Nightmares

-Skeletons-

One of my earliest nightmares that I used to have as a kid was one that has stuck with me since I can remember. It always started off with me looking down on a large yard in a suburban area and there are a lot of kids running around. Its summer time and there are a lot of blurry colors until it gets closer to the yard. It almost zooms in and I'm looking at myself for second and I realize that I'm at a birthday party but I don't know anyone there. In my life that was not uncommon because my family is very large and I don't remember all of my cousins.

It then dawns upon me as to why everyone is running around screaming. There are skeletons with those party hats on chasing these kids around and when they catch them they would kill them by biting into their throats. I am just sitting there watching it happen kind of terrified to move. Everyone is terrified for obvious reasons and I hear this loud boom. I look up to see a giant skeleton walking slowly crushing adults and children under its feet. I looked over as a skeleton stalks towards and then my dream switches to my house that I was living in at the time.

It goes from the hall to into the living room and makes its way behind my parents' recliners. Behind my parents' recliners is a large grate. Then all of a sudden it's like I'm inside the duct but the grate is still up. I see a very tiny skeleton curled up near the back where the duct bends to go another direction and all of a sudden the tiny skeleton jerks to life and comes at me with its hand outstretched towards my face and its mouth gaping open. It scared me so bad I literally wet myself when I woke up from that dream. I was probably five or six at the time and had been potty trained since I was two years old. It definitely was a gory dream for a five or six year old to be having.

-Rats-

Before I go into this one I have to explain why this one scared me so much. Growing up my grandfather from my mom's side of the family owned a feed mill. He used to sell grain and other farm products to the local farmers in my area. My cousins and I used to play in the grain room because it was fun to climb all over the pallets of grain. I guess this was dangerous so instead of just telling us to stop my grandpa and mom lied and told us there were giant rats in the grain room. Now there were rats just not very large ones. My mom and cousins used to pick on me and would purposely lock me in the room with the lights off. It scarred me for life and took me a really long time to get over my fear of rats.

So basically while this was regularly happening my mom decided to buy me the movie "the lady and the tramp" and the part where there is the rat in the babies' room just furthered my fear along. At the time I used to have a bunk bed and I always slept on top because the bottom part was a couch futon thing and I felt safer on the top bunk anyways. I had a dream where I woke up and the lights were off but from the glow of my TV I could see that the floor was literally covered in nothing but giant rats. I kept trying to yell for my mom but no matter what I did I couldn't yell loud enough because I was afraid that if I did they would actually come up and get me. I was about 8 then and when I woke up from that one I actually did call for my parents. Mom got super mad that I called for her and she never really did care when I would have a bad dream.

-Shadow-

So this happened not too long after my dad left, so it was just my mom, my brother, and me living at my house. I was actually at my grandmas by myself babysitting her dogs while she was in Las Vegas for a few days with my aunt. I was a very responsible kid so my grandma trusted me to do this and it happened pretty regularly. My brother was at home with my mom and it usually never bothered me to be at my grandma's house by myself. I had fallen asleep and I had a dream that I was in my house and everything seemed pretty normal as I looked around me.

I looked down our hallway and I can tell it's nighttime because the only light is coming from the moonlight. My mom's door is open and so is my brothers room because he just hated his door being closed at the time I'm not sure why. All of a sudden I watch this very dark pitch black shadow move from my mom's room and into my little brothers' room. I immediately ran down that hallway because I'm a big sister and I'm protective of my little brother. I get into his room and I see whatever this thing is by my brothers' bed where he's laying down fast asleep.