Yeah, it was worse when I started to live alone.
Every little unfamiliar noise would wake me up.
Eventually I convinced myself I would be fine. But sometimes it'll come back if I had a rotten day.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Back when I still had roommates off craigslist the thought was semi regular, yeah.
Not really. I mean, what are the chances there are two murderers in the house?
That that specifically, no.
Yes I do, but only rarely, and for each time I do, I have 100s of thoughts where they are just good and kind. Having them frequently or having an intense emotional reaction to this thought can be a cause to seek out a therapist
No. Never. Of course we all have weird and shocking nightmares from time to time, but during the day? Definitely not.
Are you ok? Do you feel safe at home and around the people you live with? How vivid are these "intrusive thoughts"? Could they be categorized as hallucinations?
Even if you think it's not a big deal, you might want to talk to a professional therapist about that.
no never, thats not normal. there was show in 2000s, where this girl(ocd) was obsessed with using a knife on other people, but she never actually wanted to do it"the show psychologist" was testing her for it. should get tested by a therapist/psychologist or psychiatrist, for some kind of OCD-like behaviour.
This is a pretty common for people with OCD. She wasn't obsessed with wanting to use knives on people. She had an irrational fear that she somehow would use it on someone. The treatment in this kind of situation is exposure therapy. Basically your therapist gives you a knife and makes you spend an hour holding it.
Do you have OCD? This is what it's like for me, albeit the roles reversed. Also, even people without OCD have these thoughts occasionally. The difference is people with OCD tend to hyper fixate on these thoughts. Maybe i'm projecting though. Do these thoughts cause you distress?
I don't think I've ever dreamed of being murdered in any way.
Get some therapy just in case it's a symptom of something, if not: enjoy the horror.
Intrusive thoughts are a pretty normal thing. Therapy is only necessary if it causes the person significant distress.
I donβt think Iβve ever dreamed of being murdered in any way.
Though memories of dreams tend to be pretty spotty unless someone wakes up during REM sleep, the "mode" of sleep where we do most of our dreaming, so there's probably a lot of dreams that we've had that we just don't remember.
searches
https://www.mattioli1885journals.com/index.php/actabiomedica/article/view/11218
In the course of their studies, medical researchers have demonstrated that about 80% patients, woken up at their Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep phase, can remember their own dreams, whereas, in clinical practice, young adults can remember their dreams on their awakenings only once or twice a week.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep#cite_note-Solms_1997-42
Rapid eye movement sleep (REM) has since its discovery been closely associated with dreaming. Waking up sleepers during a REM phase is a common experimental method for obtaining dream reports; 80% of people can give some kind of dream report under these circumstances.[42]:β10,β34β[15] Sleepers awakened from REM tend to give longer, more narrative descriptions of the dreams they were experiencing, and to estimate the duration of their dreams as longer.[16][43] Lucid dreams are reported far more often in REM sleep.[44] (In fact these could be considered a hybrid state combining essential elements of REM sleep and waking consciousness.)[16] The mental events which occur during REM most commonly have dream hallmarks including narrative structure, convincingness (e.g., experiential resemblance to waking life), and incorporation of instinctual themes.[16] Sometimes, they include elements of the dreamer's recent experience taken directly from episodic memory.[8] By one estimate, 80% of dreams occur during REM.[45]
Jesus fuck, no!
When I was a kid, there was a period during which I was convinced my dad was planning to kill me (or have me killed). I'd have regular nightmares about it.
I have one [non-dream] memory in particular where we were walking through Belfast on a sunny Sunday afternoon, it was pretty much empty except for us. We were walking along a path holding hands (I was like 6 or 7), and an alleyway opened to the right of me, and I thought "this is it..." and was expecting a masked gunman to come out, and for my dad to let go of my hand and step aside, his job now complete. Genuinely thought that was about to happen and almost had a panic attack. No idea why I thought that, or why I eventually stopped thinking it.
I was later diagnosed with all sorts of neuro/psych shenanigans, so I guess it was probably that. I still have intrusive thoughts, but I've had therapy so I'm a bit better able to manage them. CBT might do you some good if you have access to a shrink. You can even do most of it on your own, or with a bit of guidance from someone else who's already done it.
Bro wat
Yes itβs pretty normal. You can kind of train yourself to look at the thought while it happens and say wow, brain, what was that? And your brain will say I have no idea, and eventually it will stop happening.
eventually it will stop happening.
Unless you have OCD.
Used to have such thoughts only when I was a kid
Sadly, stuff like this does happen in real life. I usually only think about it shortly after seeing news stories where this stuff happens, though.
you need some help
Talk to a therapist about it, not to the internet.
I don't know if it's normal, but intrusive thoughts like that happen to, I'd imagine, a lot of people.
The other commenter that said you can train yourself to sort of step back from them isn't wrong. That's a big sort of "mindfulness" thing. Maybe that can help you and I would advise looking up some info on it.
Personally, I bounce off of the whole of mindfulness, it just doesn't work for me. What's helped me is to structure some sort of way to move away from that thought. In my head, I have the vague script of the garbage thoughts written on a huge mental chalkboard - like the ones in college lecture halls - and I will imagine a big eraser just cleaning the whole thing. Like a sort of power washing simulator thing. Haha.
But I would say maybe check yourself for habit revolving around these thoughts. Like are you checking your door is locked for sure or putting your blankets in just the right way? It might be more of an OCD behavior in that case, and I would definitely suggest talking to a professional.