Lately, most of the dreams I recall (not many) are from when I wake up in the middle of the night after a nightmare. What I find strange about these nightmares is that they all share an eerie similarity in the way the content of the dream is shown to me. This may seem vague and confusing, and it is. I'll try to say this with what limited words human language has given me to work with.

Here are some of the "rules" that these nightmares all seem to follow: 1. I am a passive observer of the dream. 2. The content of the dream is so deeply disturbing that upon awakening I feel scarred from even have witnessed such a horrible inhumane product of my subconscious imagination. 3. The dream only lasts around 30 seconds to a minute, yet it is clear that there is a lot of plot to the dream that although was not observed by me, can be inferred through context of the dream. 4. During the last few seconds of the terror, I switch from being an invisible spectator to the center of all attention, causing all demented things I have been safely observing to direct their focus on me.

A few examples:

I am in a small carpeted bedroom with a bunk-bed. There are some small children innocently and happily playing around the room. All of a sudden, all hell breaks loose and every one of the now screaming children are being dragged under the bed like rag-dolls by some unknown thing. In a horror, I realize I am the only one left. I peer under the bed, trying to make out anything I can from the shadows. Then, like a dagger through the heart, I see it. The monstrosity can only be described as a mix between the ape mother from the movie Tarzan and a real ape. After seeing it, I woke up.

I am viewing what seems to be a doctor with his patient. The patient is suffering from an affliction that can barely be described using words. His nose/central forehead area is continually mutating into what looks like a white moldy substance for a few obviously painful seconds before returning to its original form. It appears that the patient could be undergoing a sort of an unstoppable transformation process, because the doctor is doing nothing but trying to comfort the suffering man. Watching the process unfold was excruciating. All of a sudden, the deranged patient looks me straight in eyes as if I was a big juicy steak and he hadn't eaten in a week. The second he made a move on me I woke up.