Helen Grant

I woke up screaming this morning. It was very disturbing. I can’t remember what the dream was about. All I remember is what I saw when I opened my eyes. There are handbags hanging on the back of the door near my bed. In the half light, they looked like people hanging on a noose. I jerked upright and screamed the house down, waking the kids up in the process. This was early, just after 5, so I’ve been up ever since with a thumping headache, feeling anxious.

I’ve had dreams about falling, being naked in a room full of strangers, but I’ve never dreamt about people hanging in my bedroom doorway before, and I’ve never woken up screaming. When I was little, I had those dreams that most kids do, where in the hazy first stages of sleep you think your teddies and dolls are monsters and the posters on your wall look at you in an evil way, their faces twisted into scary shapes. I spent many long nights cowered under my blankets, praying for daylight.

When I looked up the meaning of dead people, hanging and screaming in a dream dictionary, this is what it said:

To witness a hanging in your dream, represents your feelings of insecurity. It can also mean something in your life has been left hanging or unfinished. To see the dead in your dream, forewarns that you are being influenced by negative people and are hanging around the wrong crowd. Death in a dream can also mean the end of one chapter and the beginning of another, and may indicate that you are becoming enlightened or spiritual.

Maybe it was my brain telling me to slow down and relax. I’ve been stressed about a lot of stuff lately. Or it might have been a night terror. Right now, there is so much pressure inside my head it feels like it’s going to explode.

Night Terror symptoms

Sudden awakening from sleep, persistent fear or terror that occurs at night, screaming, sweating, confusion, rapid heart rate, inability to explain what happened, usually no recall of bad dreams or nightmares, may have a vague sense of frightening images. Many people see spiders, snakes, animals or people in the room, are unable to fully awake, difficult to comfort, with no memory of the event on awakening the next day.