#terrors

All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. No matter how great my weariness, the wrench of parting with consciousness is unspeakably repulsive to me. I loathe Somnus, that black-masked headsman binding me to the block; and if in the course of years I have got so used to my nightly ordeal as almost to swagger while the familiar axe is coming out of its great velvet-lined case, initially I had no such comfort or defense: I had nothing - save a door left slightly ajar into Mademoiselle's room. Its vertical line of meek light was something I could cling to, since in absolute darkness my head would swim, just as the soul dissolves in the blackness of sleep. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#night-terrors #sleep #sleeplessness #somnus #life

The loss of Eden is personally experienced by every one of us as we leave the wonder and magic and also the pains and terrors of childhood. ↗

— Dennis Potter

#childhood #eden #every #experienced #leave

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#experience #terrors #experience

In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not, the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#denies #fantasies #far #fill #flock

Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#myth #often #partakes #progress #religion

True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things. ↗

— Stendhal

#comparison #death #easy #frequent #love

When I was your age — about, ooh, a thousand years ago — I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, eh? All the classics. ↗

— Mark Gatiss

#night-terrors #age

Death may be the King of terrors... but Jesus is the King of kings! ↗

— Dwight L. Moody

#jesus #king #kings #may #terrors

Most nightmares are caged in their realm by implausibilities. The sleeper slogs through quicksand in a fun house of frightening nonsense and disjointed mumbo jumbo. But everything’s all better once the bedside lamp is back on, because reality, even when it’s bad, is easily distinguished from night terror. Except for the trying-to-scream dream. That one’s pretty much spot-on. ↗

— Jamie Mason

#night-terrors #nightmares #scream #terror #dreams