Ever since I was little, like as far back as I can remember, I’ve always had what I call my “scary slideshow,” and it happens extremely often. Maybe not every single night, but at least every 2 nights, sometimes more, but rarely less. When I close my eyes, immediately after (so not in a state of in between sleeping and awake, it can happen literally as soon as my eyes are closed) I start seeing images at an extremely rapid pace of literally every disturbing thing my mind can think of. As an adult in recent years, it is often things I’ve actually seen, or versions of things I’ve seen. I work in a career field where I have to see crime scene images, and I have a few cases where certain images (even if they didn’t really creep my out when I saw them originally) will appear but seem more menacing and it’s extremely, EXTREMELY unnerving and I cannot make it stop. I have no idea what this is and as a kid and as an adult, the few people I’ve told either don’t believe me or look at me like I’m crazy. I usually have to make sure I’m facing my bedroom door when this happens to help ease the anxiety I get when it happens of something coming up behind me, and have my partner up against my back and open my eyes, play on my phone, etc to get out of the state of panic that it causes.
Is there a term for this? Is this the result of something in particular? Anyone else experience this, especially from childhood until now? None of what I’m seeing are things that bother me in any way when I see them previously in my real life experiences (horror movies, crime scenes, gory re-posts, etc) but the rapid fire imagery is just insane and makes me freak out. No amount of “facing it” or acknowledging that it isn’t real helps, I’m very aware that it isn’t real when it’s happening but it still terrifies me and causes extreme anxiety. Thanks for reading and for any insight anyone has! ☺️