new to site

[costa]

hi there
I came across this site late one night last week, and immediately ordered a shirt because i can't sleep and that's pretty much the reason. I'll tell you why
when I was a kid, i had a recurring nightmare. recurring about three days a week for about fifteen years. when i was young enough(or just not used to it yet) Iwould walk the house all night. anyway, the dream is as follows- Point of view, side of a 1960's black Thunderbird with suicide doors. For some reason that really sticks out. A clown is laughing at me quite maniacally(sp?)as he gets into the car's backseat, and continues to laugh as he sits down and closes the door- cutting his head off, and then he is still laughing. at this point, I was up for the night, walking around the house and doing dishes and what not. I never thought to look for other people who may have had something of the same experience, and i was wondering why some of you are here...

[twaml]

Wow. Strong memory of a nightmare! My condolences to you for having to have that pop into your head. Welcome to IHC.

My earliest clown memory is of a clown (a grotesque unreadable stranger of course to a child) looking down at me over either my bed or possibly crib (too fuzzy to tell); seems like I dreamed (and I can only assume it was a dream, though I admit it feels more like a memory, but my logic won't let me say it was real) this continuously for a few days or a week, and had scary nightmares about this face, laughing, evilly (before I really would have seen or know anything about clowns), and my dad was sick and died within the next few months it seems like.

I guess I've always associated clowns with an evil omen of death, and not just death but malignant, malicious death that goes out of its way to hunt you down, and enjoys its "function". So that, coupled with the normal human distrust of people whose body and facial language we cannot read and therefore whose true personality and reactions are intentionally hidden... yeah, I have my baseline I guess.

Back to your nightmare - how would would you say you were when you had this, and how long did this sort of thing last? Were you old enough to remember and pay attention to things, TV and such, and had you seen things with clowns and also such a horrific event as was in your nightmare, before this, or as far as you know, was there no real reason you should have had such a nightmare?

[costa]

The first dreams came when I was four years old. As far as I know (or knew) I had no run ins with clowns before (or even really since) so I can't think of any real reason for the dreams to manifest themselves. I can't recognize the clown from anywhere, and it is always the same clown in the car. And another thing, why isn't the clown in a clown car? I mean, a black T bird is about as far as you can get from a norton.

[twaml]

Thats a good point. A black T-bird is almost movie-dramatic, very ominous. I know there were stories of "Killer Clowns" being seen in the 70s and 80s but they were pretty much always in vans of some type.

[lordimmunitas]

Thats a good point. A black T-bird is almost movie-dramatic, very ominous. I know there were stories of "Killer Clowns" being seen in the 70s and 80s but they were pretty much always in vans of some type.

OMG Twaml thats where my fear comes from - back in the late 80s when I was a young 'un, there were tales of the Parkhall Clowns - a group of blokes in clown make-up who chelsea grinned kids and beat them up - scared the holy be-jesus outta me as a kid....

[twaml]

Yep, there are stories from this era matching your description, but something you'll find interesting is the fact that they are probably Urban Legends, as they occur nearly simultaneously across the Western world, in the US and England and other countries, with similar yet somewhat varying details.

Your Parkhall Clowns have American counterparts that were also beaten up or invariably simply "run off" by groups of schoolkids who didn't take kindly to those weirdos hanging around.

As with most Urban Legends, you get a mythical aspect intertwined in the stories, such as (here) the police and sometimes SWAT (or the FBI depending on who's telling the story) being sent out to chase and follow the Killer Clowns' unmarked white (or black) vans, but not ONE chase was ever successful and no Killer Clown (of this type) was ever arrested, and eventually the "crisis" simply faded from public view, meaning, in theory, the Killer Clowns are either still potentially out there, waiting to strike, or are serving you fish and chips or doing your taxes.

To be sure, there were and ARE "Killer Clowns", psychotic or deranged people who dress as clowns and commit crimes or peek in windows and such, but the entire "roving band" or "packs" of Killer Clowns aspect appears to be as objectively legitimate as a Vitally Important Nigerian Money Transfer or Tom Arnold's acting credits. Like the recent horrifying "Toilet Spider" and "Camel Spider" stories, there are absolutely, without exception, NO first-hand accounts and NO medical or legal records or affadavits (and ACTUAL scientific/academic research in fact disputes such claims) - all persons involved in any of the stories are either nameless (a friend of my cousin/my brother's girlfriend's sister in Idaho, etc.) or when names and/or locations ARE given, no trace can be found that such a person or place existed.

[rainbowtheclown]

I agree with costa about the "can't sleep clowns will eat me" shirt. I have had white face clowns leave mean messages cause we wear almost no make up. It gives me nightmares--but wear the shirt-BOOM-no nightmare.