Starting from the beginning, when I was younger probably 10 to 16 I had bad dreams, they were really bad, but I dealt with them as I sort of rached a point where I could distinguish what was a dream and what wasnt, and even trained myself (for lack of a better term) to wake up when I have a dream I didnt like.

For the first time in over 10 years I felt trapped in a place I couldnt escape. It turned out to be a bad dream, and this dream turned from one into four).

Looking back now its even hard to remember what the dream was about, or the four dreams (maybe more). But at the time, I can remember the feeling, a feeling like I was trapped and couldnt escape. As a mid 30's guy, I woke up at 2am and was in a sudden panic, not even sure if I was dreaming or awake and afraid to re-close my eyes.

At that moment when I did wake up everything seemed so vivid and real, but looking back now I can only remember mere fragments. But the thing is when I was alot younger I had bad dreams alot, almost every night. But somehow or other I learnt to somehow know they were dreams and nothing more and could even wake myself up if I wanted to (which I did many times). A constant theme I had in those days was a feeling like I couldnt escape, almost like trying to walk in quick sand.

But this time I couldnt awake on demand, or atleast I tried but felt trapped which only added to the terror of the moment, in the dream at the time I couldnt even tell it from reality. I didnt wake up screaming or anything like that, but I was terrified. After 4 consecutive nightmares (in each one I actually thought I had woken myself up only to later realize I was still trapped in the dream/nightmare and couldnt escape, i even remember specifically in the one dream that I knew it was a dream and was trying to wake up but couldnt) when I did wake up for a good 20 minutes I was afraid to re-close my eyes and go to sleep as I was so unsure if I was really awake or still dreaming. It might sound silly to you, but imagine the most terrorfying scenario to you you can and for as much as your mind can tell at that time it is real and you cant escape it.

So I geuess to sum up my question is, have you ever experienced a nightmare like that? a moment when after experiencing a terror you couldnt distinguish at that moment if it was real or not? It was so surreal that you almost wanted to scratch your own face off to make sure it wasnt real as you were so stuck in a moment of pure terror?

EDIT: re-typed the last paragraph so it makes more sense

Woah, the stuff you're describing sounds really tough to me. I only once had an experience similar to this one, though it wasn't nearly as terrifying.

It happened something like 2 years ago. Back then I was kind of sick. (a little fever, the usual stuff) The thing is, I started to make up crazy things in my mind. I remember pretty clearly, being followed by some kind of Killer, the threat in my neck, trying to escape. It went one for quite some time until I awoke.

Lying in bed covered in sweat, I feared the guy was actually in my house. This resulted in me sitting scared next to bed for 5 minutes until I realised it was just a dream.

Pretty hilarious I must say

I've had the same thing where I felt trapped and couldn't wake up even though I wanted to. It was quite scary. It used to happen often a few years ago, but rarely happens now.

Yes. When I was 10 or something, I remember having the same nightmare over and over.
One time, while sleeping, acknowledged that I was having the same nightmare. And I remember that I tried to wake myself up. And I waked up, I slapped myself -> LEL
^True story

My dream was that I would fall to my death while sliding down the stairs railing of my home. I stopped doing that in real life, and the nightmare was gone.

Something you should do to know if you're still sleeping or not is trying to look at your clock to see the time. If you're sleping you wouldn't be able to see clearly the time of the clock.

I just assumed they were bad dreams. I have dreams like those a lot and I can't tell if they happened or not for a bit after I wake up. Seem so real and make so much sense, too! Some have played out so perfectly and logically (and horrifically) that I want to write them down but I'm already beginning to forget as soon as I wake up. After a short while, they're totally gone.

Oh yeah, Night terrors happen to me fairly frequently.

Most often though in the case of something happening in a dream like people walking through my house, and then me waking up insisting it was real.


Worst one I had was when I still lived with my parents. I thought a demon was stalking me, and was underground reaching up his giant claws and me through the floor. I ran dodging left and right to avoid the hands... grabbed my bat, and ran out to my back porch which was cement, because it wasn't strong enough to get through cement.

I cocked back my baseball bat ready to hit the thing as it came out the door....

only to fully wake up a second before i hit my mom. Who had opened the door to see what the hell i was running and yelling about.

I think what turned the nightmare into terror for me was the fact I couldnt wake up from it. For such a long time I have been able to do so if I was having a bad dream that in that moment I couldnt wake up from it, then you question whether its still a dream or not. That feeling of losing control, and if you cant control it you then enter a domain of insecurity of whether or not its still a dream or not, or maybe worse.