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The Bad Dream



Estimated reading time — < 1 minute

“Daddy, I had a bad dream.” You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness—it’s 3:23.

“Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?”

“No, Daddy.”

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The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter’s pale form in the darkness of your room.

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“Why not sweetie?”

“Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy’s skin sat up.” For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can’t take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.

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CREDIT: Anonymous

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264 thoughts on “The Bad Dream”

  1. My God, this one really punched my face when I first read it long ago. Back then, it was among first ones of the many creepypastas that made me scared of sleeping alone in the dark. This is pure perfection of its kind – especially micropasta.

  2. Valkerie Nightstalker:
    how about like this… You feel the covers begin to twist and your body tenses up nd your daughter screams … you see the mirrior at the end of your bed and see the demonic face inches from your neck… You feel the hot breath and try to run but you cant… your daughter screams and crys “no mommy no!” …. you feel your face turning with out your consint and slowly very slowly you see the thing….

    How about this?

    As the covers twist and fundle, he looks towards where his wife was sleeping. To his surprise, she’s awake, but not everything’s right. He looks up, and sees his wife’s face. Oh dear god. It’s terrible. Her eyes are wide, and her pupils take up all the whites of her eye. Her smile, is wide. Her wicked smile stretches across her whole face. At the sight of it, he pukes. Then suddenly, whatever it was, started scratching its face, and pulling its face off. What he sees shocks him so badly, he starts crying. What unravels from the monster, is even more of a monster then what it was before. It was his wife, laughing at him, along with his daughter.

  3. Wow that was really good. Short,no overuse of gore,and loved the ending. Really leaves you a sense of ambiguity not knowing if the mom is an actual monster or not. For all we know she could have been moving in her sleep or she’s a monster wearing her skin like Buffalo Bill.

  4. She goes into her room to tell her dad about her bad dream. She’s afraid of telling him because she had a similar dream that a creature that was wearing mommy’s skin sat up.

    The dad is shitting breaks because his wife just moved, which in accordance to her dream was a monster.

    So the dad is shitting bricks because her dream might come true.

  5. Plot twist:
    Your wife sits up. “Honey what’s wrong,” she asks. “Our daughter had a bad dream,” you explain. “Our daughter died last year,” your wife reminds you.

  6. ThisAnonymousDude

    this story would be so much fun if i only understand it, i didn’t get the last part. can someone please explain it to me

  7. I’m pretty sure I saw this story somewhere else… I don’t know if the “poster” copied this from another website, or if the website stole it from here. Pretty good story, though. It’s nice and short, sweet and creepy, nothing too heavy.
    Until you realize it’s already nighttime and you’re supposed to go to sleep.

  8. And then comes the twist… I demand more story!

    But no seriously, this was different; extremely short, but different. At first I was like “okay, bad dreams… big deal” and then I saw “in my dream the thing sat up in mommy’s skin” and at the moment the covers shifted and I was like… “Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn!”

    -10/10 for the twist

  9. Would have been a million times creepier had it said “the MAN wearing mommy’s skin”. That would make it realistic and absolutely horrifying.

  10. creepypasta fan

    SHOOT OUR MOTHERS ARE BEING REPLACED BY MONSTERS WEARING THERE SKIN ITS THE START OF AN INVASION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  11. If I had a child and that happened I’d activate fight or flight mode and promptly flee the hell out of there. The worst that could happen if I was wrong is my child’s subconscious is seriously bizarre and my spouse just fortuitously moved. The worst if she was right is….. something disturbing. But I agree with “Person”‘s comment; brix were shat. Love the cliffhanger ending.

  12. This story is *really* creepy, but only until you realize that there’s nothing all that odd about anything that happened. Sure, it would be weird for a little kid to have such graphic dreams, but the movement is probably just his eldritch abomination getting up to swallow him alive. No biggie.

  13. And also I’ve been reading creepypasta so long now, I looked up from my tablet and REALITY SCARED THE LIVING SHIT RIGHT OUT OF ME! Then I went into the bathroom and ran into MY MOM WITHOUT MAKEUP ON! Then, after three long hours, I realised I had not just witnessed a non-hostile zombie takeover, but rather my loving and caring mother.

  14. Why behind him? Do wives sleep behind husbands or next to them? But otherwise… AWESOME STORY! Never heard this one before. Well, now i did ;)

  15. I have heard alot about creepypasta from the internet and my friends, claiming that you would not be able to sleep after reading some creepypasta, which didn’t make sense to me.
    However, I decided to change that last night, so with this being my first Creepypasta to read at around 1 AM IN BED… I can say I was thoroughly frightened and had a hard time going to sleep afterwards.

    It was a creepy read, and I automatically love this one.
    Although sadly, I am looking around on the website, and I can’t find anymore creepypasta that gave me the chills quite like this one did; They are either too cliche or predictable or just flat out written terribly or sound like a basic scary story for elementary students.

    Hoping anyone has suggestions on which ones to read, maybe I am looking in the wrong places.

  16. Still one of my favourites ever. Love this shit. And I have friends with kids, so… someone’s getting the shit scared out of them soon as I can snag one of their spawn for a few minutes.

  17. I know how the story ends

    and then satan himself sits up, yawning. all along the mom had just been the devil in drag.

    the real mom was living it up in cairo.

  18. how about like this… You feel the covers begin to twist and your body tenses up nd your daughter screams … you see the mirrior at the end of your bed and see the demonic face inches from your neck… You feel the hot breath and try to run but you cant… your daughter screams and crys “no mommy no!” …. you feel your face turning with out your consint and slowly very slowly you see the thing….

  19. I don’t really know what you guys are talking about. That didn’t really creep me out at all. Why do you all think it’s so creepy? I’m really intrigued so please reply.

  20. terminallyCapricious

    MoThErFuCkIn BiTcHtItS, yO! ;oD
    tHaT mOtHeRfUcKeR aLl Up In ThE lUsUsEs SkIn ScArEd ThE sOpOr OuT Of My MoThErFuCkIn SeLf!!!
    HoNk<3

  21. Time out. The little girl had a dream about telling her dad about a dream she had that was about a dream she had /infinite loop
    Might as well divide by 0

  22. Short & sweet. Very chilling. Reminds me of the dreams within the dreams I’d have as a little girl, where I’d run into my parents’ bedroom after waking from a bad dream & still be in the nightmare.

  23. I got it the first time I read it, and I know that many in the comments said it’s creepy but… I don’t know… It’s just not that creepy for me… I mean… Unless… Unless…

    In the back story, the one wearing the mother’s skin is some crazy bitch obsessed with the father…

    Umm… Yah, still not that creepy…

  24. Well. Im not the best guy in situations like this. And if this ever happens with our daughter and my wife, I’d be arrested for two counts of murder……

  25. I had to reread this about 3 times to understand that it was from the dad’s POV… I am really bad at stuff like that… DELICIOUS PASTA.

  26. 3:23 begins and ends with the same number, suggesting repetition, also “3 to 3.” 3+2+3=8, and 8 is the symbol for infinity, so there’s that.

  27. This doesn’t really make sense when you think about it. The daughter would have to be trapped in a state of infinite recursion where she dreams about a dream about a dream about a dream… etc. See the problem? Then again maybe that’s the scary part- she’ll never actually wake up…

  28. i was creeped out by the story and then i saw the comments and i shit bricks omg the puns are hilarious

  29. “Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy’s skin sat up.” For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can’t take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.”

    At this point I turn and say “If you’re wearing my wife’s skin, you better not be the one who was sucking my enormous dick earlier”. The next morning, The morning newspaper headlines are gonna read “Wife imposter literally torn to shreds, blood splattered all over the wall. An unloaded M16 and AK-47 with empty magazine cases found all over the floor. The wife imposter was shot an amazing 623 times. Husband and Daughter believed to be fleeing to Mexico”.

  30. Everybody else keeps saying this story is super creepy… I find it as one of the least creepy, because I have had worse nightmares. They no longer effect me, and with that factor out of the way, you realize that covers rustling is normal.

  31. This is probably one of my favorite creepypastas. I always thought people would think me weird for getting scared or nervous ove something like \"the thing wearing mommy\’s skin\" rolling over in the bed, but this really expresses a child\’s fears/way of thinking. Loved this pasta!

  32. This is probably one of my favorite creepypastas. I always thought people would think me weird for getting scared or nervous ove something like “the thing wearing mommy’s skin” rolling over in the bed, but this really expresses a child’s fears/way of thinking. Loved this pasta!

  33. I always imagined that it was still the wife (not physically skinned) but that she\’s possessed and the daughter knows it. man just typing that out loud rekindled my creep.

  34. I always imagined that it was still the wife (not physically skinned) but that she’s possessed and the daughter knows it. man just typing that out loud rekindled my creep.

  35. “Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy’s skin sat up.” For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can’t take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.

    “hey, that’s not very nice, I worked hard on that coat for my girlfriend, your mom was a fat fuck. Now piss off back to bed!”

  36. The way I read it, there\’s nothing sinister happening. The daughter just had a random dream and the \"revelation\" will freak the dad out for only a few moments, before he turns around and sees his normal wife, still sleeping. It\’s just bad timing, which makes it funny.

  37. Damnit. I’m pretty jumpy. If that ever happened to me, my wife (I hope I eventually get married…) would likely have a nasty gash on her head

  38. Could you be any dumber? How do you not understand this pasta? Let me explain -_-

    Girl has dream within a dream. In said dream, when she goes to tell her dad, someone or something wearing the skin of what was once the mother starts sitting up behind the father.

    Then the girl wakes up for real and goes to the father. She says she can’t tell him about the dream, because when she did in her dream, the thing sat up.

    Then he feels something sit up behind him.

    No he hasn’t been fucking a zombie: Something or someone basically killed and skinned his wife, then worse the skin and climbed in to bed with this guy while he was still asleep.

  39. Soooo…..

    Dad was screwing with a monster-ghost thingie?
    lawlz xD
    definatly creepy, but nonetheless, confusing. Guess dad’s gonna have to come up with an explanation on why he’s been sleeping with a monster…
    while RUNNING away from the monster XD

  40. This ONe Got ME

    okay i’m really confused

    i dont really understand this can someone thoroughly explain the daughters “dream” and the fathers reaction?

  41. I always imagine this ending with the father and daughter turning to the thing in bed and then saying in that sly/amused/irascible tone of voice you always hear in sitcoms: “Skin Harvester…” and then Skin Harvester just smiles as the camera focuses in on him and the corny theme tune plays.

  42. whoa. that was definitely powerful. it’s short little stories like these that make me think “what the hell?! I should definitely be able to write something like this!” but, yet I never can…

  43. -*slowly, fearfully looks over, and lets out a horrifying scream*- “Zombie!!”

    ‘No, Daddy.. That’s just normal morning mommy.’

  44. This is my top favorite creepypasta ever. It works on so many levels. There’s an element of surrealism to it, for one – the telescoping repeated dream. There’s the unknown. You don’t know what ‘it’ is or looks like, but have at least one (awful) visual cue to base your imaginings on. The actual prose is passably good and conveys some nice visual input. And lastly and maybe most fundementally, it successfully conveys the “don’t turn around” horror trope without cheesing it up. It’s a moment of pure crystallized nightmare. Love it.

  45. I never originally commented on the old pasta when I read it. I was too busy craving more to stop and write in a note of appreciation. However, with the recent slew of undercooked and unflavored pasta, I thought I should come back and at least give a note to this one. This is probably my favorite creepypasta. I’ve no idea what it is in particular that I enjoy about it, but when I hear “creepypasta” I think of this story.

  46. The father looks round, and is greeted with a knife in the head, a cheeky grin, and a single, European-accented word.

    “Gentlemen.”

  47. Then you smile at your daughter and say, “Well, honey, let’s be honest with ourselves here. Whatever it is wearing mommy’s skin can’t possibly be half as horrible as she was…”

  48. Chareth Curestory

    this one isnt scary.

    it means nothing.

    in real life, the father would just tell his daughter to go back to bed.

  49. shortys roc my sox

    i’m gonna do that to my dad and talk really loud so that my mom wakes up or at least rolls over to c what is going on ;)

  50. shortys roc my sox

    @ dripping blood ok he when he said “Because in my dream, when I told you about the dream, the thing wearing Mommy’s skin sat up.” For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can’t take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift.
    it is just sopess to make u think her dream is real and that his wife moving was the monster she dreamed about

  51. What does it mean that the covers behind you begin to shift.But I think it was a monster that was his dead wife was it?

  52. In this story’s situation, the solution to fighting off this thing in mother’s skin is simple:

    Use your daughter as a human-shield

  53. …rass O_o
    door? more like down the street…then i’d stop for a second and b all…’whoops, i forgot my daughter’..then i’d start running again

  54. LOL post 16 is win.

    Very creepy creepypasta also, if that ever happened to me you’d see me at the door in half a second.

  55. This one is one of the ones that truly gave me chills…Right up there with the angel statue and the lady in the oven.

    One of the first ones I found…

  56. Anyone noticed that the hour is 3:23 (23 is the main thing here)? Movie (The number 23) effects that get your brains and eat them from the inside… Fucking subliminal messages.

  57. in this story the little girl is afraid of telling her dad her dream, because in her dream she told him what spooked her and apparently had some in-dream premonition about the “thing wearing mommy’s” skin. you know.. the one sleeping right next to him?

    urf.. you best be trollin.

    1. HEY HEY HEY IT'S SLENDY

      Basically: Inception
      The girl had a dream that she had a bad dream and she told her dad about it, when she tells him about the dream something that skinned the mom and put on her skin, sits up. When she wakes up she goes to tell her dad she had a nightmare, when he asks her to tell him about it she says no because in the dream when she tells her dad about the dream the thing that skinned the mom sat up, then the mom or the thing wearing the moms skin sits up.

        1. The girl had a bad dream about a monster that skinned her mom. She wakes up to tell her dad about it when the monster that was in her dream sits up in bed wearing her mom’s skin.

        2. It’s a pretty accurate summary of the story, if a little terse.

          A girl has a dream where she has a nightmare (this “dream within a dream” doesn’t get any real description, so maybe it just loops). In that dream, she goes to tell her parents about the nightmare, and something wearing her mother’s skin sits up and presumably kills her and her father.

          She’s concerned that the same thing will repeat itself IRL if she tells her father about her actual dream.

          Regardless, the original comment here was made half a decade ago. I really doubt that the author is going to be reading our explanations.

  58. Martin van Buren

    And my wife wonders why I sleep with an elephant gun every night! I’m just waiting for the thing wearing that bitch’s skin to make one wrong move before I turn the entire bed into a pool of rich, red tomato soup!!

  59. It COULD happen to anyone. But why take risks? When the covers next to you begin to shift, take the pillow and suffocate the body.

    1. And kill your wife when nothing was wrong? Because your young daughter had a nightmare? That will go down well in court.

        1. See, the worst part isn’t the trial. The worst part is a few years down the road, when you get a letter in the mail from your dead wife, wanting to meet you at a resort town in Maine.

          That’s when crap gets real.

  60. …And then she was a zombie.

    I’m sorry. This was the first creepypasta I’ve read, and while scary, it’s not longer as bad.

  61. The most interesting thing about this creepypasta is that this could actually happen in real life and that it’s just as possible that nothing happened to the mother and she’s simply rolling over in bed.

    1. Thank you, a terrible story. If this creeps you out you are a disgrace to us fans of terrifyingly delicious pasta.
      #360noscopes11thprestige

    2. exactly this could happen anytime, I have kids and could see if this happened, in the confusion of everything going on I would be terrified for even a second. cuz in reality the mom is probably okay, but it’s 3am and your kid is being creepy as fuck

      1. Oh man I literally laughed out loud when I read “and your kid is being creepy as fuck XD
        That was good.
        My son used to get up at night and stare at me until I woke up. Defiantly creepy. Haha

        1. Dude skinwalkers are weird. Scares me everytime. Aren’t they like demons that kill someone then hide in their body?

        2. what probably sent more chills down my spine is the thought that MAYBE the mother is dead, reason the kid says “mother’s skin” instead of the something like “mommy sat up and killed you” or something like that.

        3. Or that the Mother already passed away and the daughter has since been told Mommy went to heaven. The daughter now sees something wearing her Mommys skin and there shouldn’t be anything moving next to Daddy.

        4. To those talking about skin-walkers, they weren’t demons that possessed the bodies of the dead or whatever. As depicted in Native American folklore, a skin-walker was a typically male “sorcerer” essentially who could turn into whatever animal he desired.

        5. You are correct about one origin of the mythos but skin Walker as a myths has existed in multiple regions and has been fairly diverse.

          In some versions of the mythos skin walkers needed the skins of animals to transform, in others they could take on the form of humans.

          Regardless myths evolve over time, and modern skin Walker lore ranges from the animal transformations to the skinning of humans and using the skin to appear as the original did (to be fair, this is a fairly logical extention of the animal transformations thing.)

        6. You mean in the Harry Potter movie: the thing where she was actually inside the woman never happened in the books. Sry, pet peeve of mine.

        1. All of the sudden odd farting sound that smells like bad breath, then mommy unzips her forehead…

        1. Not really, the thing wearing the monsters skin, is a skinwalker. A skinwalker is a Native American folklore of a man that can rip his skin off when he chooses his copy, meaning that the male skinwalker changed its self into the mother but the mothers not there, so that must mean the mother is dead.

        2. Ugh. What I meant was the skinwalker is wearing the mothers skin. The mother has already passed away

      1. Basically, the kid saw the future, and already knew the mother wasn’t really her mother. It was someone who copied what she looked like, or was literally wearing her mother’s skin. The father didn’t know this either because he didn’t have the future telling dream thing, and the “thing” looked like his wife.

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