Nightmare Themes

I'm curious as to what kinds of nightmares different people have most often. My worst nightmares have to do with me being chased or stalked either by a man who has an obsession with me or a man I don't know at all who is chasing me for a reason unknown to me.

My older brother used to always rescue me in my dreams when I was being chased; in my older age, in light of his struggle with drug addiction, I have dreamed of him betraying me or, most recently, finding me about to use or just having used some kind of drug.

I also have had several zombie nightmares! Usually, I get extremely frustrated because the idiots I'm stuck with won't listen to me and end up letting the zombies in or getting themselves killed.

I've healed a lot so I don't get many nightmares now, but when I do, usually it is just a feeling of dread, like something awful is happening or going to happen, but I don't know what. When I did get nightmares as a child it was pretty much the same thing. There was always some weird situation that doesn't seem all that bad in real life (like one was having to count to 800) but the dream is filled with dread.

That sounds troubling but I'm glad you don't get them very often. I've been having nightmares pretty often the last few weeks but I can just barely remember what happened in the morning, so that's good at least.

I have extremely anxious images flashing by, all wrapped into a tight ball (like a ball made up of rubber bands), and I can't seem to discern the images...I was having them every night so I now take Klonopin and if I sleep (bad insomniac), they are kept away. I am going to consult a hypnotherapist soon to get some help, because obviously I can't work through this anxious ball of images/energy if I can't remember anything.
But when I was having those dreams, the next morning (when I was working) would be terrible trying to get ready, I could barely pull myself together. And I felt 20 times more anxious than I normally do for the rest of the day, and I am extremely anxious as it is.
I do have nightmares about my cats, mostly the two I have had to have put to sleep. They are always out there with a bunch of other cats and I have to find them and "save" them as fast as possible...the cats I have now are always out there, too, to find, and there are cats I don't know mixed in.
It's been a long time since I had one I could remember, but I had one last night where I found the cats I have now and even the first one I had to put to sleep...the second one I saw swimming in water and I was afraid he was drowning, but I couldn't get to him and was panicking because all I could do was watch. Ironically he had to be put to sleep in 2008 when his heart failed and his lungs filled with fluid...and my vet had said it was like he was drowning. It's amazing what your mind holds on to. Anyway, I felt very very sad this morning. Maybe a different kind of nightmare than what you are referring to, but I felt very hopeless and like I had no control both in the dream and when I awoke.
I am sorry you are experiencing nightmares, yours sound scary. I hope you are able to work through them.

Hugs and love to you and thank you for sharing.
The symbolism in your dreams relates to your emotions, and you are experiencing the full spectrum, the good news is you are very aware of how you are feeling. It is you that is struggling with how to unravel that tight ball of energy. Instead of rubber bands think of a ball of thread entangled in knots.
This is more managable. Gently begin to untangle your anxiety/fear you will see there is positive, encouraging energy inside of you that is strong and powerful. A big part of lucid dreaming is watching, not necessary to engage or change the situation but allow the dream to tell/show you what your subconcious is working on.
Kindly remind yourself I will be okay calmly calling upon your inner strength and you can save yourself, only you. In your dream you are you and you are your cats.
I empathize with you, I had my Kiity for 17 years and she passed on my last birthday I also had to put to sleep my dog Happy due to a spinal injury last year.

Thank you for your response, it's very insighful. And I am so sorry for your losses...on your own b-day must have been esp awful and sad.
I have suffered a lot of guilt over the loss of 2 of my cats (even tho I have the BEST vet and always took the best care of them.) I tend to end up with cats who have chronic issues that I have to manage; there is always multiple issues per each cat.
Dizzy, the one who went into heart failure, was only 8 years old. He had gone to the local vet school, which it top ranked in the country, and they had prescribed a med for his heart that I had given my first cat before and she had responded fine to it (she had to be put to sleep for acute kidney failure, in her case). Anyway, Dizzy started the med Monday, by Thursday he was not eating, and by Sat. I had to put him to sleep because his heart went into failure after having an irregular heartbeat and other complications they could not fix....turns out he had a bad reaction to the med, which is extremely rare. My vet talked to the head of cardiology about it after the fact since they never see this kind of thing.
It was horrible, and I still feel terrible guilt; if I had decided not to give him the medicine, he could very easily still be here today. My oldest cat now also has heart disease (no heart meds for him...not taking the chance ever again, altho I was told his murmur was not as bad to need them) and several other issues, but he has made it to almost 12, and my vet is amazed...still holding my breath some as we think he only has one working kidney.
I have HUGE guilt over the loss of Dizzy. I think a lot of my dreams are about that in general, guilt, and I need to talk about it more in therapy. Thanks again...feel like I am taking over the thread. Sorry about that.

A common theme for me is the "searching for something or someone" nightmare. I am desperately looking for something or someone and the search is so long or distracting things happen that I lose any sense of what I was looking for to begin with. Or, that my journey took so long, that person had long left where I was supposed to meet them.

I don't have nightmares often, but when I do they are biggies. I had one just yesterday that is a recurring one. The situation is always the same but the environment changes sometimes.
I dream that I am trapped in a building (used to be a big house, now it's a hospital setting). The inside is set up like a halloween scary house. There are monsters or demons in each of the rooms. They used to be very very scary to look at but now they have changed. They are not as scary on first glance but once they see me trying to get out of the room they change and become gruesome looking.
They scream and claw at me, chasing me. What would be normal looking people now grow claws and jagged teeth. Their eyes turn demon like.
One room last night had a set of sisters, young girls. They were singing songs. As soon as I walked in they stopped and turned to look at me. Then just started snarling and screaming. Another room had a pretty lady that looked like a nurse. She soon started crawling on the walls and screaming while she clawed at me.
Needless to say I wake up before they can get me.

But what is really scary is that when I have these I tend to enter some sort of paralytic state. One where I know I am sleeping but trying to wake up and I can't move or open my eyes. It was a real struggle and I was very shaken up when I finally could get out of bed.

a few weeks ago I had this random long dream, it wasn't scary, but just really creepy! I won't go into details, but there was this creepy white guy. And his face stuck with me the entire next day, which was bothering me. Then the next night there were two white guys chasing after me with guns, trying to kill me- and one of the guys seemed really similar to the creepy man in my last dream.

Later the next day I was on the elliptical, and turned the TV on. I saw this guy's face plastered everywhere, and he looked just like the creepy guy in my dreams! It was kind of scary. I was listening to music but could read the subtitles, and it said he was found guilty for a triple homicide a few hours away from where I live.

That's very eerie! I'd be freaked, too. I've had a few different dreams where I'm being chased by a man whose face I can't see but I always had the feeling that it was the same man throughout all of them. Very creepy and unsettling.