A Disturbing Dream

A disturbing dream can just about ruin your day. I tend to wake up abruptly at the point when my brain can't handle the dream any longer, the point where even my subconscious turns on itself and says "Dude, what the hell?". Then I try to get out of bed all discombobulated, with a sort of urgent non-specified anxiety.

The thing about it is that when I described the dream to a friend (she had to be at work at 7:45 anyway), I realized that the actual events were completely innocuous, it was the palpable tone that unsettled me.

That's what makes a dream "disturbing" as opposed to "scary". Scary gets your heart racing for a few minutes. Disturbing scrambles your eggs all day.