Nightmares From Space?

For about a decade I experienced vivid dreams about an astronaut being abducted by aliens. Where did these dreams come from? Why was I experiencing them?

About twelve years ago I began having vivid recurring nightmares of an Apollo astronaut being attacked, and presumably killed, by an unknown lifeform or entity.  I know “he” is an Apollo astronaut because in all of the dreams he is wearing a gleaming-white Apollo spacesuit, just like the ones that astronauts wore on the moon.  In the dreams I’m often observing the horrific events through the astronaut’s eyes, basically from a first-person point of view.  When the dreams are in first-person I’m looking through the glass visor of the space helmet; I can see the white space gloves on “my” hands and I can look down and see my legs and spaceboots.  

What is particularly strange about the first-person dreams is that I can still “remember” what it feels like to wear an Apollo spacesuit, like the one I’m wearing in the nightmares.  The suit is made out of a soft, bright-white nylon fabric that has an American flag sewn neatly into the left shoulder and there is a circular blue NASA patch sewn into the chest.  Even though the spacesuit is bulky, it is comfortable to wear and it sort of feels like I’m in a sleeping bag, if that makes any sense.  The nylon fabric makes a subtle “swishing” sound when I move around in the suit and I can hear oxygen gently hissing through the air hoses.

Other times I am watching the dream unfold from a third-person point of view, and that’s where things get interesting.  From this vantage point I witness the horrified astronaut become the mysterious creature's prey.  Most importantly, in third-person I can see the astronaut’s terrified face through the visor glass of his helmet and I can tell it isn’t my face (even though I’m seeing things through his eyes when the dream is in first-person).  He is a thin, clean-shaven white male in his upper 20’s or early 30’s and his face doesn’t look like mine, though I would be able to recognize him if I saw a picture of him.  Somehow I get the impression that the astronaut was a scientist of some sort, or maybe a spacecraft engineer.  This impression is in keeping with the fact that all of the Apollo voyages into space were peaceful, scientific endeavors for the benefit of humanity.  I call the astronaut in my dreams “Dustin” which is a name that I seemingly pulled out of thin-air, but using a name helps me describe the dreams.  Perhaps I heard the astronaut’s name in one of the dreams but I don’t actively recall hearing it.

The nightmares alternate between first and third person randomly and I have no control over it.  The first-person perspectives are the most frightening but the third-person views offer the most clues, though I’m still completely clueless on what any of this means.  The third-person view is also how I can tell that Dustin is wearing an Apollo A7L spacesuit and I also get better glimpses of the alien creature although I never get to see its face. 

Shadow Creature

The shadow creature dream is the first recurring nightmare I began experiencing about twelve years ago. The dream starts with me laying on my back in my bulky white Apollo spacesuit; I’m (Dustin) squirming and desperately trying to get up but I can’t" something is pinning me down to the floor.  I’m instantly horrified but I don’t yet know why; all I know is that no matter how hard I squirm I can’t get off my back.  I can’t tell exactly where I am but it appears as if I’m in some sort of tunnel, hallway or cave.  Perhaps I’m in some sort of spacecraft or lunar crevice" I don’t know, and I never get to see any detail about where I am.  Everything is gray or black, except for my white spacesuit and I have no idea why I’m on my back.

There is a gray wall to my immediate left and the shadow of a strange being appears, slowly coming toward me from down past my feet.  At first, the shadow starts on the ground but it gradually rises up the wall as it moves closer to me.  Instantly my heart begins to race as I notice how black the shadow is; the shadow is so dark it almost seems to absorb the light.  I can see that the shadow is of an unknown creature, not a person, especially since the shadow does not resemble an astronaut or a person wearing a spacesuit.  The shadow is humanoidish but definitely not human and I don’t see the actual creature, just the terrifying shadow of it.  

The shadow is now completely on the wall, approaching me, and I’m incredibly terrified.  I’m helplessly flailing my arms and legs trying to get up but my efforts are futile.  To make matters worse, my space boots don’t seem to have any traction on the slick surface that I’m on.  As jet-black shadow draws near I can somehow feel the creature's intense presence and I somehow sense that it’s a male being.  I would describe it as a paranormal type of feeling and in that moment and also somehow “knew” that he was the one pinning me down with a force he was in control of.  The feeling this creature generated was dark, overwhelming, totally-dominant and I knew I was doomed.  I was to be his astronaut prey and that there was nothing I could do about it" he was in absolute control.

As mysteriously as the dream starts, it ends.  I snap out of the dream just before I get to see the horrifying creature.  The last thing I witness in the dream is the shadow completely over me, almost totally consuming me/Dustin with its darkness.  As I wake up from the dream my heart is always pounding and sometimes I’m out of breath.  I don’t remember any sound in the dream although I do remember Dustin’s terrified face and he was definitely screaming.  

If this dream stems from something that really occurred then I can only imagine the poor astronaut’s final moments when the creature got him.  I can’t put into words how terrifying this dream is and I know it pales in comparison to what Dustin actually experienced, if real.  Sometimes I wonder if the shadow was the creature; maybe it was wearing some kind of predator-like camouflage.  Or maybe it’s a paranormal being.  I have no idea at this point.

At The Hatch

One of the other nightmares that I’ve had takes place at a hatch, presumably inside of a spacecraft.  The dream begins with me looking through the visor glass of my space helmet, at a hatch that I’m frantically trying to open.  Instantly I know that I’m trying to escape the very same creature that haunts my other dreams, even though I never see him or his shadow in this dream.  However, I somehow know that he is coming up behind me.  It’s that same, ominous paranormal feeling again.  He’s coming to get me and I must open this heavy hatch to escape!

With all my might I’m desperately trying to open this gray hatch but it won’t budge.  It’s as if it has been welded shut.  I try to figure out what’s jamming the hatch controls but my puffy white space gloves are too cumbersome to manipulate the mechanism.  Or maybe I’m in too much of a panic to figure out what the malfunction is.  I don’t recall if there was a window on the hatch but I do remember that the mechanical components of the hatch were exposed and looked quite intricate.

 

My heavy breathing is fogging up my visor glass making it hard to see and it’s impossible for me to keep my feet on the ground in the low-gravity environment as I struggle with the hatch.  In this dream I’m screaming for help but the volume of my screams seems to be muffled or muted, perhaps by my space helmet.

Suddenly, I wake up before finding out if I ever opened the hatch or if the creature got me.  This dream is probably the shortest out of all of the ones that I experience but it offers the biggest clue as to my whereabouts" inside a spacecraft.  I also wouldn’t say it’s as terrifying as the others but it’s still quite scary and very intense.

Examination Table

I consider this one to be a “memory recall” instead of a dream.  I was in my bed, trying to sleep, but I was awake when this memory struck me.  Also, it only lasted about three seconds, unlike the dreams which seem to last approximately two minutes.  Further, this entire memory recall was from a first-person perspective and I was watching my fellow astronaut being sucked down to some kind of table.  The astronaut was also wearing a white Apollo spacesuit but his face was different, so I could tell that the astronaut wasn’t Dustin, but rather one of his fellow crew members.

In the memory, the astronaut was desperately trying to get up off a strange table that he was being sucked down onto somehow.  He was in a total state of panic and he was unable to free himself from the powerful, mysterious force generated by or near the table.  The room was a foggy gray color and the only details I can recall are of the astronaut and the table he was on.  The table was about three to four inches thick and appeared to have dime-sized holes in it; perhaps the powerful suction was coming from the holes in the table.  It also appeared to be attached to the wall behind him since there was no supporting structure underneath the strange table.

Probably the creepiest part of this memory recall was the drill noise I could hear in the background.  I couldn’t see what was producing the noise, but it sounded like a pneumatic drill that you hear at the dentist’s office.  The sound of the drill was present during the entire memory and I believe that the drill was about to be used on the spaceman being sucked down to the table.  It was obvious that the horrifying drill sound was adding to the astronaut’s terror" it was definitely adding to mine as well!

Other Dreams

I’ve experienced other Apollo astronaut nightmares, in addition to the aforementioned ones, but they are more vague and mysterious than the aforementioned dreams/memories.  In one such dream I get a glimpse of the alien’s body, or at least one of them.  He was quite large and muscular, much larger than the typical description of an alien.  I only saw his thighs, torso and arms but judging by his body I would estimate that he was at least seven feet tall.  The creature had a powerful physique, but not like a bodybuilder" more like a professional basketball player (tall, strong and muscular but lean).  Typically aliens are described as being short and slender but this creature seemed beastly.  Its body was dark gray but it had strange black spots all over his body.  The spots were raised, like boils, and were about the size of a quarter or half-dollar.  I have no idea what they were or what kind of creature this was.

My Thoughts

Clearly these dreams are not about me, they are about an Apollo astronaut, and I have no idea why my mind would make up such a fictitious character.  Nobody in my family was or has been involved in the space program, nor was I, and I was born about ten years after the Apollo program ended.  The same astronaut, “Dustin”, appears in all of these nightmares and the theme of impending doom is consistent throughout all of the dreams.  When I’m experiencing the dream in third-person I can see that the astronaut’s face is not mine and that his face is the same in all of the dreams.  I did an extensive Google image search of Apollo/Skylab astronauts (late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s time frame) and I found a few that are close but are not a 100% match" is it possible that I may have seen a picture/video of one of these astronauts and then subconsciously incorporated them into my dreams?

The pneumatic sound of the drill is also strange to me.  I knew the drill, though out of sight in the dream (I assume it was a drill or instrument because of the sound), was about to be used on the astronaut sucked down to the table.  Further, somehow I get the sense that the drill or device was used to kill him.

For twelve years I’ve been having these nightmares, occurring randomly, and they don’t coincide with anything in my life.  The creature that appears in the dreams is the most mysterious and disturbing thing about them.  I don’t know if he is supposed to be an alien but I get the sense that there is something evil about him, possibly demonic.  I’ve been wondering if the creature is actually just a manifestation or representation of something else, possibly death or doom.  Maybe the mysterious being simply depicts that death has a grip on the astronauts and isn’t letting go.  These dreams, I feel, have been small pieces to a large puzzle that my brain has created for me to figure out.  Without all of the pieces I can’t understand what any of this means.