The most memorable nightmare I can recall happened to me when I was the age of 19. It was memorable because... I died.
I was with a friend from college, we were walking around in an unknown village that lied within the woods at night, My purpose for being here and how I got here, both I cannot recall. An old man walked up and warned us to never visit "the old shack that lies in the woods on the outskirts of the village".
I could not then, nor can I now remember what it was, but there was something in that shack that we HAD to get, it was a dire necessity.
We walked into the dark woods and found the shack, its front door left wide open. Upon looking in we saw an older man standing in his living room at an ironing board, a wooden crate sat beside him on his left and right.
He would pull a slate of flesh from one crate, lay it on the ironing board, iron it and then throw the ironed piece of skin into the other crate.' A crude and disturbing way to produce leather ', I thought. The man noticed us and looked in our direction, but did not do anything and kept on working.
When we got close to his front porch, he called his "dog" to attack us.
Running out of the living room on all fours with a collar chained to the floor, slobbering, barking and growling like a dog, was a skinless man. My friend pulled out a gun and shot the "man" in his head, killing him. I ran into the house, the old man ran outside and began shooting at my friend while he returned fire back.
In this house were tons of crates and vases; and I knew, whatever it was we were searching for was inside one of these containers. I began cracking open the crates and breaking the vases, but all of them contained noting but human remnants. I then heard my friend shout, "Watch out, he's coming back into the house."
The old man ran in the door and began shooting at me as I began to shoot back. We walked to the right as we exchanged shots, out the door and into his front yard. The trigger of my gun became ridiculously hard to pull until it was to the point I had to use both hands just to pull it.
Finally the old man let off three quick shots, the first piercing my left elbow, the second blowing a hole in my left cheek and the third piercing my lungs. I dropped my gun and began to feel an incredible chest pain, both in the dream world as well as in reality. My throat, chest and lungs made a terrible whistling sound when I breathed, the air escaping through my bullet wound as my mouth overflowed with blood.
The man finally grabbed me by my shoulders, pulled me to his face and whispered, "I didn’t want to kill you but you gave me no choice."
....I finally died... as I faded out of existence, the rest of my dream was silent, black darkness.