Well, I don't know if I'm doing this right, my dream has a lot of details and is probably boring, but here it is anyway. (oh, I also ramble, so only read it if you really want to)

Here's a dream, a bit long winded but perhaps the most terror inspiring one I'd had as a young child. I've had it quite a few times when I was younger.

The setting is always the same, and it goes a bit like this. My grandparent's house is a farm house and it has a bunch of fruit trees and hedge-ish evergreens all about their yard and the barn. I would love to play in their yard, perhaps this is why the dream takes place here. In this dream it is slightly darker than a normal day, not evening, perhaps stormy but I don't remember any particular weather apart from it not being bright. This may be because the world seems to have stopped, or is before it starts (if that makes sence). I say this because all the trees are much younger than I would have ever remembered them. I remember the trees because I would play and hide in them, but in the dream they are very small plants.

In the yard of my grandparent's farm house I am running about frantically with a number of other children my approximate age (the first time I had the dream I was only seven, the ages never change when it recurrs). I don't particularly know the other children, perhaps I've forgotten them because it was so long ago, anyway, we are running around in a panic. Everyone is panicing and searching for keys. Not keys to doors, but keys more like piano keys.

There is a booming voice of no particular gender wherever we run. I don't think I can really say what the voice is saying as it's hard to place the words, something to the effect of "it's too late" or "find them". It's strange because the voice is clear and booming, but hard for me to describe.

Whenever we hear the voice there is a pulse, like a heatbeat, and I see the image of what seems to be a clock/coffin/piano. I say all three because that is what it is. A piano because the children need to put piano keys into it, a coffin beacuse it opens like one, and a clock because it has the face of a clock (looks like a grandfather clock). It is black and plain, but terrifying to me. It was what was demanding things of us, it was the clock that told us what to do. I'm not sure if I could draw it at all, it's a very strange thing object encompassing all three.

The voice came from the clock, or, it felt that way. But, the clock wasn't outdoors with us, it was in some sort of basement or place I was not able to reach, yet, we were able to put the keys into it while remaining outside.

I do not remember finding any keys, only searching and being afraid. We needed to find all the keys or something very bad would happen, something very terrible that we all anticipated but never actually described. Finally the voice would be very angry, and we knew it was because we had not found all the keys. This is probably the point where I was most afraid. Then, for some reason, nothing would happen.

It would all stop, the ground wasn't shaking, the voice was gone. There was, however a new person, an adult who was farmiliar but unknown outside of the dream. This person had a voice that I associated with the clock's voice, but wouldn't speak (if that makes sence). That person was very sorrowful, the other children aren't there anymore, but the rest of the world is going again, it was like something very bad had happend that no one would talk about. Then the dream would somehow fade off, perhaps into another dream, or perhaps I would wake up. This dream would wake me up, but for some reason not when I was most afraid....

Maybe it was that person who was sad at the end that made me wake up. I felt that I caused the terrible thing to happen, and that scared me more than the voice, maybe, I don't really know. It would make more sence if I would wake up right when the "time ran out" but I don't, it goes a bit more and changes completely.

more

(this is long too)

Often times I dream something. Nothing in particular, just something and I forget it immediately. Then, somehow, even years down the line, in a specific cirumstance I know, for a fact, that I had previously dreamt it. Like, deja-vu or something. The thing that bothers me the most is that I would somehow recall names from dreams of people I hadn't met yet.

Now that particularly bothers me, my mind seems to play tricks on me although I am perfectly sane.

When I was young I was very afraid of mirrors, and I couldn't look into them which presented a problem at my house as the washrooms were heavily mirrored. The reason for this was I was afraid the reflection wouldn't be me, but someone else who I didn't know.

I have also seen things and felt things that were not there. Once I chased my younger sister down the hallway where she went into her room. But, she wasn't there, she was in the kitchen sitting with my mother cutting cupons. The hall didn't even branch in that direction, nor had my (very young at that time) sister moved from her seat under my mother's supervision. (I had, in my confusion, asked her if my sister had been running aroung).

Once a person was in my room with me, and touched my arm, then was gone. I felt it, and their presence.

I often see things like a green spot with a turning root inside of it, that I can actually focus on. (it looks like it is underwater and has bubbles around it) or waves of red or blue spots, flowing everywhere, then tapering away.

I don't think I'm insane but rather that in a dream like state your mind can do anything to do that your mind is capable of experiencing, be it seight, or emotion, or thought as in a dream.

Is that accurate?

Re: more

This happens to me and I think it is perfectly normal. Just information being shuffled back and forth between long-term and short-term memory.

When you actually looked in the mirror, was there ever a time when you really didn't recognize yourself? Not being able to recognize yourself in a mirror is a symptom of psychological depression. Maybe when you were young you had an experience of not recognizing yourself in the mirror and it frightened you, but you don't remember the experience, just the fear.

Do you by any chance have a weight or an eating problem? (Sorry if you think this is too nosy.) People with weight/eating problems often have body image problems and don't see themselves in mirrors properly.

Do you mean in a dream or in real life? If it happened in real life when you were very young, I don't think it's a big deal. For very young children, the boundaries between the dream world and the waking world are less distinct. If it's still happening in real life, you might want to speak to a counselor about it.

Lots of people have had similar experiences.

This sounds very likely to be a purely physical thing. An eye problem or a neurological problem. Definitely something to get checked out by a doctor. I get ocular migraines and see all sorts of weird things; it's just the blood vessel behind my optic nerve dilating.

Let's see, about the mirror explanations. I have always looked exactally the same, well, just older or taller and whatnot. I don't have a weight problem, nor had I ever. I think I may just have had a bad experience with a mirror or something. I distantly remember something strange, like.... I think I was sleepwalking, which I have only one twice in my life. I kinda came to, I guess, in front of a mirror, hard to recall exactally.

About the seeing things, I guess it's probably more a blood vessel thing I suppose. When I was young I used to get migranes, now I don't, and I don't see things like that nearly as often. So that makes sence.

Chasing my sister, yes, that was when I was pretty young, so, that's good.

A final note, that nightmare I had with the clock and the children running around. The thing that is sort of strange is that I had a very peaceful undesturbed childhood. The first time someone in my family died was when I was in my early teens . Hmm, except maybe my great grandparents, but that was after I had the dream anyway and I barely remember what happend when they passed away anyway. They didn't speak english very well so I never really talked with them or spent time with them. See, I would have quickly associated a dream like that with someone dying because the person in the end "whom I had associated with the voice" seemed like someone had died, that was the mood, I can say that now, but at the time when I had the dream I didn't understand the sadness at all because I had never felt it before.

Another thing, I had never been punished like I was in the dream at the end. "The silent treatment" my parents weren't all new age and they would punish me by sending me to my room. They'd never ignore me if I was being bad or something like that. At the time it was a very foreign feeling...

Um, in addition to that I have never had a parent change, or sibling die, or even move out. I'm the oldest child. I've never had low self-esteem, always very talkative.

Thanks for your replies.

I forgot to add one little thing.
I wasn't afraid of all mirrors, only very large ones, which we only had two of, in different rooms. I was afraid because if I noticed the mirror doing something I wasn't then I would know "for a fact" that something was very wrong. I thought I would be less afraid if I only suspected something of being very wrong, if that makes any sence.