Lucky bastard. They don't pop up often for me, but when they do... oof.
I can remember my first proper nightmare really clearly. There is something deeply traumatizing about being struck in the face with what I assume was a flaming pie that floated around of its own accord in a dark, foggy forest while it's controller, a painter, laughs manically.
Hey, don't judge me. I was like 9 at the time.
The first nightmare I can remember was when I was 4. We used to own this large, round toy box we kept big toys in like cars and trucks. It was basically shaped like a pouting child's head with a bandage over his forehead.
In the nightmare, I was watching a movie with my mother late at night. I went to the kitchen to get some popcorn, and on my way back I touched it or hit it or bumped into it. The toy box started glowing an eerie green, arms and tentacles growing out of it, and in a sinister voice, it said, "If you ever touch me again, I'll rip your arms off."
All true. Hand to God. And I was only 4. 5 at the most. And from that day on, every couple of years, I would be having a normal dream, and that thing would show up. Sometimes in my room, sometimes in some random location. And I would always be compelled to stare into its eyes. And after a few seconds, the dream would melt into a nightmare. Swirling around. Screams. Horrifying monsters. Cackling lips in my face. The feeling of dread and death. And they were hard to wake up from because my eyes would open, and in the dream I would tell myself to open my eyes, but it wouldn't work because my eyes were already open.
I swear that thing must have been haunted. This continued until my early teens when I had the same dream turned nightmare but finally confronted the nightmare, screaming that I wasn't afraid of it.
