Settup: There's a man and a woman, exploring a portal to another dimension. They stand in a forest. They know that other people have disappeared in the dimension, but aren't particularly worried about it yet. While strange the new dimension does not seem particularly threatening. Then they see a thing. A really unsettling thing. And the other dimension seems a bit more sinister. What do they see? Bones is the obvious answer, and might even be the right one. But I'd rather listen for other input before I have to write a cliched skull into the story.
A zombie lion? Half of a monkey (think Pet Semetary)? Themselves? I'm reallllly tired, so excuse my unimaginative answers.
Empty graves? Blinded wildlife? A heap of bloodstained weapons and armor? Very large footprints? A ruined church? A pond that bubbles out a noxious gas? A row of pikes driven vertically into the ground, pointing up, waiting to be adorned with human heads? The still-warm embers of a recent bonfire with no footprints anywhere near it? Scalps nailed to trees? Torches or lanterns still burning? A moon ten times the size it should be? A noose hanging from a branch? Several sets of child-size footprints approaching the edge of a cliff with none going away?
A scene from one of my dreams: tall, tree-length mushrooms with human faces that appear to be asleep, yet vomit continuously through their mouths and noses, so the "forest" floor is a mixture of dirt, undergrowth, and barf. Oh, and "Pork Soda" by Primus is playing in the background. Well, I already used this scene in one of my and KaTrian's novels (sans the song), so perhaps it's not that good of an idea to use the exact same vision, but that dream was somewhat disturbing esp. since I ended up in the forest because a murderous clown was chasing me and I had Satan inside my head.
They see nothing, no signs of life or All the animals they see seem to be skittish and scared of something or Weird footprints approaching and exiting the portal from the other side or Somebody gets stung by a bug with human faces and scorpion tails like the locusts from Revelation or Innocent and cute bunny rabbits scavenging the corpse of a large bear or Grimmace wearing a hamburger shaped ball gag getting raped by the Burger King while the Hamburglar rides around on a tricycle pelting them with raw chicken McNuggets and Wendy watches from the corner of the room laughing maniacally, masturbating with a ketchup bottle
They find a child's doll abandoned in the woods. The doll is very human like with the exception of some feature
a red moon, bodies instead of stars (but still hanging in the sky, maybe thats where you go when you die), piles of clothes+shoes but no humans, trees alive (evil dead style) circle of what seems like sacrificed baby bodies with some symbol in the middle (big cross, w/e), they feel watched (evil monkeys with red eyes are watching them from the trees), a hand sticking out of the ground (body is buried), a pair of humanlike creatures (maybe black-blue colored with 3 eyes and 4 arms) having intercourse in a very strange way? a doctor performing some disturbing surgery in the middle of the forest on a surgery table, a starving child, that the characters run too but than get trapped (the child was bait) anyone like some idea of me? (im not a writer but maybe i wanna give it a try, english also isnt my first language)
Human heads, but something's been removed, like the eyes or the brain or the tongues. It's snowing... it looks like it's snowing... but it's something else, like soot... or dandruff, well, something that makes them go "well, this is positively sinister, isn't it, dear?" There's an army of hares waiting form them, all lined up with crossbows. ready to shoot them if they make a wrong move. Unfortunately humans don't speak hare so they can't communicate at all. The Earth is oozing blood. Or the trees. The place is full of dead trees with corpses stuffed inside them (some weird burial custom).
I think the entrance to the cave (a different portal) should have a creepy inscription, maybe in a foreign or dead language of some kind. Something like "World is nothing but a dream of a Demon." Or some such.
Hares are fierce. Back to the topic: Another option is corpses and still living people tangled up in torturous positions around the forest. Think of that janitor in the Silent Hill movie, barbwired, back all twisted in the toilet cubicle.
That sounds like some of the disturbing stuff I've been thinking up for the scenes where my MC is DT'ing of heroin.
I had that one way back, when I was around 18 or so, but I don't really consider such dreams nightmares, more like interesting dreams and great story material. Most of such dreams do end up in our stories one way or another. I even tend to enjoy those dreams while still within the dream; the atmosphere is scary as hell and bizarre to boot, but I'm often feeling like I really would if something like that happened irl: "oh wow, finally something truly interesting happens! Awesome!" So it's all good. What I do consider nightmares are dreams where I'm hopelessly late for work/get a call from my boss, telling me I've missed a shift at work/a class in school, or end up sitting frozen by an exam paper with no idea what I'm supposed to do etc, i.e. boring and annoying stuff.
@T.Trian I know exactly what you mean. I've had some random dreams like the one you describe (well not exactly, but crazy like that) and have at least 6 short stories written from those. That said, the scariest nightmare I ever had I was late for work, the kids missed the bus, and I forgot to put my work clothes in the dryer, lmao. That shit got the adrenaline pumping!
The end of something's tail trailing out of view. Or eyes. Looking into the portal when suddenly... thousands, and thousands of eyes. Or they could even feel/sound something behind them while staring into the portal.
People disappeared but for some reason the portal didn't carry their skin.... So they saw remains of skin, but not teared, more likely complete skin without anything inside, so a collapsed mass of skin
Maybe a hut with a glass window. When they look in the window, they see strange people in the hut moving and speaking and performing weird rituals, but when they look in the door, the hut is empty. They go into the empty hut and look out the window, and they see strange people performing rituals in the woods, but when they look out the door, nobody is there. What happens when they break the glass?
They slowly lose their memories the further they go, and by the time they realise what's happening, they can no longer remember the way back There're some awfully creepy suggestions in this thread! T.Trian's vomiting trees probably sound the creepiest as well as most original so far IMO. @minstrel - sounds like a short story in the making!
