Being Slow Nightmare

[Sivek]

I have a hard time remembering much about my dreams. Whether they're goofy, like I'm playing hockey on some mega-sized rink about a million times too big, or scary, being attacked or chased by something, the one thing that I can consistently remember regarding them is how slow I am in them.

Now in real life, I've always been a pretty fast guy, someone that always placed well in school/athletic competitions when it came to running, but for whatever reason, practically every dream I ever have involves me moving like I'm in vat of molasses. It's not just that I'm getting around slowly, but my entire physical motions are lagging, like just pumping my arms or trying to pick up my legs is incredibly draining. Now in my dreams, I'm well aware that I'm moving about so slowly and can't quite wrap my head around why it is so. It's rather frustrating since it's such a reoccurring thing and I'm the only one affected by the slowness in my dreams. Everything else is moving at normal speed except for myself, and no one even seems to notice I'm barely moving.

The most recent nightmare I can recall having also dealt with this slowness. I can't remember specifics, but do remember that it dealt with the area around my house and I was being chased by something. That something wasn't anything I actually encountered during my nightmare, so I couldn't ascribe a shape or sound to it, but I had the distinct impression of being chased and that I needed to get away ASAP. I live in a pretty rural area so the road that leads to the turn off to my house is relatively flat and empty but leads up to hill where my house is upon. Even while I was running on the flat, empty road leading to the hill, I could feel the heaviness of my body and the incredibly slow motion and the mounting sense of dread that I was only getting away from whatever was chasing me because whatever was chasing me was allowing it. Eventually, I reached the hill portion of my run. It took everything I had to make any progress up the hill and I soon came to the realization that I wasn't going to get away from whatever was pursuing me. And that's the point where my memory fails me and I can't recall if anything else happened or that was the gist of the nightmare.

Not terribly exciting or visceral, but this constant slowness in my dreams/nightmares is rather puzzling. I feel like I'm mostly render helpless since I can't get from point a to point b and there's nothing I can do about it except think about how screwed I'm am. Just seems strange in this environment of my head, instead of having superpowers or getting along normally, I usually end up moving at a speed below that of a decrepit old lady.

[The Dreamer]

I have a similar thing happen in my dreams. One thing that I have also noticed is I'm floating most of the time, and kicking the ground beneath me to move forward (Almost like a balloon). I'm always moving very slow, with danger a few icnehs behind me.

[Cazuzu]

once i dreamed something with a similar character. my brother tried to stab me and when i tried to get help i felt like fighting against a river literally swimming with one foot on the ground to not fall down.

[matt]

I think being slow and having trouble moving is a common theme in dreams. I was thinking of incorporating something like that in Neverending Nightmares, but I thought it might be tough to convey. It might seem like unresponsive controls or a bug.

Thanks for sharing!

[Grabthehoopka]

I think being slow and having trouble moving is a common theme in dreams. I was thinking of incorporating something like that in Neverending Nightmares, but I thought it might be tough to convey. It might seem like unresponsive controls or a bug.

I thought that's why you programmed the run to go progressively slower and slower?

[matt]

The way the run works is that as you run out of stamina you go slower. Someone on the forum suggested it I think, so it wasn't my idea. I thought the rationale was to give an idea of the player's stamina if you aren't listening to the audio cues, but it was so long ago, I don't remember...

[larryholmes]

What would have been experience in the dream is very opposite in reality. Like for example your dreaming of climbing the mountain in a very very slow motion wherein you almost can no longer move. It could be be mean that a good opportunity will come very fast and you are mostly success in fulfilling your goal.


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[matt]

That is a really interesting take on dream analysis!