The Dream

Mine is squeezing the trigger and it's like 100lbs. and Frankenstein's monster is coming around the corner.

spencerhut said:

Lack of training. Get more training and the dream will turn into you killing all the bad guys. Been there, done that.

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Meh - I have been shooting for over 20 years, taken classes and put at least 5000 rounds downrange per year. I still have it. Not all dreams really mean something subconsciously.

I've had the heavy trigger dream, and in the dream all I could think while trying to shoot is "Why do I own this piece of crap?". The next day I've handled that gun and been relieved that the trigger is not as I dreamed it, but it has lead me to question if I want the gun in my collection. A few have been shuffled on as a result. I assume it's my brain's way of telling me I don't really like a gun as much as I have convinced myself I do.

I've also had a dream where I'm being shot at and go to return fire. I take a perfectly aimed, center of mass shot, and nothing happens. The bad guy just keeps going as if I missed completely. All I think in the dream is "I know I hit the guy! How could I have not hit him?"

CoRoMo said:

You have to get mean with it. I've found that if I use both index fingers, and just wring the snot out of the pull, it'll break... but it's a long way back there before it does.

hth

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This. But usually when I use both hands to get the trigger to break the shot completely misses the assailant.

It's funny whenever someone posts a thread about this and so many people chime in. One guy said in his dream his gun always turns to rust in his hands, that would suck.

A coworker of mine has had a dream where he is shooting at an elk with his 30-06 and he is watching the bullets lob out of the gun and land several feet in front of the animal at super slow speeds.

Had a dream once where someone was chasing after someone I cared about, I had my favorite rifle. Put a round in his chest from some ways off, didn't even slow him down. Another, still no effect. I put one in his head and he sti kept on goin. In real life, I seriously doubt there's a drug in the world that'd let you shrug off three solid hits from a .308, but that's what made it a nightmare.

The most intense firearms related nightmare I can remember, I was a squad DM in Iraq, we were tasked with overwatch of a footbridge where it was suspected that insurgents were trying to push into our zone. I set up in the window, with our Sargent and radioman in the room behind me. Soon, guys started runnin across the bridge, and I started picking them off. Gun worked fine that time. The buildings on the far bank started twinkling with muzzle flashes, rounds started smacking into the masonry below me and to the sides. I kept shooting. An RPG got fired at us, missed high. I was running low on ammo, was about to call to the sarge to ask for more, when the second RPG hit the coaming over my window. Knocked me flat, rung my bell good. As I got up, I looked over to where sarge was, two insurgents had gotten into the building. One was dead, the other had the sarge pinned to the floor, bayonet In sarge's chest. I jumped up and tried to shoot, but was empty. Jumped on the hadji and knocked him down. Was kneeling over him, bashing him in the face with the butt of my rifle when I woke up, soaked in sweat and heart going like mad.

That one, I will probably remember in detail for a long time. I've never been in the military, which makes it kind of bizarre I think.

Btw, I have nothing but the upmost respect for the men who have had to live through those kind of nightmares in real life.

Not since the doctor insisted i stop dunking my oreos in my scotch before bedtime.

On rare occasion, I have dreams in which my gun won't fire no matter how hard I pull the trigger. I usually grab a knife or pointed stick and attack with a viciousness that I don't think I am capable of while awake. I always wake up before it is over.

I don't really think that more training would necessarily help. It's not that I'm not confident in my skills. I just realize that when a worst case scenario happens, skills degrade, tools can fail, etc... Even very well trained combat troops can get killed due to weapons failures. Heck, look at what happened when the M16 was first issued in Vietnam. How many soldiers were killed next to an inoperable rifle? Of course, i test my guns thoroughly so I am confident they WILL work, but I will always have a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that any training I do is not enough, and that I will never be truly prepared for a shooting encounter.

I think it's reasonable, and I think it's humbling which keeps us in check. No matter how good I am, I will always realize that a scenario like that will never be perfect and I'll never be as prepared for it as I want to be.

In mine, either the bullets don't stop the BG or I can't find ammo or the gun. I wind up body slamming them repeatedly and getting out of the situation that way. Maybe I should trade my guns for judo lessons.

Take a look at the book "On Combat" by LTC (ret) Dave Grossman. It discusses the psychology of fighting, and the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs concept. This type of dream is discussed as it is a common one for people who have the mindset of a combatant.

Oh, and yes, I have had the dream many times. The two variants are a fight where my strikes are ineffective, and a shooting where my shots are ineffective.

Oddly enough, way back in middle school when I had never fired an actual firearm, I had a dream where I was some sort of student security guard at the school and I was issued a pretty large revolver.. Some crazy guy came into the cafeteria and started hitting kids with an axe. I leveled the gun at his head and tried to squeeze the trigger but it had like a 200LB trigger pull. He soon had his attention on me and was running at me with the axe, screaming all the way. As I continued to pull the trigger, water started seeping out of the cylinder and the bolts in the sixgun. Then he got me.. Weird dream, I know..

As an addendum to my post (25), I have noticed that I have the ability now to recognize when I am dreaming a bad scenario. It wasn't always like this, but now, when I have a dream that "isn't going well", I find myself in it saying something like "No, I'm not doing this; I'm outta here. Waking up, now." Then I do.

Revolvers fail too, especially if something obstructs the cylinder. At least with a semi I'm pretty positive the first round is gonna go bang.

I've had similar dreams were the gun doesn't go bang, but I say "bang bang" and the bad guy voluntarily falls down. Like when we were kids playing with pretend guns.

No idea why, strange dreams though.

^^ Ha! This has happened in some of mine as of late, too. I'll fire, but it takes telling the BG that "I got you!" or something similar before he goes down.

I've had dreams where I'm trying to pull the trigger and it's an extraordinarily heavy and long pull and I can't quite get the gun to fire..... Closest I ever came to that in real life was a Beretta CX4 carbine that had a horrible trigger. First time I tried to shoot it I actually thought I'd left the safety on...I hadn't, the trigger was just that bad....

When I was about nine I had a dream that I was sitting in a fast food chicken place and these three guys walked in, two with handguns and one with a shotgun and just started shooting at the people sitting in the booth across from me. I went under the table and was crying. One of the guys in the booth was on the floor and was just staring at me and he had blood all over him that was making a puddle on the floor.

I know it was a dream because it was in Chicago and it was against the law for people to carry about guns in Chicago like that.

It's the reason I carry.

Trigger turns to rubber. I'm sure there's a subconscious message there somewhere but danged if I know what.

Great topic, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one!
My "malfunctioning gun" dreams generally involve charging dangerous game. Over the years I've been killed by rampaging tigers, lions, grizzlies, and elephants because of malfunctioning triggers.
These dreams don't bother me because I know in real life I'll never be able to afford even one hunt for even one of these creatures!

I'll have these dreams from time to time.

1. I pull the trigger repeatedly and nothing happens.

2. I pull the trigger, the gun goes off but the impact does nothing to the target.

My wife has had similar dreams. I try to use the dreams to get her to practice more.

I can't say as I remember ever haveing these dreams before retireing. I did (and still do) have dreams about fighting but I'm not causing any damage.

I always have a dream where I find a machine gun (usually an MP-44 or an AKM) that's been registered in the 1968 amnesty and it's owner wants to transfer it to me for only $200.