General Discussion

I tend to get spooked easily at night which sucks when you're a hobbyist astronomer and trying to look at the stars ahaha. Most of the time I don't stay out after 10:30 P.M. or so, but I did stay up once until 3 A.M. to look at Mars. I lasted all of ten minutes before the wind spooked me back inside LOL.

Since I live with two cats and a dog, if I do stay outside past 10:30/make plans to do so, I do my best to encourage one of my pets to come outside with me. I don't put much stock into the "animals can sense the supernatural" theory, but well...they do have better sight, smell, hearing, etc. than us, and they have some senses that humans just don't have; they're pretty good judges of character, and I trust their loyalty and my ability to read animals enough to where I try to only freak out if the animals are freaking out, if that makes sense. They have yet to actually become inexplicably freaked out.

Living in tornado alley, we've had a bunch of close calls with storms and the like (one just last night, actually). Never once have the animals freaked out on us during a storm, and we've yet to be hit by a tornado. Storms are still scary, though.

When I was younger, like 5-7, I'd have nightly nightmares about being left behind. I'd go out to recess with the rest of my grade, but then I'd lose track of time and suddenly it'd be evening or nighttime and I was still outside in the playground; no one cared enough about me to look for me. Not that spooky when I explain it in writing, but it was enough to wake me up in the middle of the night crying.

I also had recurring nightmares about trying to get to a building but struggling against wind so hard I couldn't put one foot in front of the other with a giant storm on the horizon and no one caring enough to help me, and dreams where I was left behind by my family escaping doomsday-like scenarios because I couldn't get my shoes on fast enough. (Lots of my nightmares are based around an irrational fear of abandonment, now that I think about it.) Not that scary when I type em out, again, but that last series of nightmares shook my elementary-school self to the core. I still have a habit of putting my shoes on ASAP and always keeping a pair in my room with socks in 'em, just in case.

Speaking of nightmares, just a couple nights ago I had one where...hmm, it's hard to describe. In books and in movies, when characters are facing the threat of death, you feel scared for them--but it's kind of a second-hand empathic feeling of being scared for their sakes. When you watch a scary movie or play a scary game, you're usually left with this residual feeling of something, somewhere, is out to get me. What's much less common to experience is a gut-wrenching, bone-chilling knowledge of fact that something is out to get you and you know exactly what it is, but have no idea where or when or from what direction it'll come from. You're stuck somewhere where they can see you, but you can't see them, and your only hope of survival is locked somewhere you have no chance of accessing. It's...a rather fine distinction to make, between a book or story "something along these lines is going to get me and I sort of know when and how, and the outcome will probably be death" v.s. "this thing is going to try to get me and I don't know when or how and the outcome could be anything", but if anything, the fact that instead of two "sort-of"s and two solid facts you have one certainty and three complete unknowns just makes it several times more intense, not to mention the sheer agony of having a way to combat the threat right there but just out of your reach.

I could go on rambling about this for a good few thousand words, but I think at that point this post would be scarier than the point I was trying to make, ahaha. Nuances aside, that second fear was the basis of a nightmare I had recently, and well...it'll be with me for a long, long time. (It's around 2 A.M. here; I may come back when I'm thinking clearer to add more stuff.)

@Sysmic
I appreciate your kind words, though I've been out of that situation with my mom's side of the family for over 10 years. If anything I'd think @scorpiontail needs the luck and well wishes regarding family given what she had said.

@PlatinumDream nightmares for me just suck, not just because most of them involve not being able to save something or someone, but because I can feel everything. I wake up and my legs are sore as if I had ran. Or my throat burns like I had been screaming all night.

@NoGoodUsrNames99 That reminds me of when I was over at my aunt's. I had her cat, and the only cat she owned, in my lap and in the floor there was a second cat. I blinked and it was gone.

Mkay so does anyone remember when Fnaf first came out? Just that first game and such. I watched Markimoo play it once, then put it down and didn't pick it up for a while (i was scared senseless at the now lax jumpscares).

Well, a couple days later, after being paranoid about everything for a while and finally starting to calm down a bit, I went to bed and fell asleep very quickly. I'd like to mention now that, at that point, I couldn't sleep without a blanket wrapped around my eyes. My mind turned all of the shadows into unspeakable horrors and I couldn't sleep being able to look at them.

After falling asleep, I start dreaming. I wasn't aware I was dreaming, and everything was, well, Dream-like. My father, my sister, and I were at a hardware store of some sorts, but I had no clue what we were doing there. I assumed we were getting something, like we normally do at stores, because that is why people go to stores. To buy stuff. The only other people there were a little old lady - must have been 70-80 years old - and a man in the black suit, who was calling someone.

At least, that's what I thought, until we went inside and I looked out the window in boredom. Outside, slowly moving forward, was a fredbear, covered in blood. Its eyes were empty, yet wild, and its head glitches and contorted in insane speeds. I didn't even look like it was walking, it looked like an animation with no walking animating, just slowly floating in my direction. I was reasonably terrified, and turned to inform my dad. He looked outside, gave me a strange look, and said that it was simply a salesperson. I looked out again, and found, to my surprise, a salesman in a Freddy-like suit.

I was not even close to convinced it was safe, but resumed shopping anyway. What felt like about a minute later, all of the lights shut down, and were replaced by slowly blinking red emergency lights. My father looked agrivated, my sister was, well, doing something. I forget what it was, exactly, but it was very much something she would do. The little old lady looked like she was going to have a heart attack, and the man in the black suit was gone. Then, out of nowhere, fading in like a bad PowerPoint slide, was the laugh.

The laugh, that friggin laugh that has been ingrained into my brain and sent chills down my spine for over a year. The laugh that, as you may have guessed, belonged to Freddy frickin Fazbear.

I was, of course, a child. So the next thing that occurred was a purple blanket being thrown over my head, along with everyone else, and a shhhhhh being uttered by someone who's voice I didn't recognize as belonging to anyone around me. It wasn't my families, and the little old lady had her mouth shut, along with her trembling like a cartoon teapot about to scream. The aforementioned laugh was coming and going, like the owner of said laugh was getting closer and farther away, searching like a swat member in a stealth mission; slow and thorough.

Then, all at once, that cartoon teapot blew.

The little old lady dashed from under the blanket and towards the door with a tangible amount of fear. Once she had gone, the blanket settled, but not before I glimpsed small pinpoint of white penetrating through the darkness. The blanket stilled, and the pounding of flying feet slowly grew softer until it stopped ubruptly, followed by an inhuman scream compeating with the shrill cry of the lady. The cry turned to choking, the choking to gurgling, the gurgling to silence.

Silence, silence and silence and nothing but unbearable silence. No footsteps, no laugh, no nothing.

Then, like some magician performing a show, the blanket was thrown off of us and I was face to face with an even more bloody fazbear, his eyes containing nothing but abyss and his fur shining with a fresh coat of red. He then grabbed me by the shirt, my father by the neck, an - with some odd third arm that came from nowhere - lifted my sister by the hair. My father was trying to punch the unfeeling arm grasping his windpipe, my sister was screaming like a banshee, and I stared at the cold dead eyes of this monstrous being. Then, like I was playing the game, he screamed

Oh god did he scream. That bear screamed and shrieked like the hardware in his suit were grinding together. It was a thousand violins being played at the precisely wrong note, all at once, and different. It was loud, it was terrifying, and it went on for what felt like hours.

Then, I woke up in a pool of my own sweat, blinded by the blanket around my eyes.

I tore the blanket off and stared into my room, more safe and welcoming by comparison. I knew that the moment I closed my eyes, Freddy would be there, screaming. So, I stayed awake until my room grew terrifying with its shadows and monsters lurking just out of sight. I knew I had to sleep once more, but how to deal with the nightmare? Well, I pondered a bit, and devised a solution; not the best, mind you, but a solution. I closed my eyes again - unwillingly, as I forced myself to do this - and fell back asleep.

And, as I had hypothesized, the night terror begain at the scream, and I was temporarily shocked; it was a bit like I had been slapped awake, or doused with fridges water. This time, however. I had a plan.

I slowly gain control of my own mind, slowly woke myself up, and slowly turned this dream into a lucid one.

Once I had regained control over my consciousness, I stared that bear in its lack of eyes and completely redid the entire scenario. Fred's face was now upon a band-aid, with googly eyes were the pits once were, and the backround became pastel pink with an assortment of flowers drifting downwards slowly. The ungodly scream was replaced with this more softened, dulled down version of the noise. The band-aid shook slightly and the eyes bounced in several directions. I was laughter so hard it hurt, and I awoke to sunshine spilling into my room and a smile planted on my face.

Due to this, my confidence was temporaraly boosted, and the nightmares stopped for a bit. But I'll never forget that dream, even though it has been years, even though it will be decades, I'll never forget that dream.

I'll never forget that laugh, either.

@PandaOverlord oh god i was terrified of FNAF when it first came out. Those stupid robot animals still creep me out. I went to Chuck-E-Cheese that same year....worst mistake, never went back. (Nice username btw!)

@Emperoar
I'm glad to hear that you've been out of that situation then. I hope things are better for you now and will continue going good in the future.

@Scorpiontail
I'm sorry to hear of what happened with you, too. I wish you the best as well and hope things are going better for you. It's awful when family or anyone around you isn't the best and it's a hard thing to go through when they refuse to change their ways.

@Sysmic thanks, i gotta go to my mom's place tomorrow so i hope it goes well.

@Scorpiontail
You're welcome. I hope for the same.