I had a really weird nightmare last night

[Kathy in Cambridge]

I was having a hard time sleeping last night. I kept waking up every hour or so.

I was lying on my left side and opened my eyes. On my bed, right next to one of my sleeping kitties, was an armless torso. He looked like an alien or the guy playing the banjo in "Deliverance", and he was staring at me. :scared: I couldn't reach to turn on the light because he was right in front of it. :scared: I screamed, causing the kitties to fly off my bed.

I was spooked and couldn't fall back to sleep. :scared: It seemed VERY real. I promise everyone that I'm not a serial killer, and as far as I know, there are no bodies buried in the backyard.

I still feel weird today. I almost never remember my dreams. Has anyone ever had such a disconcerting nightmare that you're still haunted the next day? And I don't mean the everyday nightmare we live with the Bush admin. :scared:

[ghostsofgiants]

1. I have them from time to time...

But the weird thing is, I actually like them (I suppose because I'm a fan of horror films and such).

[Kathy in Cambridge]

3. I'm not a scaredy-cat type at all

maybe because I watched "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" last night I had that dream. :shrug:

[GOPFighter]

2. I've had some dreams that lingered the next day...

...but none that were ever as real as the one you described.

Whatever you ate before going to bed, I'd stay away from it in the future! :evilgrin:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

6. It wasn't anything I ate or drank. I think it was the movie I watched.

[GOPFighter]

20. Aha! Now we're getting somewhere!

At least you know what to avoid. No more scary movies before bedtime for you, young lady!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

24. I've always loved scary movies.

The pod people scenes must've gotten to my subconscious.

[sundog]

4. eek!

i had nightmares two nights in a row this week :scared:

it was horrible :cry:

it'll pass :hug:

[Elidor]

5. I only have dreams that scary after eating curry

I swear, curry is a psychotropic substance. It gives me the most horrid nightmares.

[madeline_con]

7. "psychotropic substance"

You may be allergic to one or more of the spices in the mixture.

[Elidor]

14. I'm allergic to a lot of stuff

Eggs, peanuts, sulfites, nitrites and nitrates, and penicillin.

It never occurred to me to wonder about curry. I generally avoid it, though sometimes I can't resist - we have an excellent thai restaurant here.

[madeline_con]

19. "... sulfit es, nitrites and nitrates ..."

A possibility exists that it's not so much the spices, but the preservatives, if any, in them also.

You may not be so much dreaming as hllucinating after eating it. That's assuming you eat it for diner. If you wanted to do a guinea pig experiment, you might try it for breakfast, and see if you get loopy midday. \

Isn't science lab fun? :eyes:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

8. That's interesting

I never noticed curry affecting me one way or another.

[SouthoftheBorderPaul]

9. My nightmares are like mini-movies

They go on and on. It's not like "OMG, there's a guy chasing me and then I woke up screaming." They're protracted and very memorable. Luckily, I only have them about once or twice a year.

Anywat, sorry about that. I'm sure the feeling will pass. :hug:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

15. Yikes! This was a short nightmare and it scared the piss outta me

have you written down these nightmares? they could probably make a great movie. :-)

Thanks for the cyberhug! :hug:

[madeline_con]

10. You might check dream symbolism...

Some sites say the armless are symbols of disarmament, being disarmed politically, or helplessness of the peace activists to stop Bushco...

[Kathy in Cambridge]

11. I think it may apply to my life situation right now more than politics.

[madeline_con]

12. "... more than politics."

Could be you feel helpless in one aspect...

OR "disarmed" as in ,really shocked to find something out recently...

[Kathy in Cambridge]

13. Thanks for the help

I'm going to check out some dream interpretation sites.

[Sugarcoated]

17. I dreamt that there was a nuclear blast

the other night. It was horrible and I was trying to get away from it. Luckily it I woke up very soon after it went off. And i know why I had it - I go to Whitley Strieber's site and printed up his journal entry and read some of it before bed. Yes, he thinks there's a good possiblility of a nuclear attack, but not for the reasons you'd normally think.

[madeline_con]

21. dream interpretation sites

Tie a rope around your waist, and secure it to a heavy piece of furniture. It can get really weird in some of them. :crazy:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

22. Considering I'm a skeptic, it should be very entertaining

:-)

[UncleSepp]

49. Being a skeptic doesn't have anything to do with it

Dreams are produced by your own mind when it is not in a rational, waking state. Thinking about what your dreams might mean, using your rational mind, may provide insight into what you are feeling. You're not being asked to believe in anything more than these concepts:

1. You dream
2. Your dreams are made of your own thoughts and feelings
3. Your dreams are constructed of symbols, generated by your own mind to represent the information being processed while you sleep
4. Your waking and conscious mind can gain insight into its own workings by interpreting the symbols it has generated while in an unconscious, dreaming state

That's it. It's not spooky. I would add my own 5. to that, which is that the insight gained is not about new thoughts of which the dreamer is totally unaware, but rather about the weight placed on the concepts, thoughts, and feelings which are processed by the dream. I believe that dreams are a process by which the brain's neural network orders itself, assigning and reassigning weights to different connections between points of information. I also believe that this process happens all the time, but that in sleep, we become aware of it because we are not taking in other sensory input. This opinion I base on what I have read about the learning process of artificial neural networks. I may be completely off base and I am not trying to say that is definitely how and why we dream: my purpose in sharing my pet idea on dreams with you is just to say that it is possible to be interested in dreams and the interpretation of dreams on the grounds of reason, not faith.

I personally find dream dictionaries irritating, because it does not make sense to me that every person would use an image to represent the same concept. To riff on your dream a bit, imagine a one-armed man. My great-grandfather only had one arm, and because of that, my great-grandmother became a very strong person. If I saw a one armed man in my dream, it might represent the way in which a person with a problem provides a person with a solution the opportunity to grow by helping another. Someone with a penchant for old slang might see a one-armed person in a dream when they have been thinking about the role random chance plays in their life, and someone who watches classic television might have an entirely different connotation.

For a different example, think of what rats might symbolize. Here is what one dream dictionary has to say:

Rats

To see rats in your dream, signifies feelings of doubts, guilt and/or envy. You are having unworthy thoughts that you are keeping to yourself but are eating you up inside. Alternatively, it denotes repulsion. The dream may also be a pun on someone who is a rat.

If you kept rats as pets, and found them cute and sweet and friendly, would this still be true? If you studied rat behavior and the structure of rat societies, would guilt and repulsion be appropriate? If you performed medical research on rats, if rats regularly ate your seeds, if you were an exterminator who dealt with rat infestation the way that some people deal with sales calls and contracts, would this still be true? If you lived next to a temple where rats were allowed to freely roam, live, and breed, what would be the association then?

To interpret your dreams meaningfully, think about what the details are that stick in your mind. Then think of what you associate with each detail. It helps to tell the dream out loud to someone else, not so much for what they will think of it, but because putting the dream into words and then hearing it will expose another part of your own thought process.

If you do have someone to talk to about a dream you find interesting, they can help you by asking questions. The best interpreters of dreams (with 'best' being judged by how much value, insight, or understanding the person whose dream is being interpreted gets from the exchange) are those who just ask questions and reflect ideas until the dreamer has interpreted his own dream. Rather than being fraud (as cold reading, which works the same way, would be), this can be a service people enjoy and find valuable when it is done in openness and honesty.

[Zero Division]

16. Sounds like some of my old "Paxil dreams".

I'm so glad I'm off of that vile stuff. Those nightmares were worlds apart from my normal nightmares. My most memorable ones did in fact include a human torso with no head laying on the beach. In another horrible Paxil dream I was eating my own body parts. Dreams with gore in them are particularly awful. :scared:

For some reason my normal nightmares are overwhelmingly tornado dreams, even though I've never lived in an unusually tornado-prone area.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

18. Those nightmares sound awful

:hug:

I'm not on anything. In fact I was sober and had eaten an early dinner. I'm almost afraid to go to bed tonight.

[madeline_con]

26. If you're into lucidity, and really brave...

Try to get it back, and ask it what it is, or what it wants. It will probably tell you.

If the words are unintelligible, the overwhelming feeling you get will help "translate" the meaning. :scared:

[Zero Division]

28. Sometimes when I most fear having nightmares....

I actually end up sleeping pretty well. This seems especially true if I've just seen something truly frightening. I wonder if that's because dreams are actually a way of expressing feelings that have been suppressed while we're awake. Perhaps if you express those feelings of anxiety and fear while awake, your mind is less likely to "need" to express those feelings while dreaming.

Here's to good dreams and restful sleep: :hug:

[madeline_con]

23. "... eating my own body parts ..."

You could have felt you were losing part of your ego...


"tornado dreams"

Destruction of things you hold dear?

I love this stuff, it's fascinating. :)

My worst dreams were during use of nicotine patches. :scared:

[Zero Division]

34. I think it had to do with feelings of loss of control over my body.

I was on Paxil because of what seemed to be anxiety attacks that occurred in that weird state of mind just between waking and sleeping.


The tornado dreams are probably a result of my procrastination, the fear that things I've ignored for too long will catch up with me. I've always had a strange, almost obsessive fascination/fear of tornados, and I think they're the perfect representation of the uncertainty and helplessness I feel as a result of procrastinating or trying to isolating myself from my problems (in these dreams I'm normally trying to hide in the lowest part of the house/building to escape from the tornado, just like I often try to hide from my problems in life).

It sure is fascinating. :)

My own dreams are one of the things I can analyze to death without having to really depend on outside sources of information.

[madeline_con]

35. Absolutely...

Each person has personal symbolism and their own conflicts to sort out during REM sleep.

Speaking of tornadoes, we lost part of our roof during Frances last year, but the way the tree twisted, and only part of the roof peeled, it seemed as if a tornado actually did the damage.

We lost so much "stuff" that I thought I couldn't live without, or I'd "need someday" (classic packrat), dragging it to the street for garbage pickup was extremely liberating.

It taught me a lesson in procrastinating by not going through it all sooner, and what's really precious.

[barb162]

31. hmmm, I have tornado dreams also but I was almost killed by

one about 15 years ago and I live in a tornado prone area.

[Zero Division]

39. Yeah, that would definitely explain your tornado dreams.

It's, of course, great you lived to tell about it, but I can scarcely imagine what it must be like to have lived through that and still have to live in a tornado prone area.

I've never seen a tornado in real life, even though I've been through a few storms that I know for certain produced tornadoes. I wonder how or if seeing one in real life would change my tornado dreams.

I'll never forget one storm I went through that caused the clouds to turn pitch black (not navy-blue either, but literally pitch black). I was in class at the time (in 2nd grade). I noticed that the clouds were mammatus clouds, and then it started to hail. Being fascinated by weather, even as a small child, I knew exactly what was likely to happen and began to cry in class. The teacher and other students did not seem to understand the seriousness of the situation and the school did not have tornado alarms for some reason, so I was even more disturbed by the incident.

Later I found out that some kids who had been at recess before the hail had started had in fact seen a funnel cloud dropping out of the sky. But fortunately it went back up very quickly and the storm passed.

[barb162]

46. Tornadoes are terrifying.

WHenever there is a storm, I stand outside and watch and am prepared to take cover.

The tornado I experienced came up between doppler radar scans, and I think they scan every five minutes or something. SO there was no warning and I heard no tornado sirens and I guess it formed about 3 blocks away and then came down and passed about 50 feet from my house. The noise of it was amazing and I saw things like chairs spinning around in it. You know how people say it sounded like a freight train? It didn't. Up close it sounds like you are standing 10 feet behind a 747's engines AT TAKEOFF. Deafening noise. The other thing is stuff like roofing material, patio umbrellas, etc., are falling out of the sky about 3 minutes after it passes and you have to duck for cover again for a few minutes.

[Tallison]

44. Prozac also does that to me...

Gives me extremely vivid dreams, most of which I remember. I rarely have nightmares, no more than usual since taking the Prozac, but when I do, they're now traumatic like yours. I think vivid dreaming is a common side effect of all SSRIs. I always wondered if it wasn't part of their therapeutic value, as REM sleep is essential to a person's reality testing ability while awake...

(Edit for spelling)

[Lilith Velkor]

56. I had those dreams on Zoloft

The best one was when I dreamt I beat up *. I got daily panic attacks after a couple months, though, so had to quit.

[zanne]

58. I'm trying to get off Paxil right now...

And I know what you mean about the dreams. The one that sticks in my mind is one where I was ordered to cook a chicken for Mussolini. (If you knew me, you'd know that the cooking part was worse than the Mussolini part.) Anyway, I'm cutting the dosage down very slowly in order to escape those hellish withdrawal symptoms.

[caty]

25. Check out:

http://www.freakydreams.com/freaky.htm

[CanuckAmok]

27. Yes, last night I dreamt I was in Cambridge, in some hussy's bed.

She had cut my arms off, and I couldn't ge up, because it was so dark. Then she screamed, and like six cats ran all over my armless torso, cris-crossing me with painful scratches.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

30. ...

:spray:

for the record, I only have two cats. :-)

[CanuckAmok]

33. well, I have two arms....

...it was a dream, for pete's sake...it doesn't have to be factually accurate, does it?

PS, I prefer my pasta al dente. For next time.

[RedCloud]

54. Methinks you should have denied more!

That leaves you open for a volley.

[madeline_con]

36. You are bad, bad, bad!

No slack, huh? :spank:

[CanuckAmok]

29. Don't worry... most nightmares are 'armless. Yours are, anyway.

...

[barb162]

32. I had one vaguely similar involving a male relative who died.

But it was very clearly my middle aged adult relative whereas in your dream this person (torso) doesn't stand for anyone you know who died.

[Whoa_Nelly]

37. A visit from an ET?

Sounds kind of like the guy who visited my son when he was five. My son told me a "tall lady" with long blond hair, blue eyes and her "little kid" came into his room on a blue light, and floated above his bed. He figured it must be the tooth fairy and her kid. He said the "kid" was wearing a robe that crossed over in the middle with an "X", had gray skin with big eyes, two little holes for a nose and a mouth like this, (he demonstrated the mouth by compressing his lips together to form a straight thin line.) And then they just floated out of his room through the window on the blue light. At the time, (early 80s), I just laughed and figured he had a great imagination or really cool dream...was not into or really aware of people's descriptions of aliens,especially those who look very nordic. There were a few other really weird "visitors" to that house we were renting back then up in the Sierras...

Maybe you had a visitor, not a bad dream...:wow:

[Sugarcoated]

38. Whoa_Nelly

Do you have a history of unusual happenings in your family?

[Whoa_Nelly]

41. Nope...just with my son and me

I mostly raised him by myself...and as for family...usually feel am the only sane/no depression one out of the five sibs...our parents are dead.

I really liked the story my son told me one morning around the same time of the "tooth fairy" visit. said he hadn't slept all night...and he looked it...anyway, said he thought it was God who had kept him up all night (No, we were never a religious little family duo...didn't even go to church..)
When he told me that, I just had to ask, "So, honey, what does God look like?" He told me he was blond, tall, had a long beard and wore a robe like an Indian, adding that he meant an eastern Indian, not a cowboy and Indian kind of Indian. Also said there were a lot of other big blond people in his room all night, men and women, and that he had been shown the future, about nuclear bombings and that it wasn't good, but "God" told him it would be all right and that he (my son) needed to know this information as it would affect his life. My son is now 26, married, a parent, soon to be a dad again, and really wonderful human being...am very proud of him.

[In_The_Wind]

40. I hate dreams like that !

It seemed like I had more weird dreams on warm foggy nights ... eerie and odd!

[leftofthedial]

42. sorry! I didn't mean to frighten you!

[Kathy in Cambridge]

45. Gosh you're ugly

:P

[leftofthedial]

52. you were half asleep and the lights were out

plus you were sober. that's always a problem . . .

[Crazy Guggenheim]

43. I used to have scary shit about demons. So when they came

back I kicked their ass's.

:woohoo: :popcorn: :applause:

[Shell Beau]

47. Yes. I tend to have very

vivid dreams, so when they are nightmares, it is very real. I have had very weird dreams. Where the next day I couldn't shake it off as just being a dream.

[LynzM]

48. Wow, dude.

Here, have a :hug:

The worst nightmare I ever had was when our daughter still slept in our bed all the time... someone came into the house, into our bedroom, pulled a gun on the three of us, looked at me and said "choose". And then said "you're too slow, you lose them both" and shot both my husband and daughter, and left me there, alive. I woke up sobbing and petrefied from that one. :scared:

I hope this one fades for you, and quickly.

[DS1]

50. I had a really funny and weird one

I suddenly found myself at Woodstock on Halloween, with my old guitar I haven't picked up in years, wearing a red plastic bag-suit along with my bandmates, and Howard Stern was introducing us, and when word of Howard Stern got around suddenly we were looking out at a sea of people waiting to see something really good. So my bandmates took off, and I was left there, to perform an instrument I haven't used in years (yes, I'm stressing that point) - so I did what anyone else would do and started hammering out - badly - the first couple bars of "Stairway" - which caused a massive riot. And I ran.

:D

[Kathy in Cambridge]

51. HAHAHAHAHA

:rofl:

[RedCloud]

53. What's the worry? Your tormentor wasn't even armed!

Oh that was sick. I'll just get myself what I deserve.:spank:

[Left_Winger]

55. I usually don't remember my dreams either

However, those which do involve my dead mother calling my name. It is distinctly her voice, no doubt about it. It is loud and clear and wakes me with a suddenness I cannot describe. The day(s) after these dreams, I cannot stop thinking about it and it really freaks me out!

A week ago I had a conversation with my sister. Although she was unaware of what was going on because she is such a heavy sleeper, her daughter heard someone calling my sister's name over and over during the night (they were sleeping in the same room). BTW, my niece was only two at the time of our mother's death and therefore would not recognize her voice, but still... what could it have been?

[Whoa_Nelly]

57. That experience is called hypnogogia

Have had it happen to me, incuding hearing my son call out "Mom!". It is freaky indeed.

More info here:

Hypnogogia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnogogia

[Left_Winger]

59. Thanks for the link

It explained a lot.