Hello, creatures of the internet,
Something happened to me the other night
that hasn't happened since when I can remember. I was experiencing a nightmare,
when suddenly I startled awake and kicked violently into the air (more will be
explained about this action) and proceeded to breathe heavily with panic.
I can't remember the last time I woke up from a bad dream like this. It's
rare that I ever do have a nightmare, but when it does happen I usually wake up
with a feeling of unease, not actually carrying out my actions from the dream.
After reflecting upon this on my way to work, there are some
elements about dreams that got me thinking.
Like with most of my dreams I forget a lot of
the minor details, but I dreamt that my mother-in-law was torturing
children in the basement of a big house. All I remember is that I knew that I
had to put a stop to her, and luckily, in that dreamlike convenience sort of way, I had
two metal baseball bats at my disposal to try and put an end to her. I slowly
crept down the wooden steps into the basement, careful not to be discovered
sneaking up on her. The basement was set-up to delight the imagination of a
twisted scientist: obscene torture devices, flasks of hazardous materials no
doubt used for nefarious purposes, and dark, atmospheric lighting. I noticed her
hunched over a child who was strapped tightly to a metal table. Another stroke of luck, her back was facing me. I stepped lightly towards her, my anxiety clenched lungs barely allowing breathing room, then
once I was within reach I gripped the baseball bat tightly, pulled my arms back... and
swung with all the power of Greyskull.
Ping!
Regardless of the force of my
blow, the bat hardly seemed to connect. She turned and looked at me in surprise. I
swung again.
Ping!
And again.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
No matter how much force I put in my
swings, the bat simply deflected from her temple, as if an invisible force-field were protecting from all harm. I was suddenly overcome with a paralyzing feeling
of helplessness. I couldn't stop her. No matter how hard I willed my blows to
knock her head clean off her shoulders, I just couldn't penetrate that debilitating
energy of nightmare power, a force that sabotaged my
intentions to save her victims.
The next thing I remember is that I was
now at the top of the stairs again trying to flee, when I turned and noticed that
she was running up the stairs after me. My last hope was to throw the bat at her
and hope that this time it connected with enough force to knock her out.
Unfortunately, I met with the same depressing results, and as she reached the
final step, I kicked out hard at her face as a final attempt to save myself, and
that’s when I woke up in mid-kick in bed, panting and afraid. To say the least,
I scared the hell out of my wife who laid soundly asleep next to me. Ha ha.
It was that crippling nightmare
factor that got me thinking. Why is our strength and effectiveness stripped
away from us in bad dreams? I remember experiencing a similar episode when I
was kid. I was running away down a dark, unknown forest highway from Chucky from Child's Play, but no matter how fast I tried to run it was like
treading through a thick, swampy bog. All the while, Chucky, whom I found
absolutely terrifying as a kid (a babysitter made me watch it at 3 years old and scarred me for life), would run circles around me while laughing at
my failure to escape him. I never forgot that feeling. I suppose it’s what
makes nightmares so damn scary.
As a kid, I was able to become aware
that I was dreaming. I was a frequent lucid dreamer. The shitty thing is, this only ever
seemed to happen during nightmares. Remember the old “pinch yourself to wake up”
trick? It never worked for me. Instead, whenever I realized I was having a bad dream,
I would squeeze my eyes shut tightly together, and most of the time when I
opened them again I would be awake. Most of the time. One time, whenever I tried this trick the image of my nightmare would briefly focus in a rolling VHS tape inside a VCR. It was like there was no way out of the nightmare until the tape was done playing. That was creepy. And were you ever told about how you can manipulate your dreams and become whatever you want? So do I. Unfortunately, the first and only time I ever realized to try this during a dream/nightmare was thwarted by my dream itself!
It was another ordinary day at school with all my friends, except my friends were monsters. That would normally be the nightmare factor in most dreams, but for one reason or another I didn't question it and we got along great. Later on outside during recess, a human showed up and started killing all my monster friends. That's when my totally pleasant dream about monsters turned into a killer human nightmare. But I steeled myself and decided there was no way I was going to let such atrocities keep happening, so I took a stand against the villain and defended my monster friends. That's when I suddenly realized I was dreaming and became lucid. Then, as the killer and I were facing off, I remembered learning that I could manipulate my own dreams and become anything I could think of. So, like any young boy obsessed with heroes and super-powered persons, I concentrated hard and screamed "SUB-ZERO!" (from Mortal Kombat), and waited for the sudden rush of freezing power to overwhelm my senses. But nothing happened. Instead, as I looked down in my hands in confusion, the monster-killer looked at me and said, "You can't control this dream." Then suddenly my lucidity escaped me, and I can't remember how the rest of the nightmare played out after that.
Well, I'm not really sure what prompted me to write all of this, but I suppose I needed a blog post. :] .. Dreams properties have always fascinated me, and I wish I still had the ability to lucid dream. So I'll write that down on my bucket list, too. Learn how to initiate lucid dreaming.
Your humble writing gremlin,
Scott
It was another ordinary day at school with all my friends, except my friends were monsters. That would normally be the nightmare factor in most dreams, but for one reason or another I didn't question it and we got along great. Later on outside during recess, a human showed up and started killing all my monster friends. That's when my totally pleasant dream about monsters turned into a killer human nightmare. But I steeled myself and decided there was no way I was going to let such atrocities keep happening, so I took a stand against the villain and defended my monster friends. That's when I suddenly realized I was dreaming and became lucid. Then, as the killer and I were facing off, I remembered learning that I could manipulate my own dreams and become anything I could think of. So, like any young boy obsessed with heroes and super-powered persons, I concentrated hard and screamed "SUB-ZERO!" (from Mortal Kombat), and waited for the sudden rush of freezing power to overwhelm my senses. But nothing happened. Instead, as I looked down in my hands in confusion, the monster-killer looked at me and said, "You can't control this dream." Then suddenly my lucidity escaped me, and I can't remember how the rest of the nightmare played out after that.
Well, I'm not really sure what prompted me to write all of this, but I suppose I needed a blog post. :] .. Dreams properties have always fascinated me, and I wish I still had the ability to lucid dream. So I'll write that down on my bucket list, too. Learn how to initiate lucid dreaming.
Your humble writing gremlin,
Scott
