What is the weirdest dream you've ever had?
I had one where I worked at a school and a 6 year old girl named Cadey (pronounced like Katie) would always bring a toy from home and surprise everyone with it. But one day she brought in her parents' gun and shot a boy. Everyone was shocked except me, because I had a stop sign growing out of my neck and couldn't afford to see a doctor 🇺🇸 and was so overwhelmed.
I don't know about it being the weirdest, but a recurring dream from my late teens to the early 20's has been seared into my memory that goes like this:
The way the dream starts varies, but a common version is me being asked to explore a staircase that was yet to be fully explored. Some versions has me go up, the others go down, and yet still others has me trying both. In some versions, I was sent with a team, the members of which succumbed to thirst, hunger, and fatigue as the expedition seemed to have no end. Sometimes, we (or I) discover that we've been going around “in circles” as we encounter the corpse of someone from our team who has earlier died, or I (in the versions I was alone) come across equipment I have abandoned way earlier.
In later versions, this has evolved into me (either starting with a team, but has since been whittled into just me) discovering an actual end to the staircase: a vast expanse of nothing but darkness. In there, I encounter some people (how they got there varies, some through the same staircase, the others through other means, and yet still others don't know how). I somehow convinced them to join me in exploring the darkness. To do this, we arranged ourselves in a circle, facing outwards with arms linked. That way, we wouldn't lose a person. We try to go off on a direction and explore the darkness that way. As we encounter more people willing to join us, they add themselves into the circular chain. It goes on and on, seemingly without end. The dark expanse just goes on and on forever.
In still later versions, this dark expanse is replaced by a huge subterranean cavern. Gone is the staircase, and I just dropped into the bottommost cavern. The same sequence of events as with the "dark expanse" version happens, but now, we can actually see where we're going and there's no need for forming a human circular chain.
In one late, and rare, version of this dream, we come across a well-lighted cavern whose center lies a shining stalagmite. We couldn't approach the stalagmite, however, and just made that as a reference point in further explorations.
This recurring dream has become more and more rare as I grew older. I sometimes wonder what it all means, and why the dream changed over time. It seemed to have to do with my mental state at that time, but some things didn't make sense. It's also quite coherent as dreams go, which is probably why I still remember it years after.
This sounds like a continuation of SCP-087. Very interesting. Perhaps you should write a short story about it?
I read that SCP (again?) and more than the similarities (endless staircases is perhaps one of those common nightmares), I find the timing a bit strange. I am for sure wasn't aware of SCP back then (circa 2007), but IIRC, the time that SCP was written is roughly the same time I was those dreams.
I don't think I can write a continuation to SCP-087, but a short story based on the common elements of that recurring dream series is doable. Difficult, but doable. But first, I must recall more detail from those dreams!
Same, wow. The ones that weren't as absurd as the one that inspired this post inspired some worldbuilding stuff and stories I wrote imagined and never actually wrote
Well, one stands out as particularly weird in its own way.
I was spending the night with this woman. For the first time. I was happy to be there, so my dream got pretty energized. Usually my dreams are rather mundane, like about cheese or something.
Anyway, this time I was an adventurer/explorer - full on Indiana Jones kinda thing. I entered this huge ancient complex of overgrown ruins - like a round opening in a mountain with small-ish carved out openings, like in Petra.
First I was alone. But then some wolves came, and I bravely fought them off. Then a gigantic bird attacked me, and I fought that one as well. I was on fire.
After all this I was getting tired, so I climbed towards one of the carved spaces in the mountain to take a nap. Just then another gigantic bird flew against me full speed, posing an immediate danger. As it approached, I reached out and grabbed the beak with all my might, ready to heroically throw it aside.
And the beak was... Soft? Like some Big Bird kinda thing?
Snap back to the real world, and I had just woken up my bedfellow by violently grabbing her butt cheek. Apparently it was quite painful. It was an awkward situation to have to explain.
Your dream was great but I can't stand for this cheese slander.
#Cheesedreamsmatter
I stood in an endless plane of dirty sepia. From every direction, millions of roads with billions of marching people converged on an impossibly giant being. It immerged at the waist from a bottomless chasm, a distorted and emaciated androgenous figure. It's abnormally long arms coiled in front of itself in a mock of modesty for it's nude form. It's face ends cleanly just above the nose a flat plane where it's skull should be.
Above it, a an equally large hole is open in the sky, ash rains down from the hole and drifts to gray the land. A rumbling knowledge in my head tells me that the ash is all that's left of the marching figures as they drop into the hole below the being.
Periodically the being reaches miles into the distance to pluck a single figure by the skull. As it pulls they fractal out into a million reflections of themself, each a portrait of terror, agony, and ecstasy. The rumble shows me that these are the lucky ones, each will create a new path for others to march, though only if their minds survive the touch. Those that don't are brought to the void of the being's skull and dropped within.
The rumble in my head pulls me away to a waxy looking cave and I wake.
are you by any chance related to Yoko Taro
I had no idea who this was before your post but his photo on Wikipedia tells me we're definitely stitched from the same leather.
that's pretty amazing. if you do anything creative, like art, writing, video games, etc you should try to do something with it.
Nice try, dream cop!
Do you think dream cops know about the three seashells?
I was inside of a Chinese restaurant. The walls were a mixture of red and gold, food was great, and I needed to go to the bathroom. I asked this young Chinese lady where the bathroom was, and she pointed to a door. I went to the bathroom and when I came back out I realized that the "restaurant" was some kind of non-euclidean space. I didn't end up in the same place I came from, and with each corner I turned, even if I went back, I'd be in a new area of the restaurant, each one different to the other and each area not being logically consistent with the previous geometry. I woke up kind of freaked out because the dream was so trippy. Doesn't help that I seem to have hyperphantasia either, so when I dream everything looks as real as it does in real life...
Sounds like that restaurant was a floor of the backrooms.
Definitely! At least the food was great.
The earliest dream I can remember was pretty surreal, I think i was around ~5 at the time. I was facing off against some kid I really didn't like in a white void, only their colors were all wrong. Blue skin, purple hair, that kinda deal. All around us were these polychromatic sparks, buzzing around like flies in a really agitating way. Taking a swing at the kid, their face shattered like ceramic, and from underneath the cracks my sister started crawling out howling and screaming.
Yeah, i dunno
Quite a few but one of my favorites was - standing on the corner with a bunch of people waiting for the bus, when the ground began to rise beneath us and we rose, we were standing on the back of an enormous spider. Our bus was a giant spider.
But were you late for work?
It did move slowly, after emerging, lumbering along the busy road, so probably yeah. Still, very cool.
One dream I remember is something I still wonder about. Was it some sort of sign or does it represent something? I dunno. But I remember I was in some sort of giant, deserted resort. Think The Shining. I remember seeing a red fox that kept bothering me. Whenever I would see this fox, it would yelp and bark which would call something. I don't know what this was that it was calling, but when it got near, I remember I would hear something like a distorted violin play along with large footsteps and growls. I would run away from thing and I could hear it behind me chasing me. After running away from this thing and hiding in a small store that was filled with the evening sun, I remember seeing the shadow of this thing pass by the window. It was a large monster. And, followed behind it, and this is where I'm wondering what the meaning behind this is, I saw four women dressed in red jackets. They were jogging behind this thing. Three of them came into the store I was hiding in and found me. Each one had their own personality. One seemed to like me, one seemed to hate me, and one didn't pay any attention to me. I don't know about the fourth one. And, strangely enough, they were all Asian. Now, I'm not Asian so I don't know if that has anything to do with anything. But, when I saw these women, I immediately thought of the fox. They were the foxes in human form that were chasing me.
Usually, animals in dreams are a placeholder for the unknown and unpredictable, something that is perceived as dangerous. The distorted violin that I would interpret as a sad instrument hints a little towards sadness that you hide from, but I'm not that the sound is just scary to you, just like being chased by the monster. So it seems you are avoiding the confrontation with something that scares you in your real life, or something that only scares you subconsciously that you buried. When you meet or see other people in your dreams, like the four women, they basically represent parts of yourself (because, well, you are the one dreaming after all). The women gave away your hiding space and are a threat to you. I can't really tell much from your further description, I feel like there is more context in the interaction you maybe had with the three women. But maybe they are also just a means to keep the dream in the "being chased and in danger" loop. It's common to not be able to fully hide and stay in safety in a dream like this, since that would mean the conflict was solved and therefore the dream would cease to be. You probably wouldn't even have remembered it.
Not the weirdest, I have too many and they are all bonkers, but one of the more "cohesive" and memorable ones I had was... 15-20 years ago.
I was Rick Mercier (this is all gonna be very Canadian brace yourselves) and I was interviewing Guy Lelibre or whatever the Cirque du Soleil guy's name is. I was meeting him downtown so he could show my their newest greatest marvel, they were raising their tent using the CN tower as the centre pole.
As we watched in awe all these carneys working diligently, he asked me to grab onto this section of the tent. It had the texture of dryer hose, like a midweight plastic bag with thin wire ribbing. We grabbed on tightly and all of a sudden we were being pulled up hundreds of feet as we rode the tent up to the top, with tons of other Carneys in pairs doing the same as us. As we got near the top Guy pulled a release and the section of the tent we were on separated from the main tent and became/secretly already was a hang glider, and we started sailing east out over the beaches area.
All the other teams were hang gliding with us, soaring along the shore of the lake, looking for a place to land safely. As Guy steered us down and we landed I caught the eye of the Tin Man (from Wizard of Oz) and I thought "this is ridiculous, I've only met that guy one other time and it was also while I was hang gliding and landed near him! I'll have to go explain myself!"
So we landed, and there was a small interlude where I was me and not Rick Mercer and I found a group doing yoga and one of them was a coworker, and she bought a sandwich to give to a homeless person, but this person wasn't Toronto homeless* they were Sarah McLachlan singing about you starving in a third world homeless and I just felt so bad to have been hang gliding.
Then I realized we were pretty far from the core and the grand opening was approaching fast and I started searching for Guy. I found him and was like "how will we get back in time?!" And he smiled like Willy Wonka and looked over the horizon, where dozens of white horses**, all without saddles but wearing the feather hat thing, came galloping towards us.
They all split into pairs and peeled away to each of their respective Carney hang gliding construction team members, and without stopping we did the thing where you grab the horse as it's running by and suddenly are riding. And with that, Guy, me (Rick Mercier) and the rest of the team galloped back towards the CN tower, which was now a giant tent, to witness the grand opening just in the nick of time! Fin
I will have outted myself with that post, as I share that dream whenever someone asks this type of question.
*Homelessness is a serious problem. I don't mean to be insensitive, I'm trying to use few words to express an idea.
**Cirque du Soleil does not use animals, it's kinda their whole thing, so this is the least realistic part of the dream but I like to think they are just union horse labour from the local RCMP/Toronto Police stables, or maybe the Medieval Times Horses trying to earn some extra cash....
Had a dream that I committed suicide by leaping from a balcony. Afterlife was spending four years in school learning how to be a ghost.
That's like that one movie
Be me
On my phone
Screen suddenly goes dark, I look at my computer, screen flickers, then goes dark,
I look around the room, lights flickering then goes out
I look outside my window
HOLY FUCK A NUCLEAR MUSHROOM CLOUD
Shockwaves approaching
Then I woke up...
The other dream was I was taking a train for some reason, then everyone in the train station became a zombie for some reason, the train arrives and everyone on the train are zombies. ZOMBIES EVERYWHERE. Then I woke up...
Most of my dreams are weird, it's rare to not have a weird dream.
Some of my recurring weirdness is I have the power to jump way up into the air, above the treetops, and sort of hover there for a bit if I concentrate.
Had a suuuuuuper vivid dream ages ago that I woke up on a beach at night. A cloaked figure offered me her hand and brought me to a nearby cave with a roaring fire
I was a line on a virtual plane and had to traverse aimlessly for reasons.
I'm not a fan of Tron or watched the movies, wtf.
I thought visual language processing doesn't occur when dreaming?
Thought that too but I've had several dreams involving readable text. One time I had a dream I was trying to pay to enter the train station and the screen kept saying try again, then when it finally went through it said "we don't serve Mario fans, call customer service".
I had another where I was using Google maps to go from a Chipotle back home and when I originally just walked 5 minutes, the app was telling me to take a train. I followed it, and walked through a long dimly lit hallway, and instead of a regular train there was a shiny fancy gold one with bright purple lights on the inside, kinda like UV lights. Just about everyone inside reflected the purple light except for one old man who was somehow 2D and kept facing me like the trees in Mario 64. I rode this train for 20 minutes and I got off at a stop written in a language that looked like the one in Splatoon. I followed Maps' walking directions for two minutes and ended up right in front of my house, and everything else I passed by disappeared.
Your dreams sound incredible
I'm glad you made it home
Once I had a horrible nightmare in which I was a guy in his 40s and a child predator as well. In the dream I had a red car and was stalking schools looking for teenage girls, offering them a ride.
There were no victims in the dream but woke up so disturbed it took me a whole minute to realize I was, in real life, a woman in her early 20s. It's by far the most bizarre shit my brain ever dumped on me while asleep. Wtf.
That's wild.
I have a recurring dream that I have forgotten about something. Something with a dollar value (usually $40,000 for some reason) and I am now just realizing I have to account for this missing thing. I can't explain really, sometimes it's work related so I'm concerned I'll be asked to cover the costs of forgetting this $40,000 item somewhere.
When I wake up it takes me a few minutes for that anxiety/stress to fade out properly. I can't imagine the strange middle world your brain was in as your brain booted up fully.
I know this one is pretty common, but after I graduated uni I was having recurring dreams for years, where I'd suddenly realise I was enrolled in one extra subject and I'd forgotten to attend any classes, and the exam is tomorrow, and it's the last subject I need to complete my degree, and if I don't pass then I won't graduate.
These were so real, and the panic and anxiety so intense. Every time I had this dream I would wake up convinced I was still enrolled in school, I would log into my school account only to confirm to myself that I have no current class enrolments, and indeed I did graduate already. It would still take me several hours to get that amount of anxiety out of my head.
I was having this dream at least once a month for about 18 months.
Holy cow you woke up to anxiety over a $40k debt. That's not nice. Interesting to see this happens to other people as well, I never heard in person (at least) about others waking up under normal conditions and not fully realising who they were.
Yeah you bet it was messed. I had a mini panic attack thinking the police were after me, that my life was over, that I was going to rot in jail and I felt so disgusted at myself for taking advantage of those girls. All that in under a minute. And then the wave of relief as I realised who I really was.