Same nightmare pattern for years but the story is always different. REM (rapid eye movement) stage of the sleep cycle??
I've had this weird thing happen to me for years and I'm curious if anyone else experiences the same thing. My nightmares are never exactly the same. The place, people, and whatever is chasing me can be completely different but the way the dream goes is almost always the same.
It's always first person. I never see myself, I'm just seeing everything through my own eyes. Usually I'm with normal people, sometimes people I know and sometimes random people. Then something weird or supernatural happens. It can be zombies, aswangs, ghosts or some creature I've never seen before. Eventually it always seems to become about me. I'm the one being chased or attacked.
Tonight was especially weird and the scariest because it happened several times in a short period (2-hour of sleep). The first dream was about my aunt. She had just given birth and we were in some kind of hut. Then zombies/aswangs started surrounding the place. They eventually cornered me and one of them bit me, then I woke up. I went back to sleep and basically got the same dream again. Same general story and same people, it just restarted like a game lol. This happened like 3 times.
Then the 4th time it changed. I felt like I was somehow from the future and already knew what was going to happen. I was telling everyone to prepare for something. My aunt was still there but she wasn't pregnant anymore and the place was different. In my dream I know that I'm from the future because obviously my aunt is not noticeably pregnant and everyone is alive. This time there weren't zombies or aswangs. I'm alone in a vent looks like in a game Poppy Playtime but looks darker. There was just one thing about this entity. I couldn't see its whole body because it was really dark. I could only see its head and this really long arm reaching out/chasing me. Its skin and head shape didn't look human at all. And I somehow knew it wasn't after anyone else. It was after me. It grabbed me around my ribs and I actually felt pain in the dream. That woke me up immediately.
I've also had sleep paralysis with these nightmares quite a lot. Sometimes I wake up but I'm still seeing or hearing stuff from the dream and I can't move until I fully wake up. Other times I wake up normally, fall asleep again, have another nightmare, and then get sleep paralysis. One thing I've noticed after having these for years is that darkness seems to trigger them a lot. If I sleep in a completely dark or very dim room, there's a really high chance I'll get one. I'd say maybe 90% of the time. If I leave my room light or a warm lamp on it happens way way less often. I've gotten so used to it that it almost feels normal now which is probably the weirdest part. I'm not really thinking if the dreams mean something supernatural or anything like that. I'm more curious why the story is always different but the dream itself follows basically the same pattern every time.
Anyone else experience something similar?
P.S. For context, Aswang is a creature from Philippine folklore, often associated with targeting pregnant women. In my dream they looked more like zombies because well that's what my brain decided lmao. I'm not sure why there were a whole bunch of them though since aswangs usually hunt alone, or if they'd even be interested in a newborn since my aunt had already given birth. My brain is just fcked thats it. Just a fun and weird in my end.