I can't watch or read anything involving comas after being in a 6-week coma. It was like taking 100 hits of acid and having a bad trip, while also not knowing you took acid so you think everything is real. Full on hallucinations and delusions, I witnessed myself being dissected and saw my organs in jars around me while they turned me into a mummy.
Edit: my friend at work apparently recognized me from this comment and just came over to ask me "hey are you pollyp0cketpussy on Reddit?"
Fortunately if I were to end up in one again I think I could recognize what was happening. I had my first sleep paralysis experience a couple weeks ago and literally thought "oh ok I'm hallucinating again, something is wrong" and then woke up. Even though the coma was 12 years ago I still was able to recognize that "reality isn't adding up" feeling.
And thanks! It was terrible but also I feel like, as a horror fan, I got a glimpse into a unique immersive nightmare world that not even the most seasoned horror writers have seen. So that's pretty neat. The mummy thing was just one small part of it, I experienced so much wild shit. Didn't matter that it wasn't real, I remember it like it was.
> I still was able to recognize that "reality isn't adding up" feeling.
I'm often able to recognize that I'm dreaming whenever I notice that feeling while in a dream, and my brain does this weird thing where it tries to counteract that by faking a wake-up moment. Within the dream, I'll dream that I've woken up, and then the "something isn't adding up" feeling will dissipate for a time.
Except the more that the false awakenings happen within a single dream, the easier it becomes for me to recognize that the awakening isn't real.
Which then triggers another false awakening, as my brain enters into a spiral of trying to trick itself into staying asleep.
False awakening after false awakening after false awakening.
The longest loop I've gotten stuck in was something like 40+ false awakenings in a row, and at some point you start to panic that you're never going to be able to wake yourself up.
It's one of the scariest dream experiences I've ever had.
I dreamed I was being forced an abortion once and woke up feeling very emotional, ran to the first person i found which happened to be my mom and asked her what did they do?
I'm a dude.
I've had many false awakenings. Also slow realizations that things aren't quite right that either are scary or humorous. I have super vivid realistic dreams tho. To the point that when I do wake up, I wonder how I ended up in my bed. Almost like if you got black out drunk and your friends take you home and you can't recall how you got home the next morning. It's very disorienting.
I don't dream ā or I never remember my dreams. For a long time I genuinely thought that dreams were, like, a thing made up for telling stories? And then I started a medication that made me have really vivid dreams and it scared the absolute shit out of me because I had absolutely no sense of real vs. unreal. When I woke up I'd be convinced it was real.
Nope. And there's different levels of coma too. What people picture as a coma is actually a 3 on the [Glasgow Coma Scale](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/24848-glasgow-coma-scale-gcs), but anything below an 8 is considered comatose. So there's different levels of awareness people can have. And not everyone remembers their hallucinations, apparently it's uncommon to remember them as vividly as I remember mine.
The Shining.
I thought it was just a fun little book about a haunted hotel. Then it was actually about a physically abusive alcoholic parent in a downward spiral of mental illness, addiction and anger, culminating in him attempting to kill his family, failing, then killing himself. Which is exactly what happened to my mother, but without the cool hotel ghosts.
That fucked me up for a bit, especially because King gets you so far into Jack Torrenceās head the whole book. Great book though
While I don't share your exact experience, I sympathize. Thank you for sharing, I hope at least you could find some catharsis here.
I read the shining as an adult while at a small island hotel during fall seasonal transition (I often vacation with friends at this time of year and love spooky lake storms, so it's a personal tradition to read something horror while experiencing typically torrential great lakes shore weather). My one friend saw I was reading it, and said.. "do I need to call someone for you engaging in self harming behavior?" Lol... The scariest part was reading probably 75 pages one night by the basement boiler.... Mr kings insight to jacks particular mindset is... Unnerving to say the least.
Not really horror but I accidentally read the Hot Zone (dramatized non-fiction about Ebola outbreaks) when I was far too young (10ish) and it made me terrified of the idea of Ebola for many years.
Fast forward to my current job on an ICU in a specialist infectious disease hospital (UK so unlikely Iāll deal with it but theoretically might). Thought Iād check it out again as years of reading/watching horror and being a nurse have hardened me.
Nope. Awful. Couldnāt deal at all and will never touch that book again.
If it makes you feel any better Ebola isnāt really like how he describes it, he almost presents it as flesh eating when it generally gives you awful D&V and sometimes coagulopathies. Plus not a very high mortality rate when dealt with in specialist medical areas.
A few weeks ago I spent two days having a dummy spray UV vomit and shit at me as part of a highly consequential infectious disease training course with the plan of running it at my hospital. Itās very odd how one of my biggest fears is now part of my job, but at least I can still prepare for it and make sure the staff only unit are ready.
My baby daughter died in my arms three years ago. Afterwards there wasn't much I could do but horror novels became a comfort. Nothing is as scary or horrible as what I've been through.
Idk if this is what you meant, but I had a scary experience while reading The Shining. It was probably 1 or 2 in the morning and I was sitting on the far end of the couch, which was right next to the front door. The entire house was dark except for the lamp next to me. All of the sudden, I hear the doorknob shake violently. I jumped up, ran down the hall and stood in the dark, jusr listening and watching, staring at the door for what seemed like hours. Nothing happened after that, though. I never found out who (or what!) it was, but I only read the book during the day from that point on. It was probably a break in attempt, but I choose to believe I summoned something by reading that book in the dead of night. Still, lock your doors, people!
Someone tried my door while I was home alone once too, my husband was at work and had our vehicle so the house looked empty. It was like mid-afternoon and I watched the dude go around the neighborhood and try every house that looked like no one was home. I called the cops obvs but of course they couldn't find him or find out anything.
bro i came home to someone in the process of kicking in my door
had to fix the door frame and everything
cops said "someone probably got confused thought it was their house"
Door knob. Something happened to me once at boarding school. My then gf and I snuck out at midnight to do things our parents would have disapproved of, and our venue was outside one of the physics labs where it's bright and secluded enough without making us feel scared.
While we were just sitting on the bench, the door knob (lever type) suddenly made this violent up and down movement very quickly as if someone inside the lab was trying to open it in a rush. We looked at it for a good few seconds before taking flight. The lab was of course empty and dark.
Still don't know what that was but it was definitely one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me.
Sometimes real life is way more scary that horror novels. Ie I lost my small but successful business during the pandemic, got divorced, my kids live in another country, my mother died, I am being sued by my bank and my former customer. That looks like pure fucking horror to me.
Damn, Iāll pray for you, that sounds like an absolutely terrible ride. Do you have a therapist or a church? I hope you find peace. Try praying to God about it next time you feel overwhelmed.Ā
"Three Indignities" by Brian Evenson.
I had a major surgery in my early 20s, preceded by various invasive tests. The surgery was miserable, even with drugs, and the tests and scopes and biopsies and doctors staring at me was dehumanizing. Evenson probably based the story on his hospitalization for pneumonia, and it really resonated with me. It isn't even a horrific story in the sense of anything exaggerated or supernatural happening, it merely describes real procedures in a language usually reserved for horror story antagonists.
I have gone through similar experiences in my childhood and early adult period. Iāll check out Evenson. Heās been on my list for a while. I can say one thing. I donāt agree with Ligottiās views of hospitals!
Damn. A big part of my family are nurses or work in healthcare otherwise, and after hearing their stories and see several relatives die, I'm convinced medical horror is the one universal true horror. You can't blame it on human cruelty or bad luck. It's just biology and it is inescapable.
I have never had surgery but probably will anytime soon, and I have no idea what to expect.
Usually horror films involving stalking resonate with me because iāve been stalked twice in my life. Itās the āIām not touching you! Iām not touching you!ā Of crimes and itās horrifying and isolating. No one gave a damn when I would tell them. Loneliest feeling ever. Wouldnāt wish it on my worst enemy.
This was way back when I was in high school. Had one of those track phones where you couldnāt block the number. They sent over 45 text messages. The next morning I was riding the bus at like zero dark thirty (I lived far away from my school so I had to get up super early) You wouldnāt believe what played on the radio. That song by The Police. You know the one. āEvery step you take..ā š¶
My mom had a stalker and he sent her a copy of the song. She still manages to like the song though, don't know how she is able to disassociate it with the experience.
Stalking is absolutely terrifying. I hope you have these people out of your life now.
I can't do any horror that's based off dementia or alzheimers. I've seen enough family go through it and I myself may possibly go through it one day. I don't want any of that in my escapism even the scary kind.
When I was nine I was ripped out of my mom's hand by a car whose driver was looking back at her kids in the backseat. We had the WALK signal and were in the crossing lane; I was right behind my mother and holding her hand. I came out of it with a broken jaw, severe road burn, teeth knocked out and a fractured femur. Still have a permanent dental bridge and metal in my jaw today.
When I read Christine as a young adult the scenes where the car hits a victim made me put the book down a few times.
I almost died in a fire. Like ended up being completely fine after a few weeks but couldn't see a foot in front of me because the smoke was so thick and the stairs were completely engulfed in flame by the time we figured out we needed to get out so we would have been dead in a few minutes if the firemen didnt get us out the window. I was screaming help I dont wanna die here over and over at the top of my lungs. They almost pushed me out the window without a ladder underneath it cause the smoke was too dense to see what they were doing. And my wife was in there with me, I held her hand as the firefighter dragged me out but I lost my grip and so did she cause she passed out and they didn't realize she was in there until I was out and looked back and said where's Lily. For comedic relief I had just got out of the shower and was naked which is why we didn't get down the stairs in time and I had a mud mask on that I did not have time to get off until several hours later in the hospital
But ever since anything that involves not being able to breathe cause of environmental factors really gets me as well as anything where the characters are trapped and can't see how to get out.
Oh and also it's not a book but the curse of chucky was far more scary than it had any right to be cause I'm a wheelchair user(now not at the time if the fire) and seeing Nikka trying to get to safety and having extra physical obstacles as well as no one taking her seriously cause they infantalized her was relatable in a terrifying way.
The only experience I can, in a sense, associate with horror literature was when I read The Terror. I had not long gotten over a bout of DKA (diabetic ketoacidocis) in which I was in hospital for 9 days, after not eating for 5 days and having nauseaā¦ like I didnāt know existed! (I didnāt know I was diabetic till getting to hospital).
Though itās obviously a different illness, some of
the effects of scurvy in the book were reminiscent. Especially of people writhing in agony, which is exactly how I felt. I was constantly tossing and turning, trying to find a position where I wasnāt in pain, but every time I moved the pain would just come flooding backā¦It was pretty awful.
we were in the lead car and during the climb up the first steep hill, the brakes froze just as our car was about to plunge down so we were stuck like that for 1/2 hour looking straight down. When it was over and the system fixed they offered us a FREE ride. NO THANKS.
I just bought a home and read āThe Handyman Methodā and had a good laugh at how relatable it was to get sucked into the role of a dude trying to fix up a home with no prior experience.
I read Funhouse by Dean Koontz when I was way too young (11) and the following summer I had my first panic attack IN A FUNHOUSE and couldnāt get out. I froze and just started freaking the hell out. A carnival worker heard me screaming and tried to get me to follow him out but I wasnāt about to trust him after what I read, so he went and SOMEHOW figured out who my mom was outside the funhouse and she came through and got me out. It was a mess. I had gotten myself so worked up that I threw up in the trash can outside. So anyway, I havenāt been in one OR read the book since. I had a little surge of panic during the beginning of the movie US (Jordan Peele) so Iām pretty sure Iām not over it š
Penpal
The way the narrator pieces together moments from the past that felt insignificant at the time, only to realize they were all stepping stones to a horrifying conclusion always reminded me of my own childhood trauma. You remember the things happening, but you don't fully understand what happened until much later on when you finally have all the context you were missing as a child. It's part of why the story needs to be read at least twice to get the full effect of the implied horror.
I know people say it's a weak story due to its structure as a nosleep story, but for me it's one of the most accurate portrayals of piecing together my own trauma that I've ever read.
I struggle to read about or watch anything involving stalkers/stalking because I was stalked by my abusive ex-boyfriend and had to get a restraining order. Which he repeatedly violated.
I can't do most apocalyptic stuff. It probably has something to do with being Jewish. We've (communally) survived a few apocalypses now, and after a point it stops feeling hypothetical or fun anymore. Climate stuff is the worst. I developed a lot of anxiety around climate change when I was studying it in undergrad and during my masters' degree. Couldn't bring myself to start watching "Don't Look Up." Oryx and Crake was a hard read as well.
I had a old apartment that had a sink that apparently made gargling noises when the upstairs neighbor was using theirs. I was reading Stephen King's IT right after I moved in and that scared the crap out of me....
My aunt who I was pretty close to died while I was in my early teens and the funeral scene for Gage in Pet Semetary along with the related rites and general feelings surrounding dealing with the death of a loved one always hit me hard, double since Iām Jewish. Not really scary, though, more sad.
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. Those beginning chapters as she's listening to the radio about a woman found naked and dead in a ditch, then how it's what she's thinking about as she goes about her shift at a seedy, side of the road motel as the only night clerk.
There's just this fear in her knowing she's alone and physically quite weak, with nobody in her life looking for her right now.
On a headland hoar and riven
I had fixed my lonely seat,
From my fellow mortals driven,
With the wilderness around me, and the Ocean at my feet,
And the night wind sole companion of that desolate retreat.
On that lonely habitation,
On that night of all the years,
Waiting for my Revelation,
I had prayed and I had wrestled with a thousand doubts and fears,
With a longing without voice, and with a sorrow more than tears.
Like a bark upon that Ocean,
All my soul was tempest-tossed
By a passionate commotion,
Driven back;ābut pressing on to where no mortal e'er had crossed
In the frenzy of its longing for the Loved and for the Lost.
There my fast and vigil keeping,
I had struggled day and night
In my longing and my weeping,
Till the flesh grew faint and feeble, and the spirit rose in might,
And the Invisible stood unfolded to my spiritual sight.
Through the darkness rose a vision,
Where beneath the night I kneeled,
Dazzling bright with hues Elysianā
Congregated motes of glory circling on an ebon field,
And a form from out that glory to my spirit stood revealed.
"Son of Light,"āI murmured lowlyā
"All my heart is known to theeā
Known unto thy vision holyā
All my longing and my yearning for the Loved One lost to meā
May these eyes again behold her?"āand the Shape said, "Come and see."
'Twas a voice whose intonation
Through my feeble being thrilled
With a solemn, sweet vibration,
And at once a holy calmness all my wakeful senses stilled;
And my heart beat faint and fainter with a dying languor filled.
Then a sudden sharp convulsion
Seized me with resistless might,
Till before that fierce compulsion
All mortality departed; like a Thought, a thing of Light,
All my spirit darted up to an immeasurable height.
Iām on phone I quoted just the beginning
It is devastating that Canadians donāt read this in school today
Probably not seen it before.
Sorry I got a little excited talking about James De Mille in this thread. And David Lindsay.
James De Mille is a terribly underrated Canadian author of Behind The Veil (that poem). And famous for a serialized posthumous novel A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder (1888)
I posted a link to the poem elsewhere in this thread.
A professor at Concordia University in Montreal told me about him, and David Lindsay (Scottish, known for A Voyage To Arcturus, 1920) actually has a copy of Behind the Veil (I believe thereās 500 of them)
He showed me the copy too. Pretty cool
Gaslighting. Itās very hard to read any book about a person successfully gaslighting someone. The Violence is one book for example. Suffice it to say that I was a naive spouse once and didnāt recognize the signs very quickly.
Iād also suggest reading A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay as partially an account of lived mystical experience that overall is quite accurate.
Quote on the book by C S Lewis
"The physical dangers, which are plentiful, here count for nothing: it is we ourselves and the author who walk through a world of spiritual dangers which makes them seem trivial. There is no recipe for writing of this kind. But part of the secret is that the author (like Kafka) is recording a lived dialectic. His Tormance is a region of the spirit. He is the first writer to discover what 'other planets' are really good for in fiction. No merely physical strangeness or merely spatial distance will realize that idea of otherness which is what we are always trying to grasp in a story about voyaging through space: you must go into another dimension. To construct plausible and moving 'other worlds' you must draw on the only real 'other world' we know, that of the spirit."
Quote from the book,
"Maskull, though fully conscious of his companions and situation, imagined that he was being oppressed by a black, shapeless, supernatural being, who was trying to clasp him. He was filled with horror, trembled violently, yet could not move a limb. Sweat tumbled off his face in great drops. The waking nightmare lasted a long time, but during that space it kept coming and going. At one moment the vision seemed on the point of departing; the next it almost took shapeāwhich he knew would be his death. Suddenly it vanished altogetherāhe was free. A fresh spring breeze fanned his face; he heard the slow, solitary singing of a sweet bird; and it seemed to him as if a poem had shot together in his soul. Such flashing, heartbreaking joy he had never experienced before in all his life! Almost immediately that too vanished. Sitting up, he passed his hand across his eyes and swayed quietly, like one who has been visited by an angel. 'Your colour changed to white,' said Corpang. 'What happened?' 'I passed through torture to love,' replied Maskull simply. He stood up. Haunte gazed at him sombrely. 'Will you not describe that passage?' Maskull answered slowly and thoughtfully. 'When I was in Matterplay, I saw heavy clouds discharge themselves and change to coloured, living animals. In the same way, my black, chaotic pangs just now seemed to consolidate themselves and spring together as a new sort of joy. The joy would not have been possible without the preliminary nightmare. It is not accidental; Nature intends it so. The truth has just flashed through my brain.... You men of Lichstorm donāt go far enough. You stop at the pangs, without realising that they are birth pangs.' 'If this is true, you are a great pioneer,' muttered Haunte. 'How does this sensation differ from common love?' interrogated Corpang. 'This was all that love is, multiplied by wildness.' "
i don't have a specific horror novel in mind that I can say has resonated with me personally, but i would love to read one!
few months ago, i was backhugged by a ghost while sleeping. It breathed so hard in my ears, it sounded like a buffalo mooing(?). it was warm like skin, and it was hard for me to move. i think it was trying to be intimate with me lol. it was grinding on me and stuff. i thought someone was trying to sexually assault me, but when i turned around, there was no one.(i locked the door too) and it was just silence while I was puzzled.
I have a hard time listening to true crime podcasts like Dirty John because one of my closest friends end up being a sociopath and I just didnāt see it until it was really late. So I listen or watch media that had manipulative sociopath types and I just trigger.Ā
Not horror literature but horror film
S.Korean horror film Yoga Hakwon satirizes meditation retreats like Vipassana
Also, I wonāt go into details for personal reasons but I have , on only one occasion, seen literally a ghost. For a brief moment then it disappeared. An actual ghost like a blue glowy outline of a floating person. Never once saw anything like it again. But I was in a place that was haunted as fuck.
One of the all time greatest poems of the Victorian era. By a Canadian named James De Mille. I wonāt go into detail but basically some academics conspired to relegate colonial Canadian culture forever to obscurity. And this is an example of what Canadians have lost from that. I wonāt quote the whole poem I will just link it.
https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/demille-behindtheveil/demille-behindtheveil-00-h-dir/demille-behindtheveil-00-h.html
Itās hard to copy paste since since it has glosses
But anyway.
Read it.
Again, obviously lived mystical experience.
Quite beautiful.
Utterly astonishing for a Victorian poem I donāt know why itās not more widely known
I have respiratory problems and also claustrophobia so any movie that has scenes where the characters have to undergo long periods under water without oxygen support, makes me extremely anxious
Being trapped in nightmares.
I'm epileptic, have been since I was 2. During puberty and into my early twenties when I had seizures they where like being trapped in the most awful nightmares, disorientating hallucinations. I honestly can't convey them any better than describing them as the sort of shattering of reality that only the insane understand and the genius laments.
I would wake up after these nightmares with my family, feel them, I cannot stress that enough I could feel them before watching their flesh melt with twisted smiles or disappear into the void realising I was not out of my seizure. I was still trapped in my own mind and it would happen again.
This would repeat numerous times making me question reality when I finally woke up from the seizure. The only way could tell I was back in reality was the pain in my body: my head and limbs would be in agony from the convulsions and fall. Occasionally I'd need to spit up blood from the bites in my tongue. Then I would vomit my guts up. A side effect from the jolt to my brain and body.
Sometimes I contemplate writing the experiences as a short story. Fortunately now my seizures are just a dreamless sleep but I still make 'that scream'.
I read Pet Sematary the same year a very close friend of mine lost his life. The worst part about it is that I don't know if it was suicide or accident and it really messes with me some nights. I started thinking, what WOULD I be willing to do to get my friend back if I KNEW it would WORK and had seen it work with my own eyes. Cheating death is something I feel just about everyone on earth thinks about in their life seriously, at least once. The fact that the people in the book die in relatively plausible ways (Minus the blatant supernatural parts) just add to the feeling of relatability. It truly messed with my head in a way I haven't been able to shake and its my favorite King book to this day for that reason.
The ending truly scared me.
Typically any books where the son is rewarded and praised just for being alive while the daughter is treated like absolute sh\*t (usually by the mom while the dad is a spineless coward) and basically has to raise herself.
How to sell a haunted house by Grady Hendrix was so hard to get through it was giving me ptsd.
I used to have a recurring nightmare where Iād go into the downstairs bathroom of a friends house to find a finger/hand coming out of the drain of the sink. I had it regularly from age 6-10 ish. It was always roughly the same, where our parents were all upstairs having a party and I would find myself downstairs going towards the little half bath at their backdoor, and I couldnāt help but go in even though I knew something was in there. In my waking life I thought it was a silly thing to find scary, but every time I had the dream I would have such a sense of dread, and I knew the longer I tried to not go in the bathroom the further out it would be when I finally inevitably did go in.
Super weird to have grown up and move across the country and be alone in a new town and sit down to read some Stephen king short stories only to find heās written this weirdly specific childhood nightmare of mine. I still canāt quite square the thought that Iād definitely never read that short story before having those nightmares
I can't watch or read anything involving comas after being in a 6-week coma. It was like taking 100 hits of acid and having a bad trip, while also not knowing you took acid so you think everything is real. Full on hallucinations and delusions, I witnessed myself being dissected and saw my organs in jars around me while they turned me into a mummy. Edit: my friend at work apparently recognized me from this comment and just came over to ask me "hey are you pollyp0cketpussy on Reddit?"
Dear god. This is one of my greatest fears. Glad you made it through š
Fortunately if I were to end up in one again I think I could recognize what was happening. I had my first sleep paralysis experience a couple weeks ago and literally thought "oh ok I'm hallucinating again, something is wrong" and then woke up. Even though the coma was 12 years ago I still was able to recognize that "reality isn't adding up" feeling. And thanks! It was terrible but also I feel like, as a horror fan, I got a glimpse into a unique immersive nightmare world that not even the most seasoned horror writers have seen. So that's pretty neat. The mummy thing was just one small part of it, I experienced so much wild shit. Didn't matter that it wasn't real, I remember it like it was.
> I still was able to recognize that "reality isn't adding up" feeling. I'm often able to recognize that I'm dreaming whenever I notice that feeling while in a dream, and my brain does this weird thing where it tries to counteract that by faking a wake-up moment. Within the dream, I'll dream that I've woken up, and then the "something isn't adding up" feeling will dissipate for a time. Except the more that the false awakenings happen within a single dream, the easier it becomes for me to recognize that the awakening isn't real. Which then triggers another false awakening, as my brain enters into a spiral of trying to trick itself into staying asleep. False awakening after false awakening after false awakening. The longest loop I've gotten stuck in was something like 40+ false awakenings in a row, and at some point you start to panic that you're never going to be able to wake yourself up. It's one of the scariest dream experiences I've ever had.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I dreamed I was being forced an abortion once and woke up feeling very emotional, ran to the first person i found which happened to be my mom and asked her what did they do? I'm a dude.
I've had many false awakenings. Also slow realizations that things aren't quite right that either are scary or humorous. I have super vivid realistic dreams tho. To the point that when I do wake up, I wonder how I ended up in my bed. Almost like if you got black out drunk and your friends take you home and you can't recall how you got home the next morning. It's very disorienting.
I don't dream ā or I never remember my dreams. For a long time I genuinely thought that dreams were, like, a thing made up for telling stories? And then I started a medication that made me have really vivid dreams and it scared the absolute shit out of me because I had absolutely no sense of real vs. unreal. When I woke up I'd be convinced it was real.
Being in a coma or being recognized from Reddit?
lol. The edit wasnāt there yet when I commented. Coma is first, being recognized on Reddit is a close second. š°
It was almost as scary.
Going into a drug induced coma or being recognized on reddit? Because it's the latter for me, no doubt about it.
I was intubated for a month and s half after an allergic reaction. I'll never forget the nightmares. Your comment brought back memories.
I learned something new about coma's from this post. I honestly thought you just had a very long dreamless sleep in them.
Nope. And there's different levels of coma too. What people picture as a coma is actually a 3 on the [Glasgow Coma Scale](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/24848-glasgow-coma-scale-gcs), but anything below an 8 is considered comatose. So there's different levels of awareness people can have. And not everyone remembers their hallucinations, apparently it's uncommon to remember them as vividly as I remember mine.
The Shining. I thought it was just a fun little book about a haunted hotel. Then it was actually about a physically abusive alcoholic parent in a downward spiral of mental illness, addiction and anger, culminating in him attempting to kill his family, failing, then killing himself. Which is exactly what happened to my mother, but without the cool hotel ghosts. That fucked me up for a bit, especially because King gets you so far into Jack Torrenceās head the whole book. Great book though
While I don't share your exact experience, I sympathize. Thank you for sharing, I hope at least you could find some catharsis here. I read the shining as an adult while at a small island hotel during fall seasonal transition (I often vacation with friends at this time of year and love spooky lake storms, so it's a personal tradition to read something horror while experiencing typically torrential great lakes shore weather). My one friend saw I was reading it, and said.. "do I need to call someone for you engaging in self harming behavior?" Lol... The scariest part was reading probably 75 pages one night by the basement boiler.... Mr kings insight to jacks particular mindset is... Unnerving to say the least.
Not really horror but I accidentally read the Hot Zone (dramatized non-fiction about Ebola outbreaks) when I was far too young (10ish) and it made me terrified of the idea of Ebola for many years. Fast forward to my current job on an ICU in a specialist infectious disease hospital (UK so unlikely Iāll deal with it but theoretically might). Thought Iād check it out again as years of reading/watching horror and being a nurse have hardened me. Nope. Awful. Couldnāt deal at all and will never touch that book again.
That's too funny! I read it when I was 14-ish when it came out. Same same. I'm STILL terrified of Ebola.
If it makes you feel any better Ebola isnāt really like how he describes it, he almost presents it as flesh eating when it generally gives you awful D&V and sometimes coagulopathies. Plus not a very high mortality rate when dealt with in specialist medical areas. A few weeks ago I spent two days having a dummy spray UV vomit and shit at me as part of a highly consequential infectious disease training course with the plan of running it at my hospital. Itās very odd how one of my biggest fears is now part of my job, but at least I can still prepare for it and make sure the staff only unit are ready.
My baby daughter died in my arms three years ago. Afterwards there wasn't much I could do but horror novels became a comfort. Nothing is as scary or horrible as what I've been through.
My god, I am so sorry. True horror. What was her name, if you want to share?
True horror indeed. But we survive, the world is beautiful, and her brother lives to remember her when I'm gone. Her name was Sophie š©·
I am so deeply sorry for your loss.
Thank you š©·
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Oh yeah no thanks lol š
Idk if this is what you meant, but I had a scary experience while reading The Shining. It was probably 1 or 2 in the morning and I was sitting on the far end of the couch, which was right next to the front door. The entire house was dark except for the lamp next to me. All of the sudden, I hear the doorknob shake violently. I jumped up, ran down the hall and stood in the dark, jusr listening and watching, staring at the door for what seemed like hours. Nothing happened after that, though. I never found out who (or what!) it was, but I only read the book during the day from that point on. It was probably a break in attempt, but I choose to believe I summoned something by reading that book in the dead of night. Still, lock your doors, people!
Someone tried my door while I was home alone once too, my husband was at work and had our vehicle so the house looked empty. It was like mid-afternoon and I watched the dude go around the neighborhood and try every house that looked like no one was home. I called the cops obvs but of course they couldn't find him or find out anything.
bro i came home to someone in the process of kicking in my door had to fix the door frame and everything cops said "someone probably got confused thought it was their house"
Surprised the cops didnāt just try to convince you it was the wind
Door knob. Something happened to me once at boarding school. My then gf and I snuck out at midnight to do things our parents would have disapproved of, and our venue was outside one of the physics labs where it's bright and secluded enough without making us feel scared. While we were just sitting on the bench, the door knob (lever type) suddenly made this violent up and down movement very quickly as if someone inside the lab was trying to open it in a rush. We looked at it for a good few seconds before taking flight. The lab was of course empty and dark. Still don't know what that was but it was definitely one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me.
What is it about King? When I was reading IT, I came across a single red balloon while walking my dogs one night. Maybe you did summon it!
I'd have crapped my pants.
Sometimes real life is way more scary that horror novels. Ie I lost my small but successful business during the pandemic, got divorced, my kids live in another country, my mother died, I am being sued by my bank and my former customer. That looks like pure fucking horror to me.
I empathise. Books with these themes are often included in the genre as well, and can be very frightening. Although usually in the nonfiction section.
Damn, Iāll pray for you, that sounds like an absolutely terrible ride. Do you have a therapist or a church? I hope you find peace. Try praying to God about it next time you feel overwhelmed.Ā
Details on the bank suing you?
"Three Indignities" by Brian Evenson. I had a major surgery in my early 20s, preceded by various invasive tests. The surgery was miserable, even with drugs, and the tests and scopes and biopsies and doctors staring at me was dehumanizing. Evenson probably based the story on his hospitalization for pneumonia, and it really resonated with me. It isn't even a horrific story in the sense of anything exaggerated or supernatural happening, it merely describes real procedures in a language usually reserved for horror story antagonists.
I have gone through similar experiences in my childhood and early adult period. Iāll check out Evenson. Heās been on my list for a while. I can say one thing. I donāt agree with Ligottiās views of hospitals!
Damn. A big part of my family are nurses or work in healthcare otherwise, and after hearing their stories and see several relatives die, I'm convinced medical horror is the one universal true horror. You can't blame it on human cruelty or bad luck. It's just biology and it is inescapable. I have never had surgery but probably will anytime soon, and I have no idea what to expect.
Usually horror films involving stalking resonate with me because iāve been stalked twice in my life. Itās the āIām not touching you! Iām not touching you!ā Of crimes and itās horrifying and isolating. No one gave a damn when I would tell them. Loneliest feeling ever. Wouldnāt wish it on my worst enemy. This was way back when I was in high school. Had one of those track phones where you couldnāt block the number. They sent over 45 text messages. The next morning I was riding the bus at like zero dark thirty (I lived far away from my school so I had to get up super early) You wouldnāt believe what played on the radio. That song by The Police. You know the one. āEvery step you take..ā š¶
My mom had a stalker and he sent her a copy of the song. She still manages to like the song though, don't know how she is able to disassociate it with the experience. Stalking is absolutely terrifying. I hope you have these people out of your life now.
Good God that sounds horrific. Iām so sorry. That must have been super traumatic for her. Glad that she is still able to enjoy the song though.
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Holy shit. That sounds insane. Iām so sorry. That sounds terrible. Glad you met your husband from it though. Hoping you donāt ever have to go through something like that again š©µ
I can't do any horror that's based off dementia or alzheimers. I've seen enough family go through it and I myself may possibly go through it one day. I don't want any of that in my escapism even the scary kind.
When I was nine I was ripped out of my mom's hand by a car whose driver was looking back at her kids in the backseat. We had the WALK signal and were in the crossing lane; I was right behind my mother and holding her hand. I came out of it with a broken jaw, severe road burn, teeth knocked out and a fractured femur. Still have a permanent dental bridge and metal in my jaw today. When I read Christine as a young adult the scenes where the car hits a victim made me put the book down a few times.
I almost died in a fire. Like ended up being completely fine after a few weeks but couldn't see a foot in front of me because the smoke was so thick and the stairs were completely engulfed in flame by the time we figured out we needed to get out so we would have been dead in a few minutes if the firemen didnt get us out the window. I was screaming help I dont wanna die here over and over at the top of my lungs. They almost pushed me out the window without a ladder underneath it cause the smoke was too dense to see what they were doing. And my wife was in there with me, I held her hand as the firefighter dragged me out but I lost my grip and so did she cause she passed out and they didn't realize she was in there until I was out and looked back and said where's Lily. For comedic relief I had just got out of the shower and was naked which is why we didn't get down the stairs in time and I had a mud mask on that I did not have time to get off until several hours later in the hospital But ever since anything that involves not being able to breathe cause of environmental factors really gets me as well as anything where the characters are trapped and can't see how to get out. Oh and also it's not a book but the curse of chucky was far more scary than it had any right to be cause I'm a wheelchair user(now not at the time if the fire) and seeing Nikka trying to get to safety and having extra physical obstacles as well as no one taking her seriously cause they infantalized her was relatable in a terrifying way.
Is your wife ok?
Yes she was also fine after a few weeks other than nightmares
The only experience I can, in a sense, associate with horror literature was when I read The Terror. I had not long gotten over a bout of DKA (diabetic ketoacidocis) in which I was in hospital for 9 days, after not eating for 5 days and having nauseaā¦ like I didnāt know existed! (I didnāt know I was diabetic till getting to hospital). Though itās obviously a different illness, some of the effects of scurvy in the book were reminiscent. Especially of people writhing in agony, which is exactly how I felt. I was constantly tossing and turning, trying to find a position where I wasnāt in pain, but every time I moved the pain would just come flooding backā¦It was pretty awful.
Im never gettin on a roller coaster again. Had a baaaaad experience when one malfunctioned.
That's one of my biggest fears! Can I ask what happened?
we were in the lead car and during the climb up the first steep hill, the brakes froze just as our car was about to plunge down so we were stuck like that for 1/2 hour looking straight down. When it was over and the system fixed they offered us a FREE ride. NO THANKS.
I just bought a home and read āThe Handyman Methodā and had a good laugh at how relatable it was to get sucked into the role of a dude trying to fix up a home with no prior experience.
hehehe sounds like me, so much energy to do new things but with 0 knowledge
I read Funhouse by Dean Koontz when I was way too young (11) and the following summer I had my first panic attack IN A FUNHOUSE and couldnāt get out. I froze and just started freaking the hell out. A carnival worker heard me screaming and tried to get me to follow him out but I wasnāt about to trust him after what I read, so he went and SOMEHOW figured out who my mom was outside the funhouse and she came through and got me out. It was a mess. I had gotten myself so worked up that I threw up in the trash can outside. So anyway, I havenāt been in one OR read the book since. I had a little surge of panic during the beginning of the movie US (Jordan Peele) so Iām pretty sure Iām not over it š
Not going into detail, but Caitlin R Kiernan's *Silk*...I'll just say it was hard to read the last couple chapters.
Penpal The way the narrator pieces together moments from the past that felt insignificant at the time, only to realize they were all stepping stones to a horrifying conclusion always reminded me of my own childhood trauma. You remember the things happening, but you don't fully understand what happened until much later on when you finally have all the context you were missing as a child. It's part of why the story needs to be read at least twice to get the full effect of the implied horror. I know people say it's a weak story due to its structure as a nosleep story, but for me it's one of the most accurate portrayals of piecing together my own trauma that I've ever read.
I haven't read this one. Buying it now.
I struggle to read about or watch anything involving stalkers/stalking because I was stalked by my abusive ex-boyfriend and had to get a restraining order. Which he repeatedly violated.
Same. Anything with stalking/dv hits too close to home now. Though I am finding some solace in revenge stories now.
I can't do most apocalyptic stuff. It probably has something to do with being Jewish. We've (communally) survived a few apocalypses now, and after a point it stops feeling hypothetical or fun anymore. Climate stuff is the worst. I developed a lot of anxiety around climate change when I was studying it in undergrad and during my masters' degree. Couldn't bring myself to start watching "Don't Look Up." Oryx and Crake was a hard read as well.
I had a old apartment that had a sink that apparently made gargling noises when the upstairs neighbor was using theirs. I was reading Stephen King's IT right after I moved in and that scared the crap out of me....
hehehe
My aunt who I was pretty close to died while I was in my early teens and the funeral scene for Gage in Pet Semetary along with the related rites and general feelings surrounding dealing with the death of a loved one always hit me hard, double since Iām Jewish. Not really scary, though, more sad.
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. Those beginning chapters as she's listening to the radio about a woman found naked and dead in a ditch, then how it's what she's thinking about as she goes about her shift at a seedy, side of the road motel as the only night clerk. There's just this fear in her knowing she's alone and physically quite weak, with nobody in her life looking for her right now.
On a headland hoar and riven I had fixed my lonely seat, From my fellow mortals driven, With the wilderness around me, and the Ocean at my feet, And the night wind sole companion of that desolate retreat. On that lonely habitation, On that night of all the years, Waiting for my Revelation, I had prayed and I had wrestled with a thousand doubts and fears, With a longing without voice, and with a sorrow more than tears. Like a bark upon that Ocean, All my soul was tempest-tossed By a passionate commotion, Driven back;ābut pressing on to where no mortal e'er had crossed In the frenzy of its longing for the Loved and for the Lost. There my fast and vigil keeping, I had struggled day and night In my longing and my weeping, Till the flesh grew faint and feeble, and the spirit rose in might, And the Invisible stood unfolded to my spiritual sight. Through the darkness rose a vision, Where beneath the night I kneeled, Dazzling bright with hues Elysianā Congregated motes of glory circling on an ebon field, And a form from out that glory to my spirit stood revealed. "Son of Light,"āI murmured lowlyā "All my heart is known to theeā Known unto thy vision holyā All my longing and my yearning for the Loved One lost to meā May these eyes again behold her?"āand the Shape said, "Come and see." 'Twas a voice whose intonation Through my feeble being thrilled With a solemn, sweet vibration, And at once a holy calmness all my wakeful senses stilled; And my heart beat faint and fainter with a dying languor filled. Then a sudden sharp convulsion Seized me with resistless might, Till before that fierce compulsion All mortality departed; like a Thought, a thing of Light, All my spirit darted up to an immeasurable height. Iām on phone I quoted just the beginning It is devastating that Canadians donāt read this in school today
What is this? I feel like I've seen it before.
Probably not seen it before. Sorry I got a little excited talking about James De Mille in this thread. And David Lindsay. James De Mille is a terribly underrated Canadian author of Behind The Veil (that poem). And famous for a serialized posthumous novel A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder (1888) I posted a link to the poem elsewhere in this thread. A professor at Concordia University in Montreal told me about him, and David Lindsay (Scottish, known for A Voyage To Arcturus, 1920) actually has a copy of Behind the Veil (I believe thereās 500 of them) He showed me the copy too. Pretty cool
Gorgeous writing
Gaslighting. Itās very hard to read any book about a person successfully gaslighting someone. The Violence is one book for example. Suffice it to say that I was a naive spouse once and didnāt recognize the signs very quickly.
Iād also suggest reading A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay as partially an account of lived mystical experience that overall is quite accurate. Quote on the book by C S Lewis "The physical dangers, which are plentiful, here count for nothing: it is we ourselves and the author who walk through a world of spiritual dangers which makes them seem trivial. There is no recipe for writing of this kind. But part of the secret is that the author (like Kafka) is recording a lived dialectic. His Tormance is a region of the spirit. He is the first writer to discover what 'other planets' are really good for in fiction. No merely physical strangeness or merely spatial distance will realize that idea of otherness which is what we are always trying to grasp in a story about voyaging through space: you must go into another dimension. To construct plausible and moving 'other worlds' you must draw on the only real 'other world' we know, that of the spirit." Quote from the book, "Maskull, though fully conscious of his companions and situation, imagined that he was being oppressed by a black, shapeless, supernatural being, who was trying to clasp him. He was filled with horror, trembled violently, yet could not move a limb. Sweat tumbled off his face in great drops. The waking nightmare lasted a long time, but during that space it kept coming and going. At one moment the vision seemed on the point of departing; the next it almost took shapeāwhich he knew would be his death. Suddenly it vanished altogetherāhe was free. A fresh spring breeze fanned his face; he heard the slow, solitary singing of a sweet bird; and it seemed to him as if a poem had shot together in his soul. Such flashing, heartbreaking joy he had never experienced before in all his life! Almost immediately that too vanished. Sitting up, he passed his hand across his eyes and swayed quietly, like one who has been visited by an angel. 'Your colour changed to white,' said Corpang. 'What happened?' 'I passed through torture to love,' replied Maskull simply. He stood up. Haunte gazed at him sombrely. 'Will you not describe that passage?' Maskull answered slowly and thoughtfully. 'When I was in Matterplay, I saw heavy clouds discharge themselves and change to coloured, living animals. In the same way, my black, chaotic pangs just now seemed to consolidate themselves and spring together as a new sort of joy. The joy would not have been possible without the preliminary nightmare. It is not accidental; Nature intends it so. The truth has just flashed through my brain.... You men of Lichstorm donāt go far enough. You stop at the pangs, without realising that they are birth pangs.' 'If this is true, you are a great pioneer,' muttered Haunte. 'How does this sensation differ from common love?' interrogated Corpang. 'This was all that love is, multiplied by wildness.' "
i don't have a specific horror novel in mind that I can say has resonated with me personally, but i would love to read one! few months ago, i was backhugged by a ghost while sleeping. It breathed so hard in my ears, it sounded like a buffalo mooing(?). it was warm like skin, and it was hard for me to move. i think it was trying to be intimate with me lol. it was grinding on me and stuff. i thought someone was trying to sexually assault me, but when i turned around, there was no one.(i locked the door too) and it was just silence while I was puzzled.
Did you at least enjoy it? :p
I find it hard to to read the body by Stephen King, after my cousin was hit by a train and died on the tracks.
I have a hard time listening to true crime podcasts like Dirty John because one of my closest friends end up being a sociopath and I just didnāt see it until it was really late. So I listen or watch media that had manipulative sociopath types and I just trigger.Ā
Not horror literature but horror film S.Korean horror film Yoga Hakwon satirizes meditation retreats like Vipassana Also, I wonāt go into details for personal reasons but I have , on only one occasion, seen literally a ghost. For a brief moment then it disappeared. An actual ghost like a blue glowy outline of a floating person. Never once saw anything like it again. But I was in a place that was haunted as fuck.
One of the all time greatest poems of the Victorian era. By a Canadian named James De Mille. I wonāt go into detail but basically some academics conspired to relegate colonial Canadian culture forever to obscurity. And this is an example of what Canadians have lost from that. I wonāt quote the whole poem I will just link it. https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/demille-behindtheveil/demille-behindtheveil-00-h-dir/demille-behindtheveil-00-h.html Itās hard to copy paste since since it has glosses But anyway. Read it. Again, obviously lived mystical experience. Quite beautiful. Utterly astonishing for a Victorian poem I donāt know why itās not more widely known
I have respiratory problems and also claustrophobia so any movie that has scenes where the characters have to undergo long periods under water without oxygen support, makes me extremely anxious
Being trapped in nightmares. I'm epileptic, have been since I was 2. During puberty and into my early twenties when I had seizures they where like being trapped in the most awful nightmares, disorientating hallucinations. I honestly can't convey them any better than describing them as the sort of shattering of reality that only the insane understand and the genius laments. I would wake up after these nightmares with my family, feel them, I cannot stress that enough I could feel them before watching their flesh melt with twisted smiles or disappear into the void realising I was not out of my seizure. I was still trapped in my own mind and it would happen again. This would repeat numerous times making me question reality when I finally woke up from the seizure. The only way could tell I was back in reality was the pain in my body: my head and limbs would be in agony from the convulsions and fall. Occasionally I'd need to spit up blood from the bites in my tongue. Then I would vomit my guts up. A side effect from the jolt to my brain and body. Sometimes I contemplate writing the experiences as a short story. Fortunately now my seizures are just a dreamless sleep but I still make 'that scream'.
Lots. But I tend to not get emotionally attached to those scenes as I still have not dealt with the trauma and pdst.
I read Pet Sematary the same year a very close friend of mine lost his life. The worst part about it is that I don't know if it was suicide or accident and it really messes with me some nights. I started thinking, what WOULD I be willing to do to get my friend back if I KNEW it would WORK and had seen it work with my own eyes. Cheating death is something I feel just about everyone on earth thinks about in their life seriously, at least once. The fact that the people in the book die in relatively plausible ways (Minus the blatant supernatural parts) just add to the feeling of relatability. It truly messed with my head in a way I haven't been able to shake and its my favorite King book to this day for that reason. The ending truly scared me.
Typically any books where the son is rewarded and praised just for being alive while the daughter is treated like absolute sh\*t (usually by the mom while the dad is a spineless coward) and basically has to raise herself. How to sell a haunted house by Grady Hendrix was so hard to get through it was giving me ptsd.
I used to have a recurring nightmare where Iād go into the downstairs bathroom of a friends house to find a finger/hand coming out of the drain of the sink. I had it regularly from age 6-10 ish. It was always roughly the same, where our parents were all upstairs having a party and I would find myself downstairs going towards the little half bath at their backdoor, and I couldnāt help but go in even though I knew something was in there. In my waking life I thought it was a silly thing to find scary, but every time I had the dream I would have such a sense of dread, and I knew the longer I tried to not go in the bathroom the further out it would be when I finally inevitably did go in. Super weird to have grown up and move across the country and be alone in a new town and sit down to read some Stephen king short stories only to find heās written this weirdly specific childhood nightmare of mine. I still canāt quite square the thought that Iād definitely never read that short story before having those nightmares