I can't honestly say that I know what scares me most in real life. I think being trapped and/or held against my will would be near the top of the list, though.
As for dreams... well, I've never met anyone who had the same number of nightmares as me.
Some of my "recurring" dreams/nightmares include:
"Waking up" in my dream to find myself back in Texas, living with my parents. My husband is in England. I have no way to call or contact him, and no money to get back to England. Or, I may be able to get my way to the airport, but there's no planes going to England. Or, if there is a plane to England, and I have a ticket, the plane never takes off, or gets delayed, or I miss it. During these dreams, I suffer indescribable panic and anxiety. My parents act oblivious, or actively try to stop me from getting to a plane, or they won't allow me to call. Occasionally, I can't remember our phone number, or if I can remember the number, the line is dead or the number no longer works. In these dreams, I have *never* managed to contact him, and for hours after waking up, I feel disturbed, anxious, terrified. Sometimes I feel like sobbing because of the utter helplessness of my situation in the dream. I usually get these every few weeks.
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This one is weird.
I am huge- in size, not weight. Big enough that I'm several times larger than the planet. I'm floating in space, and if I wanted, I could kick the sun with my feet while sticking my hands into Saturn.
The scary thing in these dreams is that I can't move. I'm immobile, and watching the planets drift along. I'm not so terribly bothered by Earth, or Mars. They're solid (though I have a feeling that if they crashed into me, they'd keep moving and I'd get dragged around in space.)
No, I am utterly terrified of Saturn and Jupiter touching me, or of putting my hands into the sun. The sun makes sense- it could burn me. I don't know what's so scary about the gas giants except that we don't know what's at the center of them.
And in my dream, the gas giants and the sun keep drifting toward me (or, I keep drifting toward them). I panic because I am *terrified* of touching them, but I can't move to get out of the way, and I can't use my hands to push them away from me because of the fear of them touching me.
It's so bizarre and makes no sense whatsoever.
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Recurring nightmares of water in general.
Either the deep, dark blackness of the ocean. I find myself tossed out to sea (or I was flying and the power of flight left me and I crashed into the water). I feel like the ocean is just going to swallow me up- or a monster with a mouth 20 feet in diameter is going to scoop me up and eat me. There's never anywhere to go, I'm just stuck and helpless.
Or, I get caught up in the waves of the ocean, tubling end over end, about to drown, and at the last second I can breathe water. Still scary, because there's still monsters in there.
This one, I've had since I was a child- a massive cave deep under the ocean. It has breathable air in it, and there's sea plants and coral all over the place. There's also pools of water, some leading out to the ocean, and some just black pools with a deep bottom. I'm terrified of going near these pools of water because of what might be lurking underneath. Occasionally in this dream, there's a "bad man" or a "monster" in the cave with me that I am trying to escape from, but there is no where to go or hide.
Another freaky one- not as scary as the others, but still disturbing. I can breath underwater, and swim very well. The water is crystal clear, and there's loads of other people who can breathe like I can. We swim around merrily with the sea creatures, escape from sharks, help our little fish friends, and explore giant coral constructions that are hollow inside. In this dream, I'll be swimming happily enough, a little afraid of the giant sea animals that want to eat me, but there's not too many of them- but I suddenly lose the ability to breathe, and I start drowning. When this happens, I'm at the bottom of the ocean, hundreds of feet, or several miles, down, and can't get to the surface fast enough.
In this one, the entire world in flooding. I'm in a sort of liquer store with my husband, and as I look out the windows, I can see the water coming, and see it flooding everything. We're on a very large hill, and we're the last people alive. The water is slowly inching it's way up the building, getting close to the windows (somehow, it's not seeping in through any cracks, or through the door). I panic and start screaming that I don't want to drown, and while I do this, my husband is dousing himself with alcoholo. I notice this and realise he's going to set himself on fire instead of drowning, and I just scream and cry even more and try to stop him. I don't know what happened at the end of this dream, but I'm sure I don't want to know.
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I seem to have some issues with water, it would appear
