Friday the 13th Fun: Your Worst Nightmare

[Dara]

As the anxiety and panic over the Corona virus heightens across the globe, let’s take this Friday the 13th as a moment of levity in which to remind ourselves of what is truly scary. After all, you are much more likely to be hit on the head by a falling kitchen appliance than contract COVID-19, and you have a bigger chance of being killed by a cow than by Corona.

But we know fear is not rational; it can follow us into the calmest of places. It arises even in the warmth and safety of sleep. So, let’s now bring it into the daylight and give it perspective. Tell me, what is the darkest your dreams have gotten? What has brought you shivers in the comfort of your bed? What was your worst nightmare?

And after you have revealed that, please don't forget the more important question: Why is it not that scary?

[Jimmy Seddon]

Great post @Dara!

This is my worst fear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Legged_Freaks

Being chased by larger than life spiders!  Now, I will say regardless of the size spiders scare me to death there is anything or anyone that will convince me that they aren't!

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

[Dara]

Eight-legged demonspawn is what they are. Couldn't agree more!

[carrie_eandm]

I have an irrational fear of sewers - not because of IT, but rather the childhood game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

As a child, I had this nightmare that I was being chased in a live game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos - and I was the marble! Running through dingy, slimy sewers with brightly colored hippos chasing me had me up for many nights following! 

To this day, I have not played the game after that nightmare. I know it will pop up in my future at some point - so we'll see how I react at that time. 

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

I don't know if this would be good "exposure therapy," but there's a company that built a life-sized version of this game. (I played it at Bauhaus Brew Labs last summer!)

You get to BE the hippo. You lay on your stomach on a platform with wheels and bounce around to grab foam balls and stuff. It was so. much. fun.

I wonder if it would help 😂

[Shannon S]

That came used too scare the crap out of me as a kid; I was worried about all the noise and getting my finger smashed under one of those hippos!

That and the games Operation and Perfection, I was a very nervous child. 

[carrie_eandm]

@Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy I am uniquely intrigued! I don't think it would actually bother me - and looking back, its scary as a kid but I laugh about it more now.

And in thinking back, I guess the scooters in gym class could be used in the same way - yeesh.

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

I keep having nightmares that I make it 90% of the way through my semester and then realize that I haven't been going to one of my classes at all.

Which, it's obviously not the worst thing in the world that could possibly happen. But the sinking feeling in my stomach is always so real. And I've been having these dreams since I was in middle school! They haunt me.

[Jimmy Seddon]

I used to have those same sort of dreams, but then I got married, adopted a couple of dogs, had a kid, and that was no longer a terrifying thing for me :D

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

I do hope that I will grow out of these, but I'll be in my masters program for another year and it does make sense that I'd have nightmares about school while I'm a student... And if getting married, adopting a dog, and having a kid is the true cure, that's probably a decade or so away! 😂

[Jimmy Seddon]

Stay strong!  Trust me it gets better!  Congrats on working through a masters program!

[Payne]

I've had a very similar dream a few times over the years! It's always a great relief to wake up and realize that it was just a dream!

[Scott Theus]

I have an irrational fear of dogs...big dogs, little dogs, even happy dogs...they all want to bite me. This is partially because as a kid I was knocked down and scratched up by this white dire wolf of a husky, and partly because I also have night terrors and have since high school. 

The night terrors are the worst.  I'm told by my wife that they can last 10-20 minutes, sometimes she can wake me up enough that they stop, sometimes they keep going after I fall back asleep. Most of the time they are not associated with an actual nightmare but rather are a sensation of ripping, tearing flesh and crunching bones. Most of the time I don't even remember them, but my wife tells me I've woken her up by shouting in my sleep thinks like last week's  "Don't break it" and "leave my eyes alone!" When I do wake up I usually remember it as some sort of animal causing it, often dog-shaped.  Over the  years I've learned to deal with them by recognizing  what they are; a chemical imbalance in my brain. 

I've also tackled by fear of dogs by facing it head on. I started working with the local Animal Protective League and other rescue groups, first as an animal photographer and later to interact with them while they are waiting for adoption. Most of them are pit bull terriers or some mix of pittie. I love working with them, even if I still get nervous sometimes and thing they want to bite me.

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

Your description is chilling. Are you a writer?! You should be a writer. ;) 

Also thank you for volunteering!

[Dara]

Wow... That is intense.. Really awesome that you decided to help out like that! Doing good in the world while helping your own mental health :).
Besides that though, maybe EMDR treatment might help? I assume you know yourself best of course, but just in case  you hadn't come across that option before.

[Scott Theus]

@Dara I've discussed EMDR with my health professionals, it won't help me, but thanks for the suggestion! 

[Adam Rypel _MoroSystems_]

I have a lot of nightmares or weird dreams for some reason. I guess the scariest one was when I was sleeping in my room and suddenly all the windows and door disappeared (all of that happening in the dream of course). 

I can remember that I was probably screaming really loud while asleep, must have been interesting experience for my neighbours haha. 

But yeah, that was really scary for me, could not fall asleep after that.

[Kat Warner]

One night in high school I went to bed and woke up to a normal day. That day I went to classes, walked to and from school, watched TV, lay in bed and blinked.

Something wasn't right.

My alarm went off. In the time of what felt like a blink, it was morning. Boy was I tired! It felt like I had had no sleep at all. As I got ready for school I listened to the radio and realised the day I thought was yesterday was a dream and I had to re-do that normal day while feeling like I had no sleep at all.

[Samie Kaufman - Your Gal at Gliffy]

I got tired just reading this ughhhhhh

[Daniel Eads]

Probably because of seeing the Star Trek Voyager episode "Year of Hell" when it initially aired, I have an irrational fear. In the episode, the timeship is obsessed with restoring the Krenim Imperium. 98% doesn't cut it. They're constantly working to reset the timeline.

My irrational fear is having to rebuild something from the atomic level. Being doomed to reconstruct anything, even just a single object, let alone the entire world or universe... it's impossible.

Think of all the copies of Taylor Swift albums that will need to be reproduced, bit for bit. How they have to be positioned just right on whatever bookshelf they were on. The specs of dust sitting on top of them. The imperceptible scratches in the plastic. The spin of the electrons floating around the nuclei of the atoms holding them together.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal states that you can't measure the position or velocity of a quantum particle without affecting the other, so not only is this a super difficult problem, but physically impossible.

And yet, I'm worried about being trapped someplace to reproduce something at that level of detail. Weird.

After all, wave your hand in Star Trek and suddenly it becomes possible again.

[Vinod Ramadoss]

Since childhood i have this fear for certain insects, Entomophobia (got this term from google now :)

Cockroaches are the ones i fear the most, and there are these certain ones among them that fly, i never used to get this aspect why only few of them fly and the rest prefer to happily walk around though all cockroaches have wings.

There was this once instance where i emptied an entire anti-cockroach spray just on one cockroache.

And that very night, was it a coincidence or revenge not sure i had this crazy nightmare where i was fully covered with cockroaches,  millions of them on me, i woke up screaming and didnt get to sleep that night.

But giving it a thought as i type, was it me who freaks out looking at it or does those cockroaches freak out seeing me....