urbing. So, ever since we could dream, people have imagined monsters that haunt our dreams. Either they cause or feed off of our nightmares, they're born from or live within nightmares, or they come out of our nightmares to try to hurt or kill us...
I've been doing some research into these dream-reapers, these nightmare creatures, to compile a list of some of the scariest amongst them, to see just what kind of nightmares we've come up with.
However, this was harder than I thought it would be. If you try looking up "nightmare monsters" you get a lot of videogames, music and art which don't involve dreams at all, since the keyword /nightmare/ is used hyperbolically in a lot of media, as is the word "dream" and "monster", so this took a lot more effort than usual. I did manage to find what I was looking for, but it means I found a few Honourable Mentions along the way:
i. DROWZEE (Pokémon)
I knew I could find these creatures, because I'd seen them before, right? So, I started with Drowzee, from the Pokémon franchise, I remembered it from the anime series, it's meant to do something with your dreams, right? Well, it "eats" dreams according to the PokéDex... but if you look at Drowzee's move-list from leveling up, "Dream Eater", a move which drains life from sleeping pokémon, isn't one that Drowzee learns "naturally" in any of the main games. Sure, it can learn "Dream Eater", from TM42 (switched to TM85, in later instalments) but a TM, or "technical machine" is an item which can be used to teach a particular move, to a whole heap of pokémon, and "Dream Eater" can be taught to any valid pokémon, and, I counted, there are 185 pokémon which can learn this move - meaning Drowzee isn't really a nightmare monster. So, unless I want to put a generation's worth of pokémon on this list, which I don't, then pokémon can't make the main list, just an honourable mention...
ii. BAKU (Japanese mythology)
Okay, well, Drowzee was a bust... but, hey, pokémon are often inspired by Japanese mythology right? So, why not look up what inspired him? And yes, sure enough, Drowzee is inspired by the Baku - a baku is a a tapir-like monster that sneaks up on sleeping people, and eats their dreams. Yes, now we're talking! Isn't that a horrifying idea, a creature that eats your dreams, leaving you with nothing but nightmares?
Yes, that would be scary, but a little reading reveals that that isn't what a baku is. The Baku only eats "bad dreams", meaning that it takes away your nightmares, and gives you more peaceful sleep... okay, that is kind of adorable, and I like that mythology isn't solely creatures that horrify and disturb, it's nice to know there's some cute one's in there. But, I'm not looking for dream pets, I want nightmare monsters, so this was a failure... but since it's technically a monster and technically it does have to do with nightmares (and I thought it was cute), I put it here as an honourable mention.
iii. MARE (Germanic mythology)
Yeah, I remember reading up something about a Nightmare literally being a demonic mare of the night - a fiery horse that causes bad dreams. I mean, they're called Nightmares after all, isn't that a reference to a demonic horse?
So, I looked it up, and.... huh, no. "Nightmare" comes from the greek "moros" meaning doom, related to the root-word "mer" or "maras" meaning harm (This means that nightmare kind of means "night-doom" or "night-harm", which is cool, but doesn't help me here).
But, it turns out the nightmare horse-demon is a modern concept, based on a pun, and it occasionally appears in cartoons like that. Oh, but there is a creature called a "mare" from Scandiwegian folklore! But, it turns out that it's basically a nuisance goblin, which ties your hair in knots, and sits on your chest, causing nighrtmares... so, it's just another nightmare rider, like I mentioned in my earlier post about dream mythology, but this one doesn't usually kill you, so much as it tends to prank you. So, I was getting closer to actual monsters, but this one wasn't scary enough to make the list...
iv. FREDDY KRUEGER (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
It may seem weird that Freddy Krueger doesn't make the list proper, but that's for a simple reason - the Nightmare on Elm St films are actually what inspired this list. I wanted to talk about this frightening idea of monsters that can kill you from your dreams, and Krueger was a perfect example. But, after watching the first film in the franchise - whilst I did enjoy it - I realized that I couldn't say much about it. the film is decades old, and there are already editorials, think-pieces and even whole documentaries about the franchise - so I couldn't think of anything else to add.
So, rather than write a whole post about the franchise, and retread well-worn ground, I decided instead to highlight some other nightmarish monsters that are less well-known (or whose nightmarish aspects are poorly remembered, or oft-forgotten), because there's actually quite a few monsters that attack you in your dreams, possess your sleeping mind and try to kill you in your sleep. So, Freddy Krueger doesn't make this list on a technicality, but because he is an iconic killer, and a nightmare monster, he at the very least had to get an honourable mention.
This is just a glimpse of the kinds of things I had to put up with whilst researching nightmare monsters, and the kinds of things that, whilst interesting, didn't fit my criteria. But ,enough abpout the ones who didn't make the shortlist - after a great deal of research on actual monsters that actually cause nightmares (which are actually pretty creepy), I've found ten monsters which I've ranked in order from least scary/harmful to most. So, let's have a look at the main event:
THE A.W.N.'s TOP 10 NIGHTMARE MONSTERS (THAT AREN'T FREDDY KRUEGER)
10. SCP-080 "THE DARK FORM" (SCP Foundation)
This creature is essentially a living shadow, which can change its size and shape at will, but in most forms has two smoking "eyes". It thrives in shadows, but is visible if lit by a weak (approx 7 watt) lightbulb, as too much brightness illuminates it out of existence, and if there's too much darkness, especially areas or furniture with enclosed darkness, then the creature can use the shadows to hide and slip away, with some kind of shadow teleportation.
What makes this creature dangerous is that everyone who looks at this creature for approx. 30 minutes, will lose consciousness, and have severe nightmares and stressful dreams, which have been known to cause psychological damage and mental illness to those infected, up to and including suicidality. The creature has also been known to affect those who haven't observed it, either due to being within its vicinity, or being made aware of its presence. This effect becomes more powerful and far-reaching over time, the longer the creature goes without being observed - implying that the creature is feeding on the fear and mental energies of those it harms.
This creature is lower on this list as it is an "SCP", meaning that it is currently contained within the SCP Foundation. However, it can escape via too much or too little illumination, and it is noted that the dim light in which it thrives is approximately the same luminence as "a standard children’s night light", meaning that it has the ability to target children who are afraid of the dark, which what makes it creepy enough to make this list.
9. BLACK MERCY (DC Comics)
This isn't an animal, but rather a flowering, alien fungus. It has a limited ability to move, posessing thick, pre-hensile, thorned roots which it instinctively wraps around the nearest conscious victim, and causes a kind of paralysis in any person it touches, which causes them to stay stiff and perfectly still. It is said to feed on bio-aura - whilst not elaborated upon in the comic, I assume this to either be body heat, or some kind of pseudo-spiritual psychic emanation, and in later appearances they clarify that it feeds off the emotions in the pleasure centre of the brain.
What makes this fungus dangerous is two-fold. Firstly, whilst your body is paralyzed, it occupies your mind with a dream that fulfils their greatest, deepest desire, and presents it in a dream-reality that follows the dreamer's logic, so that it is convincing to them - this dream is so detailed and intertwined with the victim's own mind, that by removing the fungus by force, it will cause irreparable brain-damage or death; and so long as it can feed, and its victim is still alive, it will not let go. Secondly, in its premiere comicbook story, Black Mercy affects Superman... I hope you fully comprehend what I mean there. /Superman/, who has heightened senses, incalculable strength, devastating speed and (in most iterations) genius-level intellect; is held captive by a plant. It can even penetrate his Kryptonian super-suit with its thorns, so this is an incredibly powerful, little flowering fungus.
It only has two weaknesses, but they're pretty significant. Firstly, gloves... if you wear gloves made of the right material, it can't harm you; in fact, making a bag from that resistant material and putting it inside, renders it harmless. Secondly, if you reject the dream-scape that the Black Mercy creates for you, then it begins to starve and will stop feeding to seek out a new victim. Of course, this is a double-edged sword. It means, the greater your ambitions or desires, the more the Black Mercy has to feed off of.
8. BATIBAT (Ilocano, Phillipines Folklore)
This creature is the spirit of a tree, and when its tree is left alone, it will leave us alone, as it is a simple nature spirit. According to legend, if their tree is cut down, this harms the spirit and causes them to become furious. They remain within the felled timber, and wherever the resulting lumber is used - especially when used to construct someone's home - the batibat remains trapped in the wood for the day. But at night, if anyone sleeps in the vicinity of the tree-spirits's remains, it will assume a ghostly form - usually depicted as an ancient, grotesque and morbidly obese-looking female tree-spirit. This creature is so large because it will sit or lay down upon the sleeping victim, in an attempt to asphyxiate them.
If that alone isn't enough, the creature will also induce nightmares in the victim. This not only prevents the victim from escaping, but it is designed to torture them so they suffer just as the batibat itself has suffered. At this point, I feel it's necessary to remind people that the way people are suffocated in movies - someone strangling them, until they die about a minute later - is entirely fiction. If someone's oxygen supply is cut off, resulting in anoxia, a person may lose conscious after approximately a minute, but it will take three minutes before brain damage, and can take approximately 5-15 minutes before they die. It takes even longer if oxygen supply isn't cut off (anoxia) but simply restricted (asphyxia). My point is, being asphyxiated to death by being sat on is a slow, cruel and painful death.
The Batibat does have weaknesses, in particular you can escape from the batibat by escaping the dream... but, the method of achieving this depends slightly by mythology. According to some legends you have to bite your thumb, and this can awaken you - somwhat akin to "pinching yourself" to see if you're dreaming. Another form of the legend says that you can wake yourself up by wiggling your toes. If that's the case, it make this creature less scary - it can be defeated by wiggling your toes -but keep in mind, I learnt about the batibat from Western sources, reporting on myths from the Phillipines, so this may be a misunderstanding. From what I can tell, the true goal is to force yourself awake, and I assure you, that's not easy to do...
7. ROBERT MARKHAM (Marvel Comics)
Robert Markham was a normal, human man, who was infected with a genetic virus. In an attempt to treat it, Dr Peter Alraune prescribed an untested drug which corrupted Markham's DNA further, causing vampiric features, perpetual insomnia, and the build-up of unstable, psychic energies. After discovering that he no longer required sleep, and had developed the ability to control this psychic energy, which he called "ebon energy" he sought revenge on Dr Alraune, and turned to supervillainy, naming himself "Morpheus". Without sleep, "ebon energy" grows within him, granting him powers of telekinesis and energy projectiles. These were his powers initially, but after being captured and chemically sedated, in an attempt to stop the build-up of this ebon energy, his brain mutated further...
Now, Markham has the ability to remotely project nightmares into unwilling victims and, after establishing a psychic link, he could then read their waking thoughts, and even puppeteer the victim to do as he pleased - he could even transmit ebon energy into these possessed people, giving them the ability to induce dreams in anyone /they/ touch.
Markham has some weaknesses, namely he is not immune to his own ebon energies, as when he was touched by someone using their ebon energy powers to induce sleep, he fell asleep himself and his own ebon energies naturally dissipated. Despite his many and disturbing powers, his humanity is his biggest flaw. Although he looks monstrous, and his powers strong, he's weak to most physical attacks. But more even than that, he is driven by revenge against Dr Alraune, and Moon Knight, a crazed, vigilante superhero that fought him. So, if you haven't wronged him, then you're probably safe from his wrath, which is why he's so early on this list.
6. VISHKLAR (The Sarah Jane Adventures)
The vishklar are an extra-dimensional alien species from the Seretti dimension. Although they have no physical form in their native dimension, they can appear like unnaturally pale humanoids with dark, sunken eyes and dark clothing. Within the Seretti dimension, vishklar can travel between several victims around the galaxy, and from the seretti dimension, they can easily possess any living creature's dreams. They feed off of fear, so they enjoy inducing nightmares in people to harvest their fears. Within their lifetime, a vishklar can possess thousands of minds across the galaxy, giving them a broad range of experience - especially in regards to fear, and means they can speak several languages. This broad range of nightmare experiences also tends to give them arrogant, cruel and predatory personalities.
The nightmares the vishklar manipulates and controls within their victims minds are often drawn from the victim's own fears, to better terrify them, and feed the vishklar. If a vishklar is well-enough satiated, they can manifest themselves within the dream. In fact, the more they feed, the more powerful they get and for this reason vishklar are attracted to very powerful minds. When they can absorb enough energy, they can even create a physical form, allowing them to travel outside of their own dimension, into the physical world. This form is powerful and dangerous, as it can teleport with ease, and can even attack people using the dream-energy it has absorbed in the form of destructive purple energy & they can even induce sleep in anyone in their vicinity, as well as teleport into their sleeping mind.
Vishklar have three main weaknesses. Firstly, the "nightmare energy" they absorb is a limited resource, and they can render themselves weak and powerless by expending too much at one time, until they feed once more. Secondly, they feed off fear specifically, which means that if their victim is not afraid, then they cannot control their nightmares, or feed off their fear; and when a person no longer fears a vishklar, they regain full control over their own mind. Lastly, greed is their greatest weakness. Vishklar are attracted to strong minds, to feed upon, but strong minds can fight back against them; and some vishklar have been known to attack several victims at once to absorb more energy, but by doing this, the victims can work together to defeat the vishklar as a united front, which puts the vishklar in grave danger.
5. KANTROFARRI (Doctor Who)
The Kantrofarri are an alien animal, casually referred to as "dream crabs". They resemble a large, purple-coloured, hairless paw or hand with stubby, clawed fingers. On their own, they are weak creatures, blind, deaf and mute, and without any prey nearby, they can remain dormant for centuries. However, they possess powerful telepathic abilities, able to freely and easily read the minds of anyone nearby. When they see themselves in their victim's eyes, they will then attach themselves to the victim's face, usually by dropping down from above.
Once they have captured their victim's head, they will induce a dream-scape, to pacify them. To conserve energy, and make the dream more realistic and dynamic, dream crabs will share the same dream-scapes telepathically with other feeding kantrofarri, meaning that concurrent victims share the same dream. The way the kantrofarri feed is by physically digging into the skull of their pacified victim, then slowly pre-digesting and liquifying their brain, to absorb the nutrients.
The dream-scape tends towards realism, to keep the victims entranced, but they can be distinguished from reality. Firstly, dream crabs tend to store an image of themselves within their dream, to make it easier for them to remember. Secondly, whilst dreams are generally realistic, they tend to follow dream-logic; being scary if the dreamer feels scared, or poorly representing certain items the dreamer cannot remember perfectly & lastly, as the dream-crab burrows into the dreamer's skull, they will feel a sulled sensation of this, in the form of a "brain-freeze" headache. However, dream crabs have several defences themselves, including attacking the dream-manifestations, and false-awakenings, to confuse victims.
There are three main weaknesses of the kantrofarri. Firstly, because of the amount of energy expelled during hunting and feeding, kantrofarri die if they are removed prior to digesting their victim's brain. Secondly, because the creatures are so weak, if their victim isn't isolated during the time of their feeding, then it can be physically removed. Thirdly, and finally, brains have some natural, mental defences from being invaded, for instance, when several humans were afraid and trapped by dream crabs, they collectively manifested a kind, trustworthy dream-figure, who not only helped them to realize that their reality was fake, but to help them fight back against the threat of the dream crabs.
4. CTHULHU (Cthulhu mythos)
I wasn't sure if I wanted to include Cthulhu on this list, but after doing my diligent research, I realized that it was definitely a nightmare monster. Cthulhu is a tentacular, dragon-winged, pseudo-humanoid giant - at least several hundred metres tall. Due to its immense size and magical potential, Cthulhu is an unstoppable god-monster - those who gaze upon his massive form have been known to lose their minds. So, thankfully, Cthulhu is in a death-like sleep in R'lyeh, a sunken ancient city at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
What makes Cthulhu a nightmare monster is that as cthulhu dreams, it will occasionally stir in its slumber, causing earthquakes, tsunamis and other similar disasters. But these disturbations also infect the minds of artists, dreamers and the imaginative - whom are presumably psychically sensitive - with his dreams, and tantalize them with visions of R'lyeh, its language and knowledge of his power. For some, this is little more than a strange, inspiring dream, but for others, it drives their ambition towards a religious fervour, which has developed into a cult of cthulhu worshippers. These worshippers are occasionally granted strange powers and magics, and for those who are ordained cthulhu priests, they may even be given immortality and mad wisdom. Those who worship cthulhu believe that, when the stars are aligned, it is their duty to resurrect cthulhu from his sunken tomb, so he can rule this world once more.
Cthulhu has two main weaknesses. Firstly, he is relying on a cult of crazy humans, and that causes issues - namely, in his first story "The Call of Cthulhu", an attempt to resurrect him fails, presumably because the stars weren't aligned right. But secondly, he's immortal, but not invulnerable - in an act of desperation, the sea-captain rams Cthulhu's head with his ship, and cthulhu's head explodes like a rotten watermelon! He can't be killed because he has a healing factor, and the jellied chunks begin to reform, but the captain manages to sail his ship away in the meantime, so cthulhu can be rendered immobile simply by splattering his pulpy, gelatinous mass. I'm not saying that's necessarily the easiest thing to do, but it did knock Cthulhu out of the top-3 ranking.
3. BASTELLUS (Dungeons & Dragons)
This is a shapeshifting, humanoid shadow-monster with thin, skeletal fingers and a leering, eerie smile. The bastellus is entirely made of "dream essence" and it can phase through objects and other creatures (although it will get hurt if it gets stuck inside), and it naturally levitates, rather than walking. The bastellus also has its own magic which it knows instinctively: Incorporeal Touch, which means that if the creature touches you, it causes psychic damage, depending on your armour class; Darkness, a spell which creates a magic, impenetrable darkness for up to 10 minutes as long as the bastellus focuses on it; and, Sleep, a spell which simply puts one or more creatures asleep, depending on their current health, for up to a minute. It's easy enough to rouse someone from this sleep, but any sleepers near the bastellus are in danger. For, because of its nature as an incorporeal, undead creature, it is immune to all non-magical, physical attacks and it requires no air, food, water or sleep to survive - but it sustains itself by feeding on nightmares.
Simply by touching a sleeper with its elongated fingers, the sleeper experiences horrifying nightmares which sustains the bastellus. If the bastellus manages to maintain contact for at least one hour, not only will you wake up unrested, but you will become supernaturally fatigued. In game mechanics, the GM rolls 3d8 - three eight-sided dice, numbered one to eight - and your maximum hitpoints are reduced by that total amount. So, your maximum health will be permanently reduced by anything from 3 to 24 points, unless you can restore it with magic. Once a bastellus gets a taste for a victim, it will return to it night after night to feed, until they. For weaker victims, if this supernatural fatigue lowers their HP to zero, then they become a bastellus themselves 24 hours after death...
The bastellus does have some weaknesses, namely magic, as most spells, or magically-charged weaponry, can cause it harm. Also, sunlight weakens its natural magic, as it is a nocturnal creature of darkness, so it cannot operate as well in the light. I could argue that we're all vulnerable as nobody can use magic, but that's because magic isn't real, and neither is the bastellus - if it was real, then so too would magic be. But, even in D&D, for a human to learn even the simplest spells requires a great deal of study, practice and time.
2. DREAM BEAVERS (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
Dream beavers are extra-dimensional aliens, that appear like monstrous, oddly-coloured beavers with sharp teeth and claws, with the ability to speak and stand on their hind legs. They live within the "Dream Dimension", a dimension that interconnects human (and sapient animal) subconsciousness into a manipulable, physical dimension. Whilst this dimension is galactic in scale, the Dream beavers are drawn towards areas where the veil between the Dream Dimension and realities which they can prey upon (such as our own). If anyone at all falls asleep in a place where the dream dimension veil is weakened, they can become host to the dream beavers. When this happens, your breathing and heart rate will gradually slow, and your body will get cold until you die - as the dream beavers literally drain away your life energy.
Most dream beavers like to torment their victims with nightmares, but this is presumably for the sake of entertainment, as it's not necessary and has no effect on their ability to drain life from their victims. But, they demonstrate the ability to manipulate the dreamscape at their will, make themselves look more monstrous and create dream manifestations which they can control. Dream beavers also have the ability to teleport, which they can do in dreams, as well as in the physical world, if they ever manage to escape the dream dimension. Once a person has been lured into a dream beaver nightmare, they cannot be roused, not even by force.
The dream beavers have a single weakness, and it is that their strength comes from their manipulation of the dream dimension realm. If a dream beaver escapes the dream dimension, their true forms are less than half a metre tall, and have no ability to manipulate the surrounding landscape, and as they can only feed on life force from within a victim's dream, they can no longer feed. In the one episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in which they appear, they escape via a "dream plug" which is a device designed by a mad scientist, so if you don't have a Dream Dimension portal, you're basically doomed. Yhat being said... the dream plug is also what drew them to our world in the first place.
1. BILL CIPHER (Gravity Falls)
Bill Cipher is a yellow, two-dimensional triangle, with arms, legs and a large eye, as well as a bow-tie and a little, but tall, stovepipe top hat - so he looks somewhat like an anthropomorphized "eye of providence" symbol. He's approximately 1-metre tall, and at first he may seem like an unassuming, weirdo, but Bill Cipher is an inter-dimensional traveller, completely insane, and possesses powerful magic, dimensional energies & demonic powers. These include the ability to see into the future, the ability to read minds, the ability to transform his own body into a variety of sizes and dimensionalities, and the ability to warp the reality around him. He is originally from the second-dimension, but the people within that world were mentally, culturally and literally shallow, so Bill Cipher destroyed the entire dimension with fire and escaped to the Nightmare Realm, which he now controls. He also has various other unusual abilities, like the ability to speak backwards; drive people temporarily insane; see through symbols representing himself & levitate.
Bill Cipher is a powerful dream demon, and so he has many demonic powers, including the ability to enter your dreams, and manipulate the dreamscape within. He can also be summoned by a specific "Bill-summoning ritual", which creates a pocket of Nightmare Dimension in our reality, where he not only has (limited) control, but can appear and interact with anyone in that pocket. But, no matter how he appears before you, once in your presence, Bill can offer one of his demonic deals, defining the terms of the deal in a verbal contract which is accepted by shaking his cursed hand. Whilst Bill is trapped within the Nightmare Dimension, he cannot enter our reality, and is bound by the mindscape. But, as what he wants most is to escape his unstable Nightmare Dimension, Bill often tries to manipulate the details of these demonic deals, to give himself greater access to the third dimension... our dimension. His ultimate goal is to open up a rift between dimensions so he can step through, but he will often accept any deal that gives him access to a human mind, as this makes it possible for him to possess a human body.
Bill's main weaknesses are that when he is within a mind, as the mind's owner has access to their imagination they can fight back with their thoughts. But, even if he is able to fully possess a human body, he loses all of his demonic powers, and only has the ability of that particular human, which limits his abilities significantly. If he enters this reality in his own body, his reality-warping abilities would render him nigh-omnipotent. The only power known to contain Bill Cipher is the strange "weirdness magnet" within Gravity Falls which draws unnatural phenomena into itself, but this power isn't well understood, and so it cannot be relied upon to keep our dimension safe. In fact, there even exists a simple equation can be used to render the phenomenon void...
- - -
So, that's my list. If you can think of any more nightmare monsters which you think deserve to be on this list, feel free to mention them in a comment below. This took a lot of research to even find these creatures, and some I found didn't make the list because I couldn't find enough information on them, or I couldn't get easy access to a primary source.
I just wnated to open your eyes to some more of the monsters that stalk your dreams, so that next time you close them, you'll be more prepared to fight back.
I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, don't let the bed bugs bite...
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