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The Hall Of Phobias

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
from Recurring Nightmares : General

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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?
from Recurring Nightmares : General

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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
from Recurring Nightmares : General

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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
from Recurring Nightmares : General

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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
from Recurring Nightmares : General

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