Dream Study
« May 2008 |
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I had a bizarre dream where I was a nun and the other sisters didn't like me because I was different; so they put a red habit on me (like a scarlet letter) and threw me in a jail cell. A littler nun was trying to convince the mother superior that I was a good person while she cooked a huge meal in the kitchen with fire. There was a pot in which she put noodles that at first looked like the Pillsbury dough boy and then all of a sudden all my friends and family were in the pot too. Flat images of those whom I love cooking amongst fire.
The mother superior sang to all the pots to be quiet because they were squealing and still on fire. When she finished singing, they steamed instead of squealing.
Then I woke up.
First, let me explain that I have suffered from night terrors since birth. I can vividly remember every night terror I have had since I was two years old. Some of my early night terrors: I would often dream that I had to pee and would make my way out into the hallway. If I turned on the light, then a huge shadow man would appear on the wall and grab me. He would slowly squeeze me and I could feel all of my ribs popping. Now, if I did not turn on the light and actually made it to the bathroom, an evil SCUBA diver would come up from the toilet and try to drag me in and drown me. Then there was the oversized rabid Winnie the Pooh that would chase me around the kitchen, clawing and biting at me.
I also had a recurring dream about a witch doctor (aka the foot doctor), who would slice open the bottom of my feet and put tiny worms in the cuts. At the age of 10, I learned to control my dreams. I would no longer wake up terrified and screaming (my parents must have been thrilled that they didn't have to run into my room to shake me awake anymore).
Now, when I have an unpleasant dream, I can usually change my surroundings with a single thought if I am aware that I am in a dream state. I still have dreams that others would consider nightmares, but they do not frighten me anymore. My friends tell me that my dreams are quite disturbing. Below is one such dream:
I am standing alone on a dock looking out onto the water. I notice the body of a dead girl is floating about 30 feet away. Her body has a sick greenish hue and decomposition has already started to occur. The body springs to life and the girl starts to frantically wave her arms in the air, but no sounds come out of her rotting mouth. Then, the girl starts to get dragged under by Death. Death pulls the girl down and then sees me watching him. Death is handsome and completely nude. Death swims to the edge of the dock I am standing on and then disappears. When I turn around, Death is standing behind me. Salt water is flowing off of his perfect body. Death does not speak to me. He turns around so I can see his bare back… which is muscular… but you can see his bony spine. Then he puts his hand to the back of his neck and starts to slowly "unzip" his spine. The spine pulls apart like a zipper...each vertebrae separates, exposing his muscular and skeletal frame. I can see the muscles and nerves pulsating. A greenish black liquid starts to ooze down his back. I smile and walk away.
I dreamt I was being pursued by an agency of a "big brother" government. I was running through the ruins of a modern city. These ruins seemed to be the result of a war, or at least military action, with rebar and concrete strewn about in piles of rubble. Helicopters were scanning for me in the night sky, while I hid behind large columns or ducked into gaps in the debris. Unfortunately, the organization chasing me eventually caught me and took me to an examination room where they calmly told me that everything was okay. They explained that all they were going to do was give me an injection which would dissolve my current, delusional, personality and replace it with the truth. I had no idea what they were talking about with such nonsense, and resisted with all my strength, physically as well as mentally. They told me I would understand once I had had the injection, and that it would all be just fine. They said that what I thought was real wasn't real, and I would be better once they cured me of these delusions of self.
I argued, of course, that it didn't matter if they replaced my personality and identity with someone better, it still wouldn't be me. There was no convincing them. Calmly, politely even, I was injected with whatever strange chemicals were in that syringe. An odd feeling came over me and I suddenly found myself awake in my own bed, with the disturbing realization that they were right, after all. The me they had injected was a delusion, a dream character, and the struggle was a figment of my own imagination. It had only been a dream.
I am being chased through a building by strangers. The entire building is full of narrow hallways and wide staircases but it seems like I can never backtrack to find my way out of the building... it just keeps "regenerating." Once the strangers get close to me I try to scream but I can't, it's like my throat swells up, but just as they are about to close in on me, I'm always able to find a door or new hallway and continue running. The dream always ends when the sun comes up and light starts to fill the building, that's when I wake up.
I was on a car ride with my parents traveling from Long Island, New York, to the middle of Maine, when I found myself getting really tired. There were no comfortable positions in the back seat of my Mom's four-door sedan so I decided to lay on my stomach with my hands under me and hope for the best. When I fell asleep I went into a dream where I was still laying in the back seat of the car but instead of being on my stomach, I was on my back with my hands at my sides. I could see my parents talking in the front seat but I found myself unable to move or to say anything above a whisper. I tried so hard to try and get my parents attention, even though they were under a foot away, but I couldn't move any part of my body. I started to have a panic attack and felt my heat beat start to race faster. When I finally awoke I found myself pinning my arms down under me from laying on my stomach and for the rest of the ride I couldn't fall asleep again.
A year ago I dreamed I was driving a yellow school bus on a highway over a bridge. Suddenly, I felt the whole bus just fall and everything went black but light was still coming in through the windows behind me. My head was hurting and I was coughing. Then I woke up.
Two months later on the news I saw that a bridge had collapsed. A bus was on the collapsed part and the still stable part in a diagonal manner. The driver died. I looked at the number on the bus and it was identical to the one in my dream.
I dreamt that I was floating in a pitch black void. Suddenly there was a point of light in the distance. When I turned towards it I felt as though every moment of time and every minute particle in the universe, even those that make up my body, were a single presence that turned its entire attention upon me; or rather, whatever some might call my spirit or soul. The experience only lasted an instant, as I then heard a voice speak to me, which both swelled up from my body and crashed down on me from the light, the void, and everything else. At that moment, I awoke in a state of shock.
I truly pray this is for real because the dreams I am about to tell you about have been haunting me for years now. They only come now and then, but they are so real I wake up screaming or sweating with an extreme heart rate. I can't return back to sleep and hate the idea of returning back to bed the next day. They are so overwhelmingly vivid and often during the middle of the afternoon. A year or so later, a flashback will come to me and cause the same feeling of anxiety. There are only three dreams, but the same three. I didn't write them down until a couple of years later but the dream still remains the same.
The first one I had was in 1993. I was living on the Jersey shore, so it took place there. In this dream, I stand in a building talking to a couple of young men about nothing really. Then outside wind kicks up outside, the sky begins to change colors, from pale blue to dark lavender. Then it goes from yellow to bright orange. The ocean smells strong and the world goes silent. No noise anywhere. I am the only person who notices this. No one will acknowledge me. I look at everyone, but they just stand there saying nothing. There's a cold rush of air, and I look out the window to see a huge wall of water coming right at the shore. There's nowhere to go, no escape. Everyone just stands there, waiting to die. I look at them, and then the water and the wave over comes us. This dream isn't as frequent as the next one…
The world is hot, dry and stagnant. I am dragging my daughter along behind me. She is crying. She wants water. I know there is none. No one has found water in a long time. I haven't seen anyone in along time. I just know I have to keep going, I need to drag her if need be onward. She is screaming crying, throwing herself on the dead jungle floor. She keeps getting tangled in the dead roots and vines of this place. I yell for help but there is no one to hear me. Finally I see an open space. I pull and the two of us are standing on the edge of the shore line. There is one other couple there. The woman is sad. The man is holding her up. They are wearing rags on their bodies and their feet. I can see the blisters on their bodies and then feel the heat myself. The sun is burning so much hotter than I have ever felt, the sand is burning my feet. My daughter is no longer crying, but lying in a lump at my feet. She may be dead. I don't know, but the water we needed is the ocean and it is green! Deep emerald green. It too is hot. It's not moving, no waves. It smells dead.
As the dream comes to an end I can see the whole landscape. It is just me and the couple standing there on the shore, but the land is not what it should be. I have a knowing - the only bit of land left in the world is the land we were standing on. The world is water. The island we are on is only about 300 feet wide. As the sun burns a hot bright white orange, I know it will be over soon, because the water is getting closer to my feet.
The last recurring dream was has to do with water, too. It's shorter, but still the same message. It has me sitting in my house, knowing the rain outside is stopping me from getting to my appointment. I know I need to get to my mother's house to help her stop the rain from getting in her house. But I can't. I look out the back door to see the street filling with water. I go to the front door to see a river flowing beside it. I need to get out. I can't. I run upstairs and call someone to tell them not to worry as long as the foundation holds up. As that thought enters my mind, the house moves. The water is gushing so fast and furious outside it's as if a dam broke, I begin to scream as the walls come in.
These three dreams keep coming back over and over again. There are times when I try to stop them before they start but I can't. This may sound silly but my heart rate is elevated just by writing this again.
In a lot of my dreams, I dream I am running. I am always running from something be it human, animal or monster, but I am always running. I have dreamed of my own death, I have dreamed of loved ones who are dead. One of the dreams I can't forget is the one about my departed older sister. You see, when she passed, I was living in another state, newly married to someone not so nice. I was not allowed to go to the funeral, so I didn't. Years later, I was in a new relationship and I kept having the same dream over and over, but this time I awoke screaming, sweating and crying. The dream starts with me standing in the hallway in my aunt's house. I am looking into the kitchen but I can barely see into it. It's foggy and it's getting thicker. I began to shake from not knowing, the fear is strong and as I look down to see why my feet can't move I hear a voice. The voice is soft and sweet, like a bird's summer song. As I look up, I see my loving sister calling, "Becky..!" she says, "Come to me."
Her arms are stretched out, and she wants me close, but when I finally get my feet free from the spot they're stuck in and move towards her, she begins to be pulled away from me. I try to get to her. I'm running now, but still I can't touch her. I reach for her hand, and just as our fingers try to touch, she looks at me and says, "You will never know what it's like to have someone to love you again," and she is snatched from me. The hallway gets longer and longer. I'm running as fast as I can but I can't see her anymore, and then I start to cry. Then I awake....alone.
I am always getting into trouble. At first I am stuck in a situation at home where my parents are questioning and arguing with me. Then I can close my eyes and when I open them, I am somewhere else, like the hills in England, or on a butte in Arizona. It is always in Sedona. I have an affinity with it; me and my fiancée go there to get away from Phoenix. Then my fiancée and I get into a fight. I close my eyes again and when I open them I am somewhere else, and this goes on all night, every night. I get into trouble, close my eyes and I am somewhere else. Like I teleport. Does this mean anything?
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