# Need some nightmare ideas!



## wickedwillingwench (Sep 16, 2011)

Mordessa said:


> Heya guys!
> 
> My theme this year is based on nightmares, and I am trying to come up with as many bizarre, strange, or creepy things as possible that people might see in their nightmares. I'm wondering if you guys could help me come up with some more ideas. I've got hands and faces and things like that coming out of the walls and ceilings, but with all the other project stuff running around in my head, I'm drawing a blank on other things that might be found in nightmares that I could maybe add to my atmosphere.
> 
> ...


if you can see the movie 'Cabin in the Woods', they have every damn nightmare ever thought of in there...*shudders*


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## Saruman of Many Colours (Sep 8, 2010)

There was an episode of Batman: The Animated Series when I was in college (a long time ago now!), where Bruce Wayne woke up in a perfect world where no tragedy had ever touched him. He began to suspect something was wrong when when he tried to read a book, but the letters were all jumbled, garbled nonsense.

He later realized that he was trapped in a dream and that's why he couldn't read, because dreaming and reading are functions each controlled by a different half of the brain.

Don't know how you could replicate this disorienting effect for your Halloween party, though? Maybe mock up fake spines/covers for all the books on your bookshelf and for any posters on your walls, etc.?

Also, time moves weirdly in one's dreams. Maybe modify a clock so that the hands spin randomly or move backwards, etc. I don't know how to accomplish that, but surely someone here on the forum has the technical knowledge and skills to assist you with this.


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## Hollows Eva (Sep 29, 2011)

I am the queen of nightmares! Heres a list:
(oh and dont be to worried, they are medically induced and will disapear soon again, som im not a wreck lol)

Oh deary.. everyone else than me is secretly another species/evil/aliens/turned robots and noone told me -now Im the only one left, and have nowhere to turn

Oh no- the world is full of zombies -and of course Its not getting dark and I HAVE to be somewhere else, and i only have a bike to transport me there.. hey whats that crowd of people over there...

Look someone send me a pretty toy in the mail -how sweet. Hey did anyone wonder about those weird noises last night -and where is grandma`?

Right so I shouldnt have gotten so angry and killed that guy.. I mean killing someone is bad. Now where can i hide him.. I mean what if someone finds out, my job and my friends-everyone will be so mad, i best hide him! ( that one did have me worried lmao..)

Hey theres a lot of spiderweb inhere did you notice that? haha.. it just looked like that enourmes thing over the , the size of a ball moved, but no spiders are that big eh..

This big barn where we are having our alumi party for highschool.. does anyone else notice that theres something not right.. u cant really see it, or hear it.. it just FEELS totally wrong, in an evil horrible way.. No? Its just me? Why cant any of you feel it? Seriously??

I think I may be watching to many horror movies before i go to bed lol...


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## Rania (Oct 27, 2011)

OMG I have had so many nightmares in my life. It is why i can't watch the Saw movies anymore. Meanwhile, i am totally drawing a blank. I guess for me, in my dreams, i am trying to run away but i'm in slow motion. Not sure how that would translate. I can say my favorite horror movies as a youngster were the Nightmare on Elm Streets. I will never forget the kids jumping rope in slow motion singing that song: 1, 2 Freddie's coming for youuuuuuu.....


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## vwgirl (Jul 16, 2012)

Falling, is my biggest nightmare. If you could come up with a infinity well or something that will give the illusion of falling.


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## IowaGuy (Jul 30, 2012)

Funny how no one has said being naked in front of a huge crowd yet....hehe OK OK um nightmares. Last time I had a nightmare I was in a strange and unknown place, I didn't know anyone and I couldn't find my truck. Anyways, do I dare say you've asked the wrong group? Seems people like "us" who go extreme for eerie things also find the normal persons "nightmare" just another fun dream. I've been having "interesting" dreams now for years. Literally the last time I woke up freaking out in cold sweats, I believe my truck was missing and my gun (I'm a carry concealed guy) was gone....I was....Infuriated. OK, I'm not helping at all am I?


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## Mordessa (Jul 23, 2007)

LOL IowaGuy!! You may just have a point there! Hehehehe Maybe the "nightmares" our types have don't seem as scary as they are inspirational to us!  

I remember when I was a kid I used to have a recurring nightmare that there was this thing hanging above the stairs down to our basement. At first it was just this little bump on the ceiling, but as the dreams progressed that thing grew and grew and grew until it was the size of a speed punching bag. I got so scared I didn't want to go down the stairs even when I was awake. Then, one night while I was having that dream, the thing started moving and squirming around, and suddenly it broke open and out of that bag came two white hands, just hands, and they chased me all over the house until I woke up. I don't know if any of you happen to remember the old Reynolds Wrap commercials where it was a pair of body-less gloved hands showing the wonders of cling wrap, but after that dream those commercials freaked me out like crazy! lol ... Now, I'm thinking, if I could find something to make the easy squirming motion, I could make a bag-like spiderweb covered thing like that for some part of the haunt... though I don't know if it would freak out anybody else anywhere near as much as it would freak me out! LOL


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## mrhamilton234 (Sep 7, 2008)

Ever try playing with people's fears? You know, clowns, spiders, insects, but all cranked up to 11. Darkness is also great, since a lot of times, it's what you don't see that scares you. (I had nightmares as a kid about a "dark monster" that would only attack in the dark.


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## Mordessa (Jul 23, 2007)

wickedwillingwench said:


> if you can see the movie 'Cabin in the Woods', they have every damn nightmare ever thought of in there...*shudders*


Oh cool! I've never seen that movie, so I'll have to go rent it.  I love getting movie suggestions!



Saruman of Many Colours said:


> There was an episode of Batman: The Animated Series when I was in college (a long time ago now!), where Bruce Wayne woke up in a perfect world where no tragedy had ever touched him. He began to suspect something was wrong when when he tried to read a book, but the letters were all jumbled, garbled nonsense.
> 
> He later realized that he was trapped in a dream and that's why he couldn't read, because dreaming and reading are functions each controlled by a different half of the brain.
> 
> ...


Hmmm... I could paint some garbled words onto the wall panels, as if they are supposed to be words, but you can't read them. That's a great idea!! I was looking for stuff to enhance the wall panels, so this will definitely help.  Thanks! 

I would love to do a clock that runs backwards as well, or jumps to different times, but I have no clue how to accomplish that...Anybody else know?




Rania said:


> OMG I have had so many nightmares in my life. It is why i can't watch the Saw movies anymore. Meanwhile, i am totally drawing a blank. I guess for me, in my dreams, i am trying to run away but i'm in slow motion. Not sure how that would translate. I can say my favorite horror movies as a youngster were the Nightmare on Elm Streets. I will never forget the kids jumping rope in slow motion singing that song: 1, 2 Freddie's coming for youuuuuuu.....


Yeah, it's funny isn't it? When you aren't thinking about it, it seems like it would be super simple to make a list of things you'd find in nightmares, doesn't it? But then when you actually try... lol There's nothing! But I have to agree with you about the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie. That was a seriously spooky movie when it first came out! I loved it so much and the kids singing that song was sooo creepy! 



vwgirl said:


> Falling, is my biggest nightmare. If you could come up with a infinity well or something that will give the illusion of falling.


Funny you should mention that, I was just looking up how to build a bottomless pit this morning for that very reason! hehehe 

These are all great ideas guys, keep them coming though if you can think of any because I would really like to have some more freaky stuff if I can come up with it! 

Not sure if this will jog any memories or anything, but here's another nightmare I remember having as a kid:

I had just gotten two brand new, really pretty dolls from my parents. One of them had this little record player in her back with thick plastic records that you could change out and she'd say different things while you were playing with her. The other one had really long brown hair, and at the time I remember somebody telling me it was real hair, though later my mother assured me I must have heard wrong because it wasn't actually real hair. lol ... So in my dream, I was playing with the record player doll, and suddenly she started talking when there wasn't a record in. She was saying my name and something else that I don't remember but I do remember that whatever she said was very mean, so I turned her around and looked at her face and she was glaring at me. Then I noticed that there were lumps on her head as if she was growing horns, like devil horns. I was scared, so I put her in the closet and closed the door and when to play with my other new doll. When I picked up the other doll, and started brushing her really long hair, I felt bumps on the top of her head too, and when I turned her around to look at her face, she had this really evil laughing expression. 

So, I ran and put her in the closet too, and then I started to check all of my other dolls and all of them except my favorite Barbie at the time had horns starting to grow out of their heads! I took my Barbie and I ran away from my house, and I ended up at the highschool football field in town. I climbed all the way to the top of the bleachers and sat there with my Barbie, and I kept rubbing her head to make sure she wasn't growing horns. Then, something distracted me in the dream and when I looked back at my Barbie she had horns and a really evil expression, and I remember feeling heart broken. I threw her down from the top of the bleachers to the cement below and watched her shatter and that's when I woke up. 

After that dream every doll I owned went into my closet, and I refused to open the door for almost a year! LOL ... That's about the time when I decided matchbox cars were a LOT more fun than dolls anyway! (And far less scary lol )

What kinds of nightmares can you remember having as a kid?


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## IowaGuy (Jul 30, 2012)

Mordessa, your a sick sick person....HAHA but your childhood nightmare is awesome. My dad (63) said he had nightmares of huge turtles wanting to eat little marble type balls inside your fingers. Now I have my own, real, tortoise...


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## kittyvibe (Oct 27, 2008)

3 nightmares spring to my mind;
1- my teeth falling out

2- being chased and Im not just running, Im always jumping and gliding from tree to tree (im not a flying squirrel but I do act similar) and something is chasing me

3- this one overly long and elaborate one at some point really gave me a scare in real life after.
At some point in this nightmare, I was in this underground type bunker and debris and there was only a sliver of space in the rubble to have fresh air.

So people were dying only to find themselves waking up after, not needing to breath/eat/sleep ect. They were functioning undead, but looked weird, like hyper blue eyes and pale skin.

My boyfriend was down there and he was already this functioning undead person and was coaxing me to lay down and he would make it quick. (break my neck).I went to lay down and he broke my neck and I "woke up" in the bunker a functioning undead. 

Some other stuff happened after that but I think I had mad climbing skills after that or something too, lol. 

In real life, unsure how long after this nightmare which I never told anyone about, my boyfriend came over to show me some new chiropractor moves that he was recently receiving and wanted to try on me. He told me to lie down and he would pop my neck area (he was seated behind my head). 

Once his hands were around my neck and I was about to get this technique, I had this HUGE feeling he was going to break my neck for real and kill me. I was so startled I jumped up and immediately started crying. I recalled the nightmare from long before and think it probably saved my life. lol.


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## Mordessa (Jul 23, 2007)

Wow Kittyvibe! That's quite the nightmare! Might not be the kind of thing I can make part of the haunt, but damn cool to hear about it! Psychic or foretelling dreams are fascinating to me. 

When I was a teenager, had this one dream that freaked me out like crazy. I was 17 and I actually went in to sleep with my mommy it scared me so bad. LOL ... 

I was in my living room, with my mom. The phone was ringing, but my mom refused to answer it, instead she just kept staring straight ahead at the tv or something. The wall behind the couch she was sitting on was transparent and when I looked through it, across the street I could see a woman standing at a phone booth crying. She was crying hysterically and she kept saying over and over, "Somebody help my baby, please, please, help my baby." I knew it was her who was trying to call, but my mom wouldn't answer the phone, even when I told her too. My mom was acting as if she was trying very hard not to pay attention to what was going on. So, the lady hung up the phone in the phone booth and stumbled across the street and into the wall of our house which was still transparent. She pressed herself up against the wall, screaming and crying about somebody helping her daughter. Then she slid down the wall, and left a trail of blood all down the glass where her hands and head had been pressed there. Then I woke up.

Two and half weeks after I had that dream, my little sister had one of her friends over at our house after school. There was a knock at the door, and it was the woman from my dream. I knew her instantly even though I'd never seen her before in real life. My heart started racing and tears sprang to my eyes immediately. It was my sister's friend's mother. She was ill and she ended up dying shortly after that, and there was no one to take care of Becky, my sister's friend, who was about 9 years old at the time. 

It was really freaky! So, I'm with you on being glad you didn't let your bf try out his new technique! /shiver


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## ShannoninPa (Oct 19, 2009)

I used to have a nightmare about an ugly troll living in our basement, falling off a bike and getting up with a bloody face. I have had dreams when I'm trying to run away from something and trying as hard as I can but can't lift up my legs, like they are glued. I have seen alot of scary movies starting when I was little, so I have had a million of nightmares. Even the ones where you wake up from it only to have it start again once you go back to sleep.


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## kittyvibe (Oct 27, 2008)

Wow Mordessa, thats horrible and tragic! I think its interesting to have dreams like that too. What ever happened with the little girl?



You know what I forgot an important part of my dream. When my bf was coaxing me to get my neck broken (so I wouldnt suffer) I was refusing. I didnt want him to because I was naturally afraid I wouldnt wake back up. For some reason I thought some werent waking up after dying, but most were. 

Even though I was refusing to have him do that to me, he forced it, essentially killing me. When I did wake up, within the nightmare, I remember being angry and saying "what if I didnt wake up?!" I was screaming and telling him stuff like that. I was angry.

So I guess thats what resonated with me in real life, I just got instinctual thinking this guy is gonna kill me!


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## halloweenfan5 (Jun 29, 2011)

Mordessa said:


> Heya guys!
> 
> My theme this year is based on nightmares, and I am trying to come up with as many bizarre, strange, or creepy things as possible that people might see in their nightmares.


We are acutally doing this same theme here in Buffalo this year. We found as I am sure you are seeing here there are so many great things that we can all relate to - but not many of them can be replicated well enough. So I guess it has turned into a "things you are affraid of" theme. Here is our list of rooms so far. Hope it helps - I'm hoping to steal some other ideas from here as people post them!

Clown Room
Slaughter House Room
Spider Room
Blackout Room
Doll Room


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## Rania (Oct 27, 2011)

wickedwillingwench said:


> if you can see the movie 'Cabin in the Woods', they have every damn nightmare ever thought of in there...*shudders*


Ok I just watched that movie tonight and WOW


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## mariposa0283 (Aug 15, 2012)

silent hill.. nuff said


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## mariposa0283 (Aug 15, 2012)

kittyvibe said:


> 2- being chased and Im not just running, Im always jumping and gliding from tree to tree (im not a flying squirrel but I do act similar) and something is chasing me


i thought i was the only one that had that dream.. only sometimes im not even being chased and sometimes im on a trampoline or something similarly bouncy and i just keep bouncing higher and higher and cant come down, and then eventually i just float off over the trees flying or jumping or whatever... i hate those dreams.


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## sneakykid (Sep 19, 2010)

I had the "being chased dreams" like many others. I think a huge moving spider would scare the crap out of people. Same with loud noises. Death made me cry in my dreams. Or anything involving doing unnatural things to eyes made me cringe.
No place to escape was also a freaky dream ordeal.


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## Saruman of Many Colours (Sep 8, 2010)

sneakykid said:


> Or anything involving doing unnatural things to eyes made me cringe.


I know what you mean. That one scene in 'Charlie Wilson's War' -- where Julia Roberts' character is separating her eyelashes with the sharp end of a pin, made me seriously uncomfortable. Mainly because, well, that's just crazy to nonchalantly put anything so sharp anywhere near one's eye.


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## Mordessa (Jul 23, 2007)

ShannoninPa said:


> I used to have a nightmare about an ugly troll living in our basement, falling off a bike and getting up with a bloody face. I have had dreams when I'm trying to run away from something and trying as hard as I can but can't lift up my legs, like they are glued.


Something evil living in the basement or attic would be really cool to add to a haunt, I wish I had a basement door or something that I could use to have like troll sounds coming up from it or something! That would be cool.  ... It would also be cool, if I had the time to make it, to have a figure that is looking over his shoulder with a terrified expression, and struggling to move his feet... Don't think I have time for a prop like that this year unfortunately... Unless hmmm... maybe I could somehow repurpose my rocking chair prop into something that looks like a person struggling to free his feet... I'll have to see if I can do something like that! Great ideas, thanks!



kittyvibe said:


> Wow Mordessa, thats horrible and tragic! I think its interesting to have dreams like that too. What ever happened with the little girl?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I am not certain what ever became of Becky as I moved away from that town about a year later, but what I did hear was that she was put into the foster care system and that she was severely abused and ended up in the hospital with several broken bones at one point. I don't know what happened to her after that. The whole thing was so tragic I couldn't deal with it at the time. I really liked Becky, she was my favorite of my sister's friends, and I begged my mom to take her in, but my mom couldn't afford it. 

Wow, yeah, I'm really glad you didn't let him try his technique on you!! Sounds like you instinctively dodged a major bullet there!



halloweenfan5 said:


> We are acutally doing this same theme here in Buffalo this year. We found as I am sure you are seeing here there are so many great things that we can all relate to - but not many of them can be replicated well enough. So I guess it has turned into a "things you are affraid of" theme. Here is our list of rooms so far. Hope it helps - I'm hoping to steal some other ideas from here as people post them!
> 
> Clown Room
> Slaughter House Room
> ...


Oooo... a doll room would work... Ya know, I wonder if I could get an old ceiling fan and attach lightweight toys on fishing line to it so it would look like they were floating around the room...

I do have a huge spider that I'll be putting on the porch, that's another good idea.  And clowns always freak me out. These are all really good ideas! Thanks!



Rania said:


> Ok I just watched that movie tonight and WOW


Wow good or wow bad? I haven't seen it yet! What did you think other than wow?? 



mariposa0283 said:


> i thought i was the only one that had that dream.. only sometimes im not even being chased and sometimes im on a trampoline or something similarly bouncy and i just keep bouncing higher and higher and cant come down, and then eventually i just float off over the trees flying or jumping or whatever... i hate those dreams.


That dream sounds like fun to me! Why do you hate them?



sneakykid said:


> Or anything involving doing unnatural things to eyes made me cringe.


/shiver Yeah, things like that freak me out too! ... My hubby is making a really huge mound of eyes this year, it's going to be like a big fleshy blob just covered with eyes going in every direction, some opened, some closed, and it will have a pulsing light inside it. The eyes are glass marbles and when the light inside the piece pulses it makes the eyes glow. It's totally spooky and gross. lol 

These are some great ideas guys, keep 'em coming! Tell me about any of the nightmares you've had! I wanna hear 'em!!


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## Rania (Oct 27, 2011)

Mordessa said:


> Wow good or wow bad? I haven't seen it yet! What did you think other than wow??


At first it was bad, then it got RIDICULOUS, but the ridiculous was so full of awesome that i ended up loving it for the sheer idea of it. Plus there is this one scene with a blood filled hallway of elevators that was one of the coolest scenes in film ever. Completely absurd, totally awesome.


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## sneakykid (Sep 19, 2010)

Also, anything grimy, unclean, and/or unsanitary, I would NOT want to touch. I had a nightmare that someone I loved got a cut and died from an infection. Not really much, but it's disgusting nonetheless.


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## Deadview (Aug 9, 2011)

How about the "Tax Man". As a zombie he shows up with papers in hand saying you owe more than your haunt is worth. Oh no that's true now here in the U.S. Scary ain't it !  LOL !


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