I had a nightmare as a child that I was in my house jumping around in a giant shoe like in Super Mario Brothers (3?) and then the raptors and T-Rex from Jurassic park showed up. Shit was frightening.

For a few weeks I had waking dreams that freaked me the hell out.

The ceiling of my bedroom had strips of wood that must have been about one foot wide. Seemingly out of nowhere I had a dream where the lines got fuzzy and were sort of moving and shadowy objects were moving too. A knot of wood maybe about the size of a silver dollar could move about 3 or 4 inches and then go back to where it actually was. An bunch of connected lines on the wood became a moving spider.

I would close my eyes for a few seconds and when right after I opened them the ceiling would be normal again. But when I opened my eyes - things would move again. There was also a feeling of “compression”. I have no idea how to explain that.

I loved horror movies and sci-fi. I don’t remember the details but I watched a crappy movie or a tv show that still managed to scare me by mentioning creatures living on “the other side”. This was the 1970s so there wasn’t some kind of fantastic CGI stuff. I don’t even remember if there were any visuals at all. But I sure did create the visuals in my mind.

I wasn’t a smart kid and I was too proud and too embarrassed to talk to my mom about it. But after a few weeks I finally managed to figure it out and I talked to myself “Stop seeing that scary stuff, dummy.”

When I was a young teen, I had what I think was a recurring nightmare for a while. I’m not sure, because I could never remember what happened. I would just wake up crying and with an immense feeling of loss. The feeling would stay with me all day, and I never could remember why. Eventually I stopped having the dream, but I’m still a little scared to know what it was about, and what would have made me feel so awful.

The one nightmare that has stuck with me the longest is where i was in the woods, and i encountered a worm with blades on either end of it. It jumped on my hand and curled around my finger, slicing it off with the blades, then I woke up.

I’ve had other nightmares but they’re a lot more mundane. Losing control of my car and careening downhill, someone hurting my cat, and not being able to find my dog are three I’ve had a bunch.

edit: I also have the “suddenly realizing you’re naked” dream, but credit to my dream self the last time I had it I distinctly remember immediately playing it off like I meant to be naked the whole time. Need that confidence in my waking life.