Just barely an hour ago, I woke from what I can say with certainty was the worst nightmare I've had in my entire life. Up until now, I've never had a dream or nightmare where I would repeatedly "wake up," only to find myself still inside whatever twisted version of hell my mind was visioning up. Well, this was that.

See, I woke up at 3 AM with a badly throbbing headache. So I went and took two very powerful painkillers. Nothing abusable or prescription, just your typical name-brand NSAID. Drank plenty of water with both of them and laid back down. After a bit, the headache began to dull, but I also started getting a bit of a stomach ache and a cold sweat. I found this a kind of odd reaction, and I slowly began to realize that maybe what I just took before going back to sleep was a bad idea.

I started getting really sleepy, and then I...woke up. And I could hear my family partying outside my bedroom, and it was sunny outside. I never found out what the partying was about, because every time I left my room to see what was going on, it was suddenly night time again and everything went quiet. As soon as I'd turn my doorknob and open it, this would occur. And I'd look down the hall and the entire house was pitch black and silent.

So this freaked me the [censored] out. After having a bit of an anxiety attack coupled with intense confusion, I tried going back to bed and resuming my sleeping. But I couldn't sleep. I kept being woken up by strange events going on outside of my room, but I'd always be greeted by a dark and silent house in the middle of the night. And every time it happened, it added something. Like a lawn mower running or a feeling of intense dread, like something was waiting for me to step completely out of my room.

I'd sometimes have singular encounters with the family members from the doorway of my room. I'd talk to them about what was going on, and they'd start acting really weird. And their voice would become distant and muffled, until eventually they'd disappear without a trace and the house would just go empty and dark again. At this point, I knew I was having a recurring nightmare. Normally, I'd wake up very quickly once I realize I'm dreaming. But not this time; it just kept going.

So I resorted to certain...measures. I'd try screaming; no sound coming out. At this point, I'm so aware that I'm dreaming that I could even recall that while in a dream, fighting or screaming often produced no visible results in the dream because my body is limp and fast asleep in reality. I could only manage to scream if I..."dreamed it up." But that obviously couldn't solve my dilemma, and I was panicking too much to try any lucid dream shenanigans.

So then I tried attacking my family. Instead of talking to them, I'd attempt to kill them to shock myself out of it. I'd walk down the pitch black hallway, actually leaving my room, and intentionally luring whatever lurked in the dark to startle or kill me. Again, to try and shock me awake. But I'd always end up back in my room, with something else happening outside..something I couldn't witness because opening my door almost always resulted in a reset.

Eventually, my sister came around and gave me a toy gun. I immediately got the idea to shoot myself in the head with it, and I actually tried to "will" it into being a real gun, so the shock would wake me up. But it wouldn't. It would make real firing noises when I shot anything around my room, but against my head, it just clicked like a toy gun.

The very last thing that happened was the house going dark again (Big surprise) as my sister left on her merry way, but this time...my door was wide open. My..."sister" comes suddenly rushing into the room, but I immediately debunked any possibility of that thing being my sister. It looked like a person, but it was blurry..like when someone's face is blurred out on TV. It got right up in my face and all I could hear was a loud, deep "[censored] YOU," and at that moment, I had reached my limit.

Something about that was like...the last straw or something. Because at that very moment, I knew I could leave. I knew that if I raised my arms up into the air, I'd raise them out of bed in reality and I'd be out of that mess. And lo and behold, it worked. The very first damn time I ever jerked out of bed, and to date, the first time I was genuinely glad to have stopped dreaming.

Naturally, I was weary of my surroundings. After all, I woke up in a dark room with no sound. A full chill went through my entire body, because my dream did a perfectly accurate job of copying my room to the last detail. So aside from the new sensations that come with being really awake, it all still looked like my dream, but I got up, opened my door, it's bright and sunny and a couple of people are awake.

So...I made this thread to both to tell that story, but also to give people a reason to tell their own stories of their own personal worst nightmares, assuming they remember them somewhat vividly (And if they're particularly graphic, just..soften the details for the thread's sake). So feel free, and I hope you enjoyed the read, at least.

Learned my damn lesson about taking painkillers before bed, too.