When I was really young, I started having dreams about running into an exact or nearly exact, but wholly evil copy of myself. There are a few specific ones I remember, but I also remember that the theme was a frequent occurrence. I still have doppelganger dreams now, but they are much more rare than back then.
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I am in the kitchen with my Mom. She sends me to get something from my room. I go down the hall past the bathroom, turn, and go down the hall to my room. The door is closed. That's odd, because normally I don't keep it closed, but I dismiss it. I open it to go in and get what I am after.
When I open the door, I see myself sitting on the bed across the room from me. Sitting with my other self is my mother. My other self looks upset, as if she's been crying, and she is snuggled up to my mother. I realize that can't be Mom, either, because she's out in the kitchen. The realization of that actually is scarier to me than the sight of my double. Then, my double gets off of the bed and begins slowly walking toward me, her jaws working hungrily. I back out of the room and shut the door. I run back down the hallway. I hear the door open as I near the end of the hall. I turn to see the doppelganger standing right behind me, mouth opened further than it should be. One physical difference between us is that her teeth are like shark's teeth; there are rows and rows of them, and they all come to a point. I try to push her away and she grabs my hand and bites my finger.
The pain woke me. I am pretty sure that the cause for this dream was the pain of a broken finger, which I remember happened when I was in the second grade. By the time I was in high school, that finger was starting to show signs of osteoarthritis. My other fingers are doing the same now that I'm almost 40, but that one got a 20 year head start. I'm guessing the head start is was caused by the injury.
* * * * * * * * * * *
I'm in my room. I've been sitting and reading, and I'm getting kind of hungry. I think I'll go get a bite to eat. I get up out of the beanbag I'm sitting in, and turn to leave my room. As I turn, my eyes catch the tall mirror on the dressing table at the other end of my room, near the door. My reflection looks wrong. It takes a moment to realize that it's because the hair color is wrong. I have dark brown hair, and the girl in the mirror is blond. I move closer, and notice that she also has really, really pink eyes... and sharp teeth. She's baring them at me.
I bolt toward the door, which takes me right past that mirror. As I run, the doppelganger runs toward me in the mirror. I'm terrified. I run out the door. As I cross the threshold, I feel something tug at the back of my shirt, but it lets go. I slam the door, hard, and there is a thud on the other side.
* * * * * * * * * * *
It's mostly a normal day. I have errands to run. I have things to deliver, things to pick up, and people to check on. I go about my normal routine, write down my list, and lay it on the kitchen table. I get my breakfast together and grab something to read while I'm eating.
When I'm done with breakfast, I reach for the list, but it's gone. It's not just not where I put it. It's also not on the floor nearby, not on any of the chairs, not in the trash, and not in my pocket. It occurs to me that maybe, without thinking, I used it as a bookmark . I can see myself telling my friends about that later and laughing. However, it's not there, either. The paper has just vanished.
I'm frustrated by the loss, but I guess it's no big deal. I decide that I don't have time to write the list again, but writing it the first time kind of fixed the stops in my memory.
The first place I'm going is to pick up a check at the newspaper. I have to cash it before I can run my other errands, or I won't be able to cash it until tomorrow. When I get there, the secretary tells me I was all ready there earlier, and picked it up then. I know that I wasn't, and think that maybe my Mom picked it up. We look a lot alike.
I head home, but she's not there. My brother is up, though. He tells me I'm too late to apologize for what I said earlier, that I'll have to wait until she comes home. I don't know what the heck he's talking about, but I don't have time to deal with it right now. I have to deliver something to a friend for a school related project, and she's only going to be at home for a couple of hours between activities today. I head to her house.
When I get there, my friend is unhappy with me. She says we're done talking about it, and not to try to fix things. When I ask what she's talking about, she tells me I was just there and told her I don't have the item for her project. I tell her that's impossible, that I just came from home, and I have the object right here. I hand it to her. She acts like I'm either crazy, or trying to make her feel like she is. We part on kind of edgy terms, but agree to just call the situation weird.
This continues for all of my errands; every place I go, I'm told that I was just there a few moments earlier, and had done or said something to upset the person or people involved in the errand. If I was supposed to pick something up, it's been taken. If I was supposed to deliver something, it's no longer expected. Everyone on my list looks at me like I'm an absolute nut.
The whole day, I am a step behind my double, never running into her, always running into the fallout from whatever it is she did. At the end of the list, I go home. When I walk in the door, my whole family is in the kitchen, talking worriedly. They all turn to look at me with surprise. I ask what's wrong, and my brother asks me how I got there. When all I can do is give him a confused look, he tells me we all just had a huge fight, and I locked myself in the bathroom. I hear the bathroom door slam open, and everyone jumps and stares in that direction. I get chills, worrying about what I'm going to see come down the hallway from there.
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The second one first happened when I was in about the 5th grade. We'd just moved me into an upstairs bedroom, and I wasn't used to sleeping up there. The third one started when I was in high school. There were more, but those three are dreams I had more than once, and which have stuck with me for a long time.
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