Phobia categories

Recurring Nightmares

This section of the Hall contains phobias which occur at night during sleep, including nightmares and, in more extreme cases, night terrors.

Read about general recurring nightmares. Below are the ten most recently added phobias in this category.

From the time I was 4 or 5 all the way until I was a teenager, I was haunted almost every night by the same nightmare involving my mother. These were horrifying dreams and I would often wake up screaming or not able to get back to sleep. Every night, I would dream that I would be in an ordinary, quiet situation at home -- looking in a mirror, looking out a window, watching TV -- the horrible thing was a lot of times I didn't know it was a dream. Then, all of a sudden, I'd get a horrible feeling and see my mom's face, painted absolutely pale white, with a terrifying, deranged smiled on her face. The most terrifying were her eyes which seemed to stare into my soul and looked completely threatening and deranged. Next, what always happened is she would chase after me bloodthirstily and I would desperately try to get away from her, hiding, running, anything. Most of the time, I would think I had gotten away. Once, I had hidden in a closet and felt safe. The next thing I knew, I had a horrible feeling in my stomach and I turned around and she was RIGHT THERE, creepy white face and all and she started screaming and clawing at me. I always woke up before she killed me but I thought at one point I wouldn't be so lucky. What's funny is that when I woke up, I was always REALLY happy to see my mom and didn't at all think my actual mom was scary except sometimes when she got angry with me and something in her eyes freaked me out.

In another terrifying and weird dream, my "white mama" (as I called the woman in my dream when I was little) became so enraged that I was trying to run away from her that she started screaming at the top of her lungs (imagine seeing your own mother maniacally scream at the top of her lungs) and steam started coming out of her. Her face got long and she turned into this weird cross between a pendulum and a locomotive, with her face swinging angrily back and forth until I thought she was going to blow up or kill me.

These dreams lessened in frequency as I got older, but I always had this fear in the back of my mind that the dream could recur at any moment. Sometimes it would. I had two dreams when I was thirteen, for instance. My last dream was when I was about sixteen. I will never forget it. By this time, I was able to realize in my dream that this was a dream (lucid dreaming). White Mama had been chasing me and I was terrified that this was happening. But I made a choice. She was about to pounce on me when I started crying in the dream and pleading for her to stop. I just kept pleading and pleading and crying, "I love you! I love you, Mom!" What's crazy is she finally broke down and started crying too but she was still a monster and it was then that I felt bad for her, that she was some kind of evil manifestation and she would never be human. It was really weird. I hugged her and she cried and I got this weird feeling from her, like, "I wish I was your mother. I wish I was anybody's mother. I always loved you. I am so sorry."

Then I woke up and I have NEVER had those dreams again. My mom still teases me about the "White Mama," and I always giggle about it with her although I don't think my mom will ever comprehend how messed up it was to have those dreams every night.

Mary
from Recurring Nightmares : General

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I'm not usually scared of gorillas, but whenever they're in my dreams, I wake up crying my eyes out. It all started when I had to horrible nightmares in the same night, one of the mayor from "Eight Crazy Nights" dressed in a gorilla suit, chasing me, and another dream of a gorilla trying to break through my back door. Weird... I know.

Also, on a different note, I CANNOT sleep if there is a chair looking at me. It has to be facing sideways, otherwise, I'm gonna wake up constantly to make sure it didn't move.

Yoko
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I cannot stand the sound of repetitive noises. no matter how quiet or small they are e.g ticking of a clock... or someone tapping their pen on a desk it makes me want to rip my head off. I also cant stand repetitive touching - like someone tapping me on the shoulder more than once. grrr it makes me angry.

strange?
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I keep having the same nightmare that my cousin and I are in the backseat of a car on top of an insanely steep hill while we wait for her mother to pump gas. Every time, we roll over the edge and go flying down the hill, crashing to our deaths.

Anonymous
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Um, this doesn't really make sense and it's really hard to explain but I have these terrible nightmares that are impossible to describe and I scream and cry during them and after I wake up. It's sort of like a dreamy half-sleep, and it sometimes involves really small and really huge things together, or really hard and really soft things together, but this is pretty much all I can put in to words. I think I'm channeling something that the human brain can't comprehend.

Callie
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I was walking through what seemed like a cafeteria, and I stopped at one table that was occupied by people I did not know. I started going on and on excitedly about how I always see those people while I’m eating lunch. They act sort of nice, but awkward. Then I kept walking and ended up in what seemed like an amusement park, but on the left, there was an office. Well, I was walking into the park, and I accidentally bumped into this guy, and everything went dark for a moment, and all I remember is hitting and slapping at the guy and crying, and then when it was light again, my clothes were torn and I knew that I had just been raped. I sat in shock for a bit before getting up and running back to my dad, who was on the other side of the cafeteria I had crossed. He wrapped me up in a large wool jacket (I can still feel the itchiness) and took me to the office that was in the amusement park. I sat down in one of the chairs, and the other two were already occupied by two of my friends. They asked if I was alright, and I just said ‘yeah’ really quietly. Then the person behind the desk started whispering to my two friends, and I realized that she was telling them what had happened to me. The thing is, I didn’t feel scared or anything, but I felt like I was supposed to feel something, so I just looked down and tried to put on a ‘hurt’ face. Then I got scared and started running around again, and I ran around a wall and back to where I’d first ran into the guy, and he was there. I started slapping him in the face, and I noticed that my mom was standing near the office, so I said “Have you met my mom? She knows karate.” and the guy looked nervous, but then he turned on me again and I started running. I ran back around that wall and ended up in my cousin’s house. I ran upstairs to the kitchen before running back down the stairs to get to the front door. I thought I was fine, so I relaxed for a bit, but the guy came back through the door. I started running up the stairs, and he grabbed at me, but my cousin’s dog bit him and he let go. I ran and hid behind my aunt, and said a phrase. I’m pretty sure it had the word ‘marriage’ in it. Once I said it, the guy started coming up the stairs, and my aunt told me that the more I said that, the closer the guy got, but I kept saying it, even though I was terrified. I just hugged my aunt more tightly and closed my eyes, then I woke up.

Anonymous
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i keep having the same nightmare every couple of days i go to my old grandparents house and my nan is standing there and my dad tells me to go and play so i go out and at the bottom of the street i see a man look through the van and started running towards me as soon as he reaches me i wake up and startle and sometimes i would not go back to sleep and lock my door.

LewisB
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When I was a kid, I had a recurring nightmare where I was at a place kind of like Sea World, and I was in a tour group being shown around. About 50 feet away we'd see a large, round, in-ground sort of pool with dark water, and the tour guide would say, "Don't get too close to that tank." Some random woman wouldn't be paying attention and would walk right beside the tank, when a giant octopus arm would come out and grab her. The woman was never someone I knew. I had this exact same dream many times, and to this day I can't stand the sight of an octopus or a squid, especially when they show footage of giant ones on the news.

Amy
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I have the same reoccurring nightmare almost every 2 nights! In the dream, im with my older sister in one of my parents cars with one of my parents driving in the front seat while my sis and i are always sitting in the back seats. after about 10 minutes of my mom or dad driving us around on the freeway, the parent hops out of the car! whenever i look back, they always wave to me and seem like theyre saying,"HAVE A NICE LIFE!" and then they get run over by a car. then my sis and i start to drive the car, but whenever we crawl into the backseat with my parent still out of the car, my dad pops back into the front seat and says with a Cheshire-Cat grin, "you ok back there girls?" it freaks me out and one time i woke up screaming after i had the dream!

$arah the Snow Bunny
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when i have a fever,i always dreamt about colored tiles.they were turning around and getting away from me.it sure is weird but i felt scared when the tiles were getting away from me.i don't really know why but i'm really scared.

myuka
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