Tanner’s Nightmare on ‘Below Deck’ Is Going to Give ME Nightmares

In seven seasons (and as we celebrate tonight, 100 episodes) of Below Deck, I’ve never seen a moment as bonkers on the boat as Tanner Sterback having a nightmare. It was spooky, scary, funny, and bizarre all at once. But also…what even was that?

About halfway through the episode, all is calm on the yacht — as it should be at 4:03am. And then all of a sudden, Tanner starts screaming from his bunk and it sounds like he’s hurt. We can see from the black and white footage inside their room that he’s repeatedly yelling a word that starts with an M but is indistinguishable because it’s being bleeped (we’ll later learn for good reason), finally screaming what sounds like, “M***** you’re killing him!”

His bunkmate and fellow deckhand Brian is of course awake at this point, his heart pounding and wondering what the hell is going on in the bed above him. Only semi-awake, Tanner finds his way out from under the covers and appears to be crouched on all fours in his bed. “Was that you?” he asks Brian who is just as confused as the rest of us.

“What the fuck. Are you ok bru?” he asks Tanner.

“I thought fucking like, a mi**** or something was running underneath fucking messing with the…cover,” he tries to explain. “You gave me a heart attack,” Brian tells his bru.

Tanner repeats the m-word as he gets out of bed the next morning, clearly still shook by the images in his mind overnight. It should also be noted that this fear could be considered especially strange due to the fact that Tanner himself is well over six feet tall.

“Brian was telling me about your dream,” Ashton says to Tanner as they start their morning.

“Fucking little person got me, bro,” Tanner tells him. “He was hiding underneath one of the covers,” he says as Ashton is unable to contain his laughter. I’m glad someone’s laughing because I’ll probably also be having nightmares after seeing this strange, haunting footage.

Below Deck airs Monday at 9pm ET/PT on Bravo. 

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