Dying in a dream

[Bullgrit]

I bet we've all heard the myth/legend/warning that if you die in your dream, you'll really die. Well, as far as I can remember, I've never died in my dreams. Until last night, almost.

OK, we all know how weird and illogical dreams are, so you'll understand how the particulars here don't make sense. Anyway. . .

I was with a small group of people on a modern-day playground fighting against a pair of evil samurai. We were all fighting with varied items [but I had a real Italian sword that I own in real life], and the samurai were in armor and wielding katanas. I was quite scared, as I don't have the lifelong training in sword fighting that I knew the samurais did. I knew this battle was going to be deadly, and I was scared. When I clashed with one of the samurais, I managed to pierce his throat with the tip of my sword. There was a pause as both of us realized what I had just managed to do. I knew the wound was not fatal, or even fight-ending. And then we both realized his katana was longer than my sword. While still stuck on the tip of my sword, he thrust his katana at my midsection.

I jolted awake at that moment, with a phantom pain in my abdomen. I was quite unnerved even though the pain faded after a minute. I couldn't fall back to sleep for over an hour. Really weird. And really disturbing.

Have any of you experienced a dream where you die or wake up right before you die?

Bullgrit

 

[eabha]

Before flying to Los Angeles in the summer of 2001, I dreamed that I was on the flight and someone hijacked it and crashed it. I remember a fireball headed down the plane towards where I was sitting and the impact...it was highly unpleasant, to say the least. I remember thinking "This is what it's like to die."

Wow, it's even unpleasant writing about it. I think I'll go back to the Christmas memories thread...

 

[EricNoah]

A childhood dream...

I'm at the edge of a cliff, with my bike parallel to the edge. I'm standing on the seat, facing the abyss, my arms out to my sides so my body is in the form of a cross. The bike starts to tip toward the abyss. I fall, the bike falls. In my dream I see the bike hit the ground at the bottom of the cliff but somehow I have disappeared. And I wake up.

 

[der_kluge]

The closest I ever had was a nightmare I had when I was about 12. I still remember it vividly.

There was this dark forest, and there was this BBEG in there who thus far had proved to be unstoppable. He was a large man, with a vicious sword.

I was part of a crack team assembled to go in and fight him. But for some reason we could only go in one at a time. And there was even a waiting room where we would queue up waiting our turn.

My turn came, and I found him, and fought very hard. But his sword was magic, and one hit, and you would lose the fight.

I got him almost to death, and he hit me, where I was instantly transported to a room with a spiked ceiling and walls which closed in on me.

I told myself to wake up, and I did.

It was pretty scary.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I have had the "falling off a cliff" dream (really scary for someone who is very afraid of falling), but always woke up before I hit the ground.

I had a dream one night of being in a serious car accident. The car slammed into a truck coming the other way and I woke up right at impact, jumping so much that I practically was thrown from the bed.

My grandmother told me that her greatest fear would be one day waking up dead. I guess she feared zombies.

 

[FickleGM]

I almost die so much in my dreams it's scary. Just last night:

Some hot psycho-chick with a gun was going to decide between me and four other guys who got to live and who got to die. I believe that I knew who all the people were when I was dreaming, but for the life of me I can't remember who they are now.

Anyway, she made us stand in a line and would then come up behind each of us and put the gun to the back of our heads. When she decided which one to shoot, she would pull the trigger.

She did this once and I "made the cut". The next "morning", me and another guy were late getting to the line. He tried to make and excuse, so she shot him in the gut and he died right there. I quietly took my place in line. The whole time, I was contemplating ways to disarm her, but decided that if she did decide to shoot me the death would be quick and so I decided that I was ready to go. I was a bit sad.

So, the chick puts the gun to the back of the first guy. She doesn't pull the trigger. Same with the next guy. Then she puts the gun to the back of my head (I can still feel it's cold metal on the back of my neck). She holds it there...and holds it there...and holds it there...and my alarm clock goes off. It felt like an eternity, but I was glad when I woke up to find that it was a dream.

Anyway, I have a lot of strange dreams and rarely am I in a good position...

 

[Dougal DeKree]

Hmm, last time i drowned in a huge barrel of beer. And son I returned as a lich with the whole brewery as my phylactery. Weird dream, but cool...
The first thing i did then was go and kill Frank

 

[Harmon]

Nightmares are my norm. Close my eyes to go to sleep and usually right into a nightmare. Battle scenes, death, gore, etc are the norm. I have, more then once been in a fight, and had my head cut off. Laying there on the ground watching my body fall, and the fading of my sight and thoughts as my brain dies.

Some times it is right into another nightmare or I wake (sudden jolt or slowly).

Its pretty typical <shrug> and I am so use to it that only once in a while do I dread going to sleep (once stayed up for four days trying not to sleep because I knew what waited for me).

Worry not about dying in your dreams, its a myth.

 

[Kemrain]

My boyfriend told me one time that he had a dream where he fell off a cliff. The ground was rushing up to meet him, and he hit. He died. And he lay there, dead and broken, for some time, not moving, not thinking. He said that being dead isn't such a bad thing- it's getting there that sucks.

I don't think I've ever died in dreams, but I've come close. I've had dreams where I was swallowed, or drowning, and when I woke up, for about 20 seconds after I was awake, I couldn't breathe. It was like I'd knocked the wind out of myself while I was sleeping. It hasn't happened in years, but it was terrifying.

- Kemrain the Alive.

 

[Dakkareth]

I had an unrelated nightmare a few weeks ago and can't remember, when I had the last one before that. I just don't have any or I simply don't remember them - can't say I have a problem with that .

When I was really yound though, I used to dream of falling down the stairs - we lived in three-story house with long wooden stairs and slipping/falling was quite possible. Then at some point I managed to transform the dreams - I told myself, that I it was just dreams and that the next time I wouldn't fall. And so when I next dreamed that dream, I willed myself to stop in midair to fly above the stairs. Pretty cool, that .