-Nightmare. A plant creature was murdering everyone in sight, and chased me in the shadows. Soon, it'd assumed the form of an older Asian woman. I got cornered in a office, but was briefly saved when she got paralyzed by music playing from my phone. Later, at a mall's lobby, she appeared again. The creature mentioned her newfound fascination with music, and subtly hinted sparing me for as long as I could sate such curiosity. We heard some relaxing songs together, an unusually soothing respite. Yet, true to her word, she tried killing me again, sprouting barbed vines from her back, though she sounded regretful of doing so. Just then, a squadron of soldiers and SWAT officers raided the area. Astoundingly enough, the plant woman allowed me to leave, sparing me from being collateral. I returned later to find her bisected corpse over a pool of fluid.

-Dream. While adventuring with a lady (and possible vampire), we stumbled upon a town in ruins. There, we were attacked by flying malformed mounds of flesh, wiry stalks portruding from their bodies. Magical abilities, even to the extent of conjuring meteors, proved useless. Conversely, fisticuffs worked, though it was quite tedious. I later encounter equally monstrous creatures in a mall. A large coalition of adventures and I planned on how to deal with this sudden threat.

-Dream. My brother and I were in a parking lot, when a spinning mass of objects bounced all over the place, trashing everything in view. The longer this went on, the more it grew. It suddenly stopped, as if in contemplation. The thing then completely disassembled itself, replacing everything it'd damaged, down to even the shards of glass in the windshields. I felt oddly guilty about its ephemeral existence.

-Self-afflicted nightmare. Tried summoning a demon in a mirror, just for fun. Got contacted by what appeared as just a normal gal. She asked for my soul. I tried bargaining it down to my blood, but she didn't seem to understand what that was. Later, we were pulled into another realm. Just them, the demoness' head and spine stretched out of her neck, while whips made of bone and cartilidge burst from her shoulders. She impaled me, and finally realized what blood was.

-Nightmare. At a mall. From a violet portal appeared a pale woman in a purple robe. She mentioned ill omens. Then, her torso and clothes stretched to great heights, before numerous entrail-like tentacles burst from her body. The environment immediately took on a similarly visceral appearance.

-Dream/nightmare. Flying around in a farmland. I stumbled upon odd bulbs growing on a group of thin trees. On closer inspection, these growths were actually human heads. Every time I turned away and back, their expressions would change, going from perky smiles, furious glares, gloom, terror, and others.

-Dream. Visiting an apartment suite of a supposed friend. His roommate happened to be a disgusting cross between a hag-like fairy and a cockroach. The creature's forwardness was off-putting.

-Dream. Had a hovercraft race with others inside a flooded abandoned mansion. Later, I stumbled on a legless, gator-sized, many headed toad. It spoke with a humorous valley-girl accent, promising not too hurt me too bad, though I found that hard to believe.

-DILD just today. After landing on the moon, things distorted into abstract black-and-white patterns. Several objects flowed past me. Unlike similar instances of such images, these seemed to deliberately avoid me, as if they were sentient.

Pardon my perhaps crass observation, but you certainly seem to have a lot ^{(well, more than I do, in any case)} of crosses between women and animals in your dreams.

Originally Posted by FireFlyMan

(...) colossal serpent that spoke with a woman's voice
(...) A plant creature was murdering everyone in sight, and chased me in the shadows. Soon, it'd assumed the form of an older Asian woman
(...) a disgusting cross between a hag-like fairy and a cockroach
(...) I stumbled on a legless, gator-sized, many headed toad. It spoke with a humorous valley-girl accent

These made me think of mythology from ancient Greece, for some reason.

@DarkestDarkness

Oh, you've no idea. I've dreams of harpies, sphinx's, nymphs with frog-like eyes and limbs, and, hell, my dream guide occasionally takes the form of a serpent-tailed woman!

Granted, there's been plenty of zombies, ghosts, goblins, and other fantastic or supernatural things in dreams too. The list I'd posted are just of the more unique standouts I could remember mostly off-hand.

Hmm.. I've ridden on a purple flying pegasus once in a lucid dream... not "weird" but definitely out of the ordinary!

The strangest creature I encountered was when I first started seriously lucid dreaming. I became lucid and dared my subconscious to scare me. The ground before me bubbled and a thick oily blob erupted upward. I spilled back to the ground and didn't take a definite shape and wasn't very threatenening looking. What was strange and scary was ALL of its intent was set on me. It was a heavy and frightening feeling. I fought off the fear and dared the creature to come after me. To move, it had to push itself through itself, back to front, basically turning itself inside out to take a step closer. I could see globs of organs and webs of blood vessels stretching and popping as it moved. It then reformed and absorbed its innards again. This scared the hell out of me because how do I destroy something that basically destroys itself to chase me. I tried to teleport a way from it but the creature's intent had me locked. The only way I could think to escape was to wake up. I woke up feeling like I'd just wakened from a massive nightmare.

I didn't dare my subconscious to scare me again for a looong time after that.

While not the strangest, this "thing" I encountered in one of my lucid was probably the scariest entity I've seen in my dreams, because it haunted my dreams for a long time afterwards - mainly appearing while lucid. It would change form, but I always knew it was the same being because of its eyes and the aura I felt from it. Here's an excerpt from my dream journal where it first appeared:

I then randomly realise I'm just dreaming, and that none of this is real, which gives me a surge in confidence, and just walk out of the cubicle not caring that I'm in the opposite gender's toilet or that there are people after me (constantly reminding myself that everything is just a dream, and not real). I get a proper look at the woman, and she's quite hot, but to avoid anything going down, I instantly start buttering her up with foreplay, knowing that she would comply. Things develop very quickly until the point where she hops onto my lap with her arms around my neck (if you get what I mean). I then notice 2 black men running towards the toilet (most likely after me) and shuffle over (with me and her still interlocked) and lock the door, so that they can't get in. I then take her back to where we were before and my vision starts fading, as per usual, but I'm determined to stay lucid this time, so I tell her ''Baby, I need your help. Help me stay lucid.'' and hold both of her hands, putting all my energy into how it feels. Eventually stability returns to me, and we're free to continue what we were doing. Things get more and more heated, and I remind myself now and then that it's not real. Then something shocking happens; this woman turns into a some kind of black demon, with multiple eyes, that are a vibrant red colour and hisses ''What if I'm a manifestation of everything negative within you!?'' (or something very similar to that) Although I know I'm dreaming, for some reason fear starts to take over and I race to the door to get out. I remember I locked it. I unlock it as fast as I can before this thing gets to me and run out.

Since then, like I said, it kept coming back. It was nearly always female and nearly always trying to seduce me. Always disguised. Whenever I gave in to lust, it would morph into something horrific that saught to ensnare me or harm me in some way. There were times, however, where it would appear as a man. Watching me. A sinister look in its face. It would follow me, and the whole dream had a malevolent feel to it. I found my control was quite often limited and it was one of the few, if not the only character present.

I remember I confronted it once. I stopped running from it and embraced its dark desires. It constricted and strangled me to the point that everything around me became dark and I woke up. I don't think I ever saw it again after that.