"Don't go to sleep!"
That's the phrase that traumatized any of us who watched any of those Nightmare on Elm Street films growing up, but truth is always stranger––and scarier––than fiction.
Today's burning question came from Redditor elizezu, who asked: "Dear Reddit, what is your weirdest dream/nightmare you've ever had?"
Yikes.
"I dreamt I was a reporter..."
I dreamt I was a reporter chasing a story on the AIDS virus. I was alone on some deserted boardwalk, when a woman suddenly approached me and said "here's your story!" and tried stabbing me with a syringe. We fought and struggled and I woke up punching my wall in a cold sweat.
"Being chased through an abandoned hospital..."
Being chased through an abandoned hospital Scooby-Doo style by the 1940s wolfman, while everything was black and white.
"I had this reoccurring dream."
I had this reoccurring dream. I'm in my town centre and i see a huge mushroom cloud exploding in the distance. It's fast approaching and i jump in to the fountain in the last second since i'm extremely slow. As i go in i can see the flames and destruction from under water and i emerge to see everything destroyed. I've been having this dream since i was 5-6 years old and it gets me every time. I'm 24.
"The first night we got my pet cat..."
The first night we got my pet cat when I was a little girl I dreamt for two nights she would stop at nothing to kill me. She even killed my mother in one of my dreams. There were no gory details thank goodness. But I vividly remember the cat sitting on my mother's corpse saying, "your mother is no help to you now." I really loved the cat at the time, so I'm not sure where this came from.
"Every time he looked at me..."
My first memory was a nightmare I had when I was around 5. I remember it vividly, and I have no idea why it scared me so much. I look back and laugh at it, because it is so weird. Anyways, my friends and I we're all playing in my childhood home. Then there was a knock at the door. My friend went to open it, and there was Barney at the door. My friend invited him in but Every time he looked at me he had evil red eyes. No one else noticed this. Eventually, Barney tried to get everyone outside. I followed hesitantly, and as soon as I stepped outside I saw that triceratops character charging everyone with her "horns" and had glowing red eyes. That was when I realized they were out for blood. I tried to get everyone to run, but they wouldn't listen. I watched Barney and the Triceratops take down my younger brother, and that's when I woke up.
"I was a child..."
Giphy
I was a child, and had just watched the Predator (with Schwarzenegger). In my dream, the Predator was hunting me. He finally caught me, wedged the spear where my arm was joined to my body, and pushed on it so as to dislodge my arm. I woke up with my arm completely flabby and non-functional for the next 30 minutes.
"I saw a man die..."
I saw a man die in my dream when I was about 10. It was the way he died that was weird. I remember him laying on his side and puking like he had been poisoned. The puke changed color, texture and consistency every time he puked. Eventually, he was eaten by parasites from the inside.
When I woke up I asked myself why I would ever dream of something like this and if something was wrong with me. Just happened that one time, though.
"After my grandmother died..."
After my grandmother died, she would appear to me at night, sitting alongside my bed in the rocking chair that she had willed me.
It didn't "feel" like a dream - it seemed vividly real. She and I would talk about many things, some of which we'd never discussed when she had been alive. I would ask questions, and she'd give clear answers.
These nightly episodes went on for weeks after her death. When they finally stopped, I was sad that she no longer appeared.
My alarm rang."
Once I dreamt I was chopping meat off of meat hooks with butter knifes and feeding it to robotic heads, there were no bodies, just the heads chomping down on the meat I threw to them. And while doing that I was also talking to an aristocratic cockroach called Mr. Johnson, who I knew was an aristocrat because he was wearing a tuxedo, a monocle, and was fat. He had a deep, raspy kind of voice, and I don't recall our conversation, however at one point he said he had to go, and I asked: "But Mr. Johnson, won't you stay for dinner?" - To which he replied: "No, and you won't either." - And then I woke up, one or two minutes before My alarm rang. Mr. Johnson became a joke among my group of friends, and a super villain alongside Malpig, the Evil Swine.
"I work at a zoo..."
I work at a zoo and we had crazy tigers. They have since been sent to a big cat sanctuary because they never really adjusted well to our location. But they used to sneak and ambush you when walking by their enclosure. No joke you are minding your business and they would rush and pounce at the fence in full kill mode and scare the ever living sh!t out of you.
The tigers are gone and in their new home, but there's a number of us that still have tiger nightmares..
"One of his sisters passed away."
I had a dream a couple of hours ago about a man named Lewis that moved to Australia from America after years of abuse from his father towards him and his sisters. One of his sisters passed away. It felt so real and I felt such a strong connection. I tried looking it all up but alas couldn't find anything (because it wasn't real). It's got me REALLY fucked up to be honest. I contacted this person and we connected and I loved him. But it was just a dream. Then I woke up back to this depressing lonely reality.
"I was in a coma when I was 16."
I was in a coma when I was 16. Over 4 days of real life I spent years living in various dream worlds. I relive them all the time when I sleep.
Weirdest is the island. I wake up on a beach on a good sized deserted jungle island. It's a normal island at first glance aside from it being split down the middle. Half is normal "real life" textures and half is like somebody made a Dr. Suess filter and painted that half of the island. A coconut tree looks like a coconut tree, but wildly vibrant colors. All randomized.
There's a tiger on the island that always hunts me. I usually just kill her early on though. At this point the dream is kinda a game to me. I know how to do everything. I've found all the Easter eggs. I love playing that dream though.
"I have no idea why."
Being in a completely white room with no perceivable door or windows. Around the entire room about 3 inches from the ceiling is a model train track that comes into the room through a small tunnel from one wall, wraps the whole room and then returns into a tunnel at the opposite side of the first wall, it is also completely white.. on this track comes a small white model tank, smoking from it's barrel the entire time it travels round the room.. I get an anxious feeling of displacement, like the odd sensation you get if you take your thumb and push it as far as it will reach between your pointer and middle finger (I don't know why that specific action makes me get the same feeling of displacement, but it's the closest thing to it that I've been able to find out in the waking world) I have this dream around 5-6 times a year, and thus has been happening for more than 10 years now.. I have no idea why.
He dropped it on the center console..."
I once dreamt that my mild-mannered husband casually reaches out of our car window at a grocery store, grabbed a passing woman by the hair and sliced her face off with a sharp knife.
He dropped it on the center console and sped off, never looking at the road, but making eye contact with me while he silently bit off each of his fingers.
"This one time at a sleepover..."
This one time at a sleepover when I was like 8, I woke up from a dream where my and my friend were running through a white tunnel and right as I got to the end, I woke up. I saw the same friend sitting up, and I asked him if he was able to sleep (because I thought he was awake all night) he said he just woke up from a dream that he described as the same as mine.