I've died several times in dreams, it always just goes black. - Eaten by shark after falling out of a little boat that I couldn't quite get back in while the shark circled. Last sight was the big open mouth closing down on me. - Big slasher-film villain that looked like a 7 foot tall zombie with a long nazi coat, a shaved head and a scythe as a weapon. I hid in a shed and he burned it down around me and then cut me in half with the scythe. - Nuclear blast in the next town over, the shockwave pushed my car off a bridge while I was trying to escape. - Flying dream where I suddenly lost the ability and fell. I always just woke up from them shaken, but none the worse for wear. And none have come true.
I've had dreams where I fall down a long narrow shaft and land on a pile of mattresses; I then wake up like WTF? And go back to sleep. I've also had dreams of hot babes having sex with me but nothing happens, so don't worry about dying in your dreams.
I've read about lucid dreams but have never actually had one. Are you just born that way, or do you actively seek out having them, i.e lying still and fooling the brain that the body is asleep, doing "reality checks" etc. That's also something that never happens in my dreams
I hear you... that's why I quit. I don't recall ever dying in any of my dreams; being in extremely dangerous situations, yes, but never actually dying as best I can remember. I have, however, had dreams about other people dying...
I had a dream where a car I was in went off a cliff. I looked down out the window and saw sparkling blue water perhaps a thousand feet below. I recall thinking it was pretty, then my stomach dropped out from under me and I woke up.
Never died in a dream that I remember, Although I've come very close. I've had such intense dreams before that I woke up in a sweat. Last night, however, I had a far stranger dream. I was on some sort of sports contest where I had to shoot tribble-like furballs before they grew larger than me and killed me. It was set in an office for some reason, and they're were dozens of them. there was a man's voice keeping score and making commentary. The things got much better (and this may be the most perverted thing I've ever posted here). All of a sudden, I was on a much better show, Where Olivia Munn was on a spinning wheel device. She was nude, and covered in a oil like mixture. There was also some glitter or seaweed type substance on parts of her. She asked me by name to rub her breasts, and as I did, I woke up with the feeling that it was going to be a great day. I realise the Olivia Munn part is likely just my own fixations and perversion, but the tribble killing sport leaves me confused.
I'm surprised so many of you had dreams about dying or being near death. I've never had dreams like that. I've had "nightmares", like the feeling of being chased or struggling with someone, but never actually dying or something like that. Now I'm curious about the statistics of that. It's not something I've actively sought, even if I've read about it after the first instances. It just happened that while I was dreaming, I just realized "ok, this is just too weird: it must be a dream", and then I knew it. It happened a few times, and with time I learned to recognize the feelings of weirdness that I associate with dreaming, so nowadays I usually realize I'm dreaming right off the bat. When it happens, usually I go with the flow, but if the dreams becomes upsetting, I can shut down the feeling (which usually disrupt the dream, since the feeling in my mind is the source of the bad dream, not the consequence of it), or simply decide to wake up. I know there are some techniques to induce lucid dreaming, but I've never tried them: my dreams are not really interesting to me. Most of the time, I just don't dream at all (or, as it happens, I dream but I remember nothing in the morning): the time between falling asleep and waking up feels instantaneous to me, even if I feel refreshed in the morning.
I died in a dream recently, but I can't remember the circumstances. I rarely am able to remember hardly anything about my dreams. I think I was struck by lightning in a dream when I was little - I remember the bolt and the bang and waking up to my ears ringing. I haven't liked storms since... its now 15-20 years later.
Died multiple times in dreams: -Fell from a stupidly great height of a cliff face that kinda looked like it was somewhere in an American desert. There's still a vague memory in my mind/body of the feeling of the sudden impact and deceleration. -Died from shock and blood loss after having gut torn out by a velocioraptor. No sensations that I can remember. -Died from being eaten by a T Rex (can tell I was having Jurassic Park induced nightmares, can't you? . Feeling of bones snapping as it bit down on my torso. -Vacuum exposure. Somehow the Earth was exploding, and I was on a fragment that got catapulted away. Pushing scientific plausability, but then again this is the brain dreaming we're talking about here. -Shot in multiple dreams. Sometimes it's been a headshot, and that results in just a blankness before I finally wake up. Other times it's been torso shots, which leads to a dragged out session of pain before finally dying. -Was on the fringe of a nuclear blast, not close enough to be vaporised though. Was left feeling 'wrong' inside, probably the mind trying to imagine what it would feel like to be suddenly dumped with that much radiation, without looking at myself (I've never seen images of victims of the 1945 bomb drops, so I have nothing to work with mentally). -Attempted to commit suicide to try and escape a worse fate in the dream. Didn't quite work out, got the pain from the attempt plus the worse death I had tried to escape.
That is one of my recurring dreams. I'm usually crossing a wide open space when I hear the storm begin, I try to run, but finally lighting strikes me and I wake up with my ears ringing. My other recurring dream is being on a ship which starts to list and then turns over. Those started 15 years ago with the Estonia disaster.
I kept having a weird dream over the period of a year. I would get into a fight with Jason from Friday the 13th. We would be chopping each other up with knives and axes and I would wake up before either of us died. After dreaming this three times I had a fourth dream where I remember telling him, "I am sick of dreaming about you." so I proceeded to chop his head off and then chop a hole in his chest and I woke up and never dreamed about him again.