Most of us have probably felt it: that unexplained feeling of dread that less rational people might mistake for a premonition of real impending doom. The prickle on the back of the neck, the uneasy feeling in the gut, the certainty that something bad is around the corner. It’s usually fleeting: The chill runs down your spine and is gone. Curtis (Michael Shannon), the central character in writer/director Jeff Nichols’ transfixing sophomore feature, exists in that state pretty much all day, every day.

Curtis has dreams. Well, nightmares, really. Lets not understate things: cataclysmic, paranoia-inducing night terrors. These are dreams of such intensity that he wakes up unable to breathe, or having wet the bed, or feeling that whatever intense physical pain was visited on him in his subconscious lingers with him, fresh but unseen, throughout the day. His dreams are of storms, often a monolithic column of clouds that darkens the flat horizon of his small northeastern Ohio town, as pockets of lightning spark like fireflies across its surface and tornados birth from its sides, that drops a viscous, yellow, oily rain down on him as the world falls apart all around.

Curtis is a blue collar worker, his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) a stay-at-home mom who sells homemade pillows at craft fairs to earn them enough money to go on the occasional vacation. His daughter has recently lost her hearing, and they learn sign language along with her, as they await the cochlear implants they’re lucky enough for his insurance to cover. They are, in short, as typical a 2011 middle-American family as Nichols can make them: pleasant, church-going folks with modest hopes, largely keeping their spirits up amid financial struggle and the difficulties of life.

When the dreams begin taking over Curtis’ life, he is initially frightened that they may be the first signs of the same schizophrenia that exiled his mother to an instition at around the same age. Yet even as he seeks out therapy — and reluctantly digs deep into his wallet for the exorbitant co-pay on the pills that his doctor prescribes to help him sleep — he can’t help but believe that these dreams are true: there really is a storm coming. To prepare, he allows his life and his relationships to disintegrate in an effort to expand on the underground shelter in the backyard. Even as he fears for his own sanity, when asked why he’s doing what he’s doing, he responds with a calm and assured, “It just needs to be done.”

As clear as it seems that this is all in Curtis’ head, Nichols still creates a palpable uncertainty about just where this movie is headed. Nichols imbues the work with all the gut-wrenching tension of a great horror film while never really leaving the confines of a family drama. There are no tricks here, just a slow-motion psychological collapse that it seems it is in no one’s power to halt.

Michael Shannon, who has made his name in recent years as a character actor skilled at existing on the creepy margins of sanity, plays the role that we’ve come to expect from him, but stepping into the lead highlights how much subtle skill goes into his work. His prominent eyes can flip from sadness to parnoia in a flash, his mumble that of a man deeply uncomfortable with even the sound of his own voice. The growing tension of Take Shelter lies in Shannon’s tightly wound performance, and the sense that — just as he believes — something awful is going to happen around this man. It’s just unclear how that is going to manifest itself.

Nichols is interested in more here than one man’s sanity, and that coming storm — real, dreamed, or hallucinated — packs the metaphorical wallop of a category five hurricane. The happiness of this family, and thousands of others like it, balances on the head of a pin. It’s pin that’s just as likely to impale them even if they do manage to keep from falling. Nichols weaves these plain real world problems into a story that bridges dreams and fantasy in gripping and unexpected ways. The director has a forecast, and it’s bleak with a good chance of scattered disasters.

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Take Shelter
Written and Directed by Jeff Nichols
Starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain
Running time: 120 minutes
Rated R for some language.
Opens today at E Street, Bethesda Row, and Cinema Arts.