I'm wandering through a mall. It has a mix of stores including some from the mall I used to shop in as a teen, and the mall my kids like to shop in now. I'm looking for something, and I have money to buy it, but not much extra. I know that I have somewhere else I have to go next, and that's going to take up the bulk of the rest of my day, but right now, the shopping is more important.
My reason for shopping is kind of vague. I'm not looking for a specific thing. I'm here because I "have to" buy something for myself. It feels like fact of the source from which the money came to me somehow makes it by definition something between a gift and "found money," but I also have a sense of having earned it. There was definitely some reason why it was owed to me.
I have a sense of responsibility and burden related to how the money is to be spent. It has to be something I'll want and like, but not something totally frivolous. I'm trying to also make sure it is something that won't get used up, expire, or quickly become obsolete. It feels as though failing to meet those conditions will mean I have wasted the money.
The feeling is partly related to the fact that it is being spent on me and not members of my family, on whom I am usually focused when shopping. It's a rare thing for me to buy something just for myself, and when I do, it's usually because there is a practical and necessary reason why I am buying it (like work clothing or allergy medicine) and not just because it's something I really want.
The feeling I have is also partly related to how the money ended up being owed to me. I have the sense that personal sacrifice was wrongfully forced upon me by the source of the money. That personal sacrifice cost my family things we needed. The source "gifted" me to avoid some being made to pay me more. I had accepted the amount to avoid the risk of getting nothing. Now, I feel kind of pinched, like I have less than I need, and need to make every penny count.
Everywhere I go in the mall, people are watching me. I feel like they are judging everything I look at, weighing whether or not I should even be considering this or that item. I have the sense of these people thinking I don't deserve to use any of this money on myself, even though I am supposed to do exactly that. At the same time, I have the sense of them keeping track, with the intent to report back to the source from which the money came, as if a wrongful purchase would justify the source taking it back.. That would not be the case, but I'm not sure the source wouldn't try, and having to deal with that would create a huge inconvenience for my family.
I feel upset about being watched. I feel stalked and personally invaded. Most people are trying to be subtle about it, making sure to appear to be checking out something near me if I actually look in their direction, but there are a few who are blatantly following me around and staring.
I can't even interact with the people around me. I compliment a woman's manicure, and instead of thanking me, she tells me I don't need a manicure. I had no intention of seeking one, nor would I want one. I was just enjoying the sight of hers, which was pretty cool. I have no use for a manicure. However, I'm really put off that she said that to me. It felt like she was telling me that I'm beneath her, that I'm not quality enough to qualify for a manicure. Even though I am uninterested in my fingernails beyond utility and prevention of injury to my fingers, I'm offended that this woman feels entitled to give or deny permission for me to have a manicure, and also that she jumped to the conclusion that I even wanted one. First, it's my fingers and my money, and therefore my decision. Second, a stranger has no right to make assumptions about my personal choices like that.
Another bystander won't let me pass when I want to go down one aisle at a shop and ask him to please excuse me. I'm told, "you don't need to look down there. There's nothing you should be interested in." The aisle has craft supplies that I'm considering using to make things I can sell. The man says, "No one wants to buy your doilies," but that's not the image I was thinking about. I have patterns for jewelry and other accessories, including hats, gloves, and bags. Again, I'm offended that he feels entitled to make that determination for me, but because everyone is watching, I'm nervous about any kind of a confrontation.
I'm also offended at his attitude toward my crafts. I've sold them before. I have had a decent response at small flea markets. People do like them. I just don't have the time to make that a regular activity because I work full time. Regardless, a complete stranger has no way of assessing the desirability of my work, and no business critiquing it unseen or making assumptions about the potential success of a venture. Even if he chooses to do that, he has no right to enforce his opinion of me upon me this way. I don't feel obligated to tolerate what he has said.
Looking around, I see a lady speaking into what looks like either an old cell phone or a two-way transmitter. She's staring at me, and speaking quietly, but I catch a couple of words and phrases: "Willful" and "refusing to be shaped" and "seems to feel entitled to decide for herself." I'm pretty sure she's talking about me, but I feel like some kind of a paranoid egotist for the thought. Then she says my full name into the phone. Of all things, this makes me feel very relieved, because I was beginning to feel nuts for believing this was all about me. Now, I feel justified in resisting it because it's real.
I levitate into the air and fly over the jerk who won't let me get my crafts. Lowering myself down on the other side as he stares at me with his jaw dropped, I assess the benefits and drawbacks of this potential purchase. I still have several months of visitation with my stepdaughter during which I'll be riding back and forth in the car to her place twice a month for an hour each way. I could get a lot of crafting done during this time.
I could spend about 10% of the money, buy the supplies, and set up a shop online that would only allow the amount of product I've added to it to be ordered, so I couldn't get behind. I take out a little notebook and write down the idea, the cost of the supplies, and give it a rating. As I'm doing this, everyone in the store begins rapidly moving toward me in an aggressive manner (except the cashiers, who appear oblivious of the whole thing.) The woman with the communication device is shouting into it, something about broken rules, decisions, and my not being boxed in. People are yelling at me, "You can't do that! You're not allowed!" A woman from the organization from which the money came demands my notebook, yelling that I don't have the right to keep notes, and if I'm going to make any claims, I have to do it all from memory.
Just as the other patrons approach, I fly up and away from the spot. I move on to another shop which has household items that I feel would reduce the amount of time I spend doing housework, while simultaneously increasing the tidiness of my family's apartment. As I near the store, I notice there is a barricade of people blocking my path, standing with their arms linked and angry expressions on their faces. They tell me I can't go in there.
I move around them, open a hole in the wall, and enter the store. Then, I pull down the mesh door that keeps patrons out after the store is closed. As I shop the store, the people outside of it scream at me and pound at the mesh door. I concentrate for a moment on repelling them from the door. It crackles, and then suddenly they are all zapped like they had touched an electric fence. Everyone jumps back, surprised into silence.
Among the crowd, I see three people I recognize as part of the organization that is the source of the money. I realize they are manipulating the crowd. I point at them, and shout "LIGHT!" Each of them is now surrounded by brightness as if shined upon by a spotlight. Then, I shout, "TRUTH!" All three people begin to look uncomfortable, as if trying really hard not to lose control of a bodily function, while simultaneously knowing that relief is not readily available. Then, they look like they are going to vomit. People start backing away from them. I walk away, and begin assessing the possibilities for the items available in the store, making notes in my little notebook and writing down prices and ratings of benefit to my family. These are the pros and cons of the decision (as in, pro - it will tidy up the clutter in the bathroom; con - it costs 5% of my little budget.)
I can hear one voice telling everyone in the crowd what led to my receiving the money I'm here to spend. It isn't the voice of one of them, but another, bigger voice which seems to be coming over the loudspeakers. I stop shopping and look out the door to see everyone backing away from the three. The faces in the crowd look appalled and outraged, and some of them begin muttering and pointing. The three look nervous, then scared. One of them starts shouting counter-accusations, but no one listens. People in the crowd start throwing things at the three. Some of the items are actually heavy and solid enough to hurt.
Righteously indignant as I am about what originally happened and about the conspiracy that followed, I know this is wrong and am highly averse to letting it happen. As soon as I desire to exit the store and interfere, the mesh door rises back into the wall on its own. I bellow "STOP!" at the crowd, and they do. Everyone looks at me. I tell them that what happened has all ready been taken care of, that the organization has settled with me, and I accepted the settlement. The debt is paid, and we're even. No further action is necessary. I ask that everyone just let me shop in peace. Even though I still feel anger over the incident pulling at my heart, I know it's wrong to wish harm upon someone who wronged me after penance has been done for the wrong, and it's not these people's battle to fight, anyway. Getting them involved would be dishonest and manipulative of me, and mean both to her and them, because she would be unjustly harmed, and they would be guilty of that harm.
I see a sense of letdown settle into the crowd, and they begin to disperse, going into other stores and wandering along the hallway of the mall. The two men sort of back off and fade into the crowd. The woman of the three tries approaching some of the wandering shoppers, inviting them to "hang out" and shop together. They blow her off in no uncertain terms, some of them demonstrating disgust, others anger, and still others a simple lack of trust. She seems surprised by this, and I realize that until this moment, she's never not had a rapport with the local public and she doesn't know how to handle it. There's nothing I can do to fix that. She showed them a false face and now they know differently. The only one who can repair that bridge is her.
She glares fiercely at me. Her face looks really creepy. I almost expect her to bite me. Instead, she points a finger and wails, "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" She begins cussing me out, claiming that I had no right to buck her authority and protect myself from her. She shouts that I'd better watch my step, because she'll be waiting for an opportunity to get me back for this. I don't feel intimidated, but I'm kind of miffed that she feels entitled to any authority over any aspect of my personal well-being. She can be in charge of that which is her territory all she wants, but I belong to myself, and I have the right to be unharmed.
Because of the way the money came to me, I am no longer involved with that which is her territory. I'm not required to have anything to do with her, and I'm not required to permit her any involvement in or access to knowledge of my existence. If she attempts to enforce upon me even the least bit of exposure to her, I can file charges and she will be in trouble. I let her rant for a moment, then smile and tell her, "That's really not your call."
This infuriates her so much that she totally loses control. She starts grabbing the items on the floor around her and flinging them at me. Nothing hits, but other people notice what she is doing. The lady with the communication device starts speaking into it again. The angry woman runs out of things to throw. She looks flummoxed for a moment, then reaches into the back of her pants, pulls out a huge turd, and throws that directly at me. I hold up a hand and think about pushing it away. It flies up into the air, hits the ceiling, and sticks.
Two mall security guards arrive and tell the woman she has to leave. They are accompanied by two higher-ups in the organization from which I received the money. The higher-ups aren't directly requesting anything, but they do identify the woman for the guards. They walk away. In the crowd, I can see her two compatriots trying to look uninvolved. She notices them, and says, "I'm with them! You can't make me leave because I'm with them!" The guards ask the men, and the men tell the guards that they don't have anything to do with her. They basically disown her to keep from being thrown out with her.
She tells the guards she has the right to be here, and that I'm the one who should be thrown out because I've disrupted the whole mall by being here when I wasn't welcome. The lady with the communication device, which I can now see is some kind of smart phone with what looks like a mini-hard drive on the back of it, tells the guards that the disruption was caused by manipulative lies fed to the shoppers by the organization, not by my presence. She states that the woman had become violent and was throwing things at me. She points out the things on the ground around me and says that the woman threw all of them.
The woman says there is no proof, because there is no video. She tells the guard that I'm covered in feces and I'm a health hazard. The lack of feces upon my person is clearly visible, and the guard gives her a wary, concerned look you usually see given to people who are starting to sound crazy. At that moment, the poop on the ceiling falls on her head. It runs down her hair onto her clothes. The lady with the smart phone tells the guards that the woman had thrown that at me, too.
The guards inform the poop covered woman that they now cannot believe anything she says. They pull out what look like a couple of those extended reach grabbing devices used by short people to get things off of high shelves, only these are metal, and the grabber at the end looks like a handcuff. They quickly snap these onto her wrists, and step apart. Keeping her at arms length with her hands out from her body, they march her toward the mall exit.
Finally, I have what I want. She is not going to bother me any more. No one is paying any attention to me. I am free to decide how to best invest the money I've received, and then I can get on with my everyday stuff. I turn to go back into the household goods store. Inside the store is my Grandma. She's going to help me shop. I haven't seen her in years, and I'm so happy to see her I run up and give her a huge hug.
I'm so relieved for this to be over that I almost start crying, but Grandma reminds me that we have things to do, so instead I turn to look with her at items on the shelves. There are items for storage. I am worrying over whether to get a set with several different sizes, or a set that has several bigger sizes but less of a variety. It is also a few dollars less than the other, because it's not brand name. Grandma reminds me of one of her old sayings, "That which holds a lot will also hold a little." Knowing she is right, I write down the price and benefits of the bigger items.
I nearly burst into tears when I woke from this one. The reason I haven't seen Grandma in years is because she died in 1994. She was a huge guiding influence in my life over many things, including the aspects of my attitude that would lead me to do something like telling the crowd in the dream to stop attacking the people who had hurt me, because that situation was all ready over. Grandma did not have a vengeful bone in her entire body. She was a very caring and compassionate woman who had an aversion to unnecessary drama, but sought to heal the hurts of the people around her. To this day, I often make decisions based on the thought of "What Would Grandma Do?"
This dream, I think, was based on a specific situation I'm going through in waking life. A few months ago, I was injured at work.. It was a life-threatening injury, but one with a fairly quick recovery. I was given permission from a doctor to return to work, but with a restriction that my employer refused to accept, so I was put on a temporary leave until the restriction expired. I filed a complaint with OSHA while receiving treatment for the injury during that time.
OSHA investigated and cited my employer for two serious violations, and levied a fine for each. The next day, my employer changed the requirements for my return to work, and refused to let me use earned vacation hours for my time off. I fulfilled the new requirements, but was not returned to work. Instead, my employer changed the requirements again. This continued for two months. During the first month, my family ran through our small savings, and I had to apply for government assistance, including unemployment.
During the second month, I realized what my employer was doing, and filed a retaliation complaint with the labor board After my complaint had been initiated, my employer attempted to prevent me from receiving unemployment by claiming that I was on voluntary leave due to an illness. I had to write to my case worker explaining what was going on, and it was ultimately the case worker's choice to award me unemployment that got me approved to return to work. Then, the company used my originally doctor-approved return to work date to keep me from receiving Worker's Compensation for any of the time I'd been kept off of work following my injury. The industrial commission found in my favor for the medical bills, but in the company's favor for the lost time.
It is the combination of those two communications, the choice to alter my return to work requirements, and the choice to withhold my vacation hours during my absence that are cited in my retaliation complaint. My labor case worker has assessed an amount owed totaling what I would have earned between the doctor-approved return to work date and the date I actually was put back on the schedule. My employer can choose to pay the amount, offer a smaller settlement, or fight the claim.
The case worker has advised me that most employers offer a settlement, and that I'll get paid much sooner if I accept it. Given my situation, if they offer a reasonable settlement, I'll take it. I'll have to pay the state's portion of the unemployment I received back to the state (not because the state will make me, but because it's the right thing to do) but by my definition of reasonable, I should be left with a full month's worth of pay after doing that.
In the meantime, I'm back to work for the same boss who allowed the conditions which injured me. The company was aware of the existence of the conditions, having been informed of them repeatedly during the past 5 years. The boss basically said that she didn't have to follow OSHA regulations because of the size of the building, a ridiculous statement.
She is furious with me for having filed a complaint for the dangerous working conditions. I am now being subjected to a hostile work environment. I think that environment, and my concerns about reaching a settlement with the company, are what this dream was about. I think the shoppers represent my coworkers and people from the neighborhood who shop at my workplace. I think the shopping represents my boss's efforts to get back at me for my complaint, my efforts to defend myself, and my concerns about whether or not I will even receive anything in response to the complaint.
My boss waits until we are alone and off camera and makes threats. She has told me that she's going to "get me on something" and as soon as she gets an opportunity, I'm "out of here." She gives me the hardest jobs we have, and I am the only employee not permitted breaks. I even get the third degree for having to use the restroom or needing to have anything to drink during a 9-hour shift. I more than half expect her to make up an excuse to fire me. I think the loudspeaker portion of the dream is my recent decision that if she does, I'm going to the local press with my story.
My boss is trying to use psychological abuse to psych me out and make me screw up. She messes with the area I'm assigned to work in so that things are out of place and conditions are in place to create messes for me to clean up (like propping breakable containers of liquid overhead where they'll fall when I touch the unstable shelves they are on). She sends me away from what I've been told to work on, to go do something else momentarily, and rearranges my stuff so that it's just disorganized enough to slow me down a bit when I return. This has included putting bills in the wrong slots in my register so that I have trouble making change for customers.
She has given me orders and then yelled at me for following them, even going so far as to threaten to "write me up" for doing exactly what I was told moments earlier. However, she refuses to write down what she wants me to do.
She has said things to my customers (who are also my neighbors) about me, and had friends of hers come into our store and give me a rough time at the cash register. She has brought things she knows I'm allergic to into the store in order to cause irritation. She has lied to my co-workers about me. She spends the day periodically stopping her activities to stand and glare at me as if I've just done or said something wrong. She has taken my paperwork so that I can't keep track of what I'm doing.
She makes a point to give derogatory, condescending, or insulting replies to things I say, even when I am not talking to her. Often, these are statements designed to insinuate that I am challenging her authority when nothing I've said indicates that, such as replying to an "ok, got it" (an acknowledgment that I comprehend the meaning of an order or other statement given to me) with a comment like, "Well I HOPE that's ok with you. It better be, because I'm in charge" as if I'd offered approval instead of confirmation.
If I have a question or have to inform her that a customer wants to speak to her, she ignores me. I can stand two feet away and say her name loudly, and she will pretend she did not hear. She's not very good at that. She has a visible "flinching" kind of response to my voice, in which she starts to turn in my direction but checks herself before she thinks she's given away that she's heard me. If I repeat the request or further attempt to get her attention, she'll busy herself to appear distracted.
Upon my third attempt, she will strike up a random, frivolous conversation with another nearby person in order to avoid answering me. Only when I go back and tell the customer that my boss is deliberately ignoring me does she acknowledge that she hears me, and of course she yells at me for saying that and tells me she didn't hear me before because she was "in a conversation." I have had several customers see this act, offer sympathy, and tell me they are surprised that she does not realize how transparent that behavior is.
She has also given me "orders" related to my private life (like where to shop and what to buy,) and has taken personal offense when I refused to follow them.
The two creepiest things she's done so far are the aforementioned staring, and the habit of only coming to my cash register when making purchases at our store on her way out or at lunch. She will wait in my line, even when the other working cashier is unoccupied, until it's blatantly and openly awkward for her to do so. She also crowds me behind the counter to do this, insisting on standing inches away from me. If I move away, she steps closer until there is no place further for me to move. This week, she's had me so creeped out that I am making mistakes at the register.
I've been documenting the harassment in a cheap little spiral notebook I keep in my pocket. She is angry about the notebook and has complained to her superior. She made sure I overheard her telling the co-manager (our P.C. term for assistant manager) that she was bringing him in to "discuss" it with me, meaning that they are going to badger me about it. I've contacted the human resources department over the harassment, but they have been no help. In fact, everything I discussed with H.R. was repeated back to my boss, so now she knows my complaints.
Everything that I've written here has been documented in detail, but I cannot share the details here at this time. However, I have shared all of that documentation with my case worker at the labor board. I do have hope that I will receive help with this situation from there. My biggest hope is that the company will transfer her to another store so she'll stop harassing me, and that they'll offer me enough of a settlement that I can at least undo the financial damage that two months of missed work did to my household. If I get enough, the crafting idea may not be such a bad thing. I make some pretty cool stuff. Maybe I will try to sell some of it on the side for extra cash.
In the meantime, the poop-throwing thing from the dream, I think is actually related to recent events. While I was gone, she told my neighbors who shop at that store that I had taken leave to recover from my injury. I've had to explain to a lot of them what really happened. Several are offended that she lied to them, and most are outraged at the treatment I received. She doesn't understand why they are less friendly with her than they used to be, and she's pissed off that they seem more friendly with me than they used to be. Her response to that has been behavior that has proved to be kind of off-putting to the people she's trying to persuade. Although the situation has been highly stressful to me, in the end, I do feel like I'm having a battle of wits with an unarmed person, and in the end I know that this is all temporary. I will survive it, and I will move on (we're leaving the area when the school year ends, hence the "someplace else to go" feeling in the dream) without having been defined by the attitude of a power-happy big fish in a little pond.
Conspiracy
Over the last ten years, I've had an odd recurring/serial dream that came to me in increments. The first few times I was hit with this one, it was really short and I just got the beginning of it. It was confusing and strange, because I knew some of what was happening, but not all, and not why. It was weeks and sometimes months in between times having the dream, too, so there's rarely been a sense of deja vu until I wake up. After the a while, little by little over time, more details filled in.
This is what it was like the first time I dreamed it:
I'm in the kitchen of a house. It's a nice kitchen, and I'm comfortable here as far as feeling like I belong and feeling welcome. I'm waiting for two men to come pick me up. They are officers of a law enforcement agency that is something of a cross between FBI and Secret Service, but it's not either of those things. They are supposed to be guarding me on the way to a location where I am going to share important information with a group of people who are going to use that information to help the general public of the entire world.
What the information is, is not on my mind at the moment. I'm more worried about the faction of people who do not want the information to exist. Their interest is in exploiting for profit a condition or circumstance which will end if the information is shared and practical use of it is made. I am proof of and container of the information, so my life is in danger.
To be absolutely certain that I'm not taken by whoever this enemy is, I have a code question to ask my escorts, to which there is a code reply that I know to expect. I'm to do this even though the escorts will show me their credentials, and even though the senior escort will be wearing an item that is also supposed to act as an identifier to me.
I wait nervously for a few moments, then there is a knock at the door. I follow the protocol which was given to me for this event. First, I look out the kitchen window to make sure no one is pointing a gun at the door. Then, I look out the spyhole in the door. I see that the shorter man is wearing the designated item. I press a button to speak over the speaker, and request credentials.
These are slipped through the mail slot onto the floor. I continue to watch through the spyhole until the escorts take three steps back from the door. Then, I pick up the credentials and examine them. They are in order. I press the button again, and ask the question, and look through the spyhole again. The senior escort approaches the speaker, presses the button, and gives the correct reply.
I open the door and step outside. The men rush me into an older (late 90s) black 4 door sedan with tinted windows, and a tinted barrier between the high front seat and the back . I notice two odd details about the car. First, the tires don't fit the style of the car at all. The tread is deeply textured, and the tires are oddly wide. The vehicle sits up from them a little more than it should, not enough to look raised like a truck, but enough to look slightly off. The other thing is the license plate. It only has numbers, no letters. I notice it because within the sequence is a series of numbers that I actually use for something.
The driver takes off before I get my seat belt on. Then, I realize there is no seat belt. The senior escort explains that we need to be able to get out quickly in case of an attack, and that there are other protections in case of an accident. I haven't ridden without a seat belt in almost thirty years, and I feel positively naked. On the seat in front of me, I see a handle like the ones that are sometimes on passenger doors in a car to pull it shut. There is also what looks like a cover for an airbag.
Several times, I had just that part of the dream. There was nothing before or after it, and I woke with no idea what the information was that had people wanting to kill me. I am absolutely nobody to the rest of society - just another warm body. I don't even have a college degree. I could not imagine what the heck kind of information I could possibly have that anyone else would think anywhere near that important.
Eventually, the dream expanded:
As we leave the neighborhood, two other cars just like the one we're in fall in around us, one in front and one in back..They both have the same license plate we do.
My driver passes the car in the front. Then, the rear car passes both us and the car behind us. A fourth car just like the other three, also with the same plate, joins the line from behind and passes all of us. Then, we come to a parking lot. All four cars drive into the lot, go different directions, drive past each other, and then line up and exit. It's like a game of cups, with a walnut underneath, only I figure we're trying to fool a viewer in another vehicle.
We leave town. There are four different ways to go from the last intersection in town; a left or right turn, a straight shot onto a two lane county highway, and an exit ramp onto an interstate highway. Each car goes a different direction. We do not take the interstate, because that would be expected.
We drive for what seems like a long time. My escorts are not very conversational, except at the beginning when I am given a set of safety instructions, including the order that whatever they tell me to do, I must do without hesitation or question, even if it sounds odd. I nod in agreement. I know these guys are experts, and I am not, so I'll do whatever they say.
This is where the dream is inconsistent. Sometimes the ride is uneventful. Sometimes it is not. When it is not, it goes like this:
I'm watching the area around us, even though I do feel safe with these men. I do not want to be distracted or unaware, because I might not hear what they say to me if I do that. Because I'm watching all around us, I notice reflected in the barrier in front of me a vehicle approaching quickly from the rear. I notice it at the same time as my escorts do, and I slouch down in my seat and put my hands against the back of the front seat, but at the same time as I do that, the car I am in speeds up. Then, we change lanes, and the approaching vehicle speeds past us. I can feel the car slowing rapidly as the other vehicle goes past. I keep an eye on it, and maintain my posture. Our driver returns to the correct lane before there is oncoming traffic. All of this takes less than ten seconds.
My escort says, "Good instincts" and keeps his eyes on the vehicle.
I feel pleased that I did the right thing.
I see brake lights, but at the same time, we are approaching a turn. My driver, still moving slowly, turns off of the road. Once the turn is made, he speeds up a lot, much faster than the speed limit of this road. I watch in the tinted divider, expecting to see that other car coming up behind us again. When it does, I grab the handle in the back of the front seat with both hands, and brace my feet against the bottom.
As expected, our pursuer approaches rapidly. My senior escort turns to face the back, and pushes a button in the door. A section of the frame around the rear windshield opens just enough for him to stick the barrel of a large pistol out through the hole. He tilts it down, and shoots at the road in front of the other car. The car swerves, but does not alter its course. Another shot is fired, and it looks like the car behind us is losing air in one tire. Then, suddenly the tire blows with a loud bang. The vehicle swerves wildly for a moment, then pulls off of the road. My driver slows a bit, then turns into a field and drives through it back toward the road we'd been on before, driving diagonally through fields and yards. The ride is bumpy, but it feels almost like the vehicle was made to go off road.
After the first time I dreamed the pursued version, it seemed like that was the one that happened more frequently. Once we escape from the pursuer, there is no more variation in the dream, and there is no more travel.
We're in front of a sprawling, modern building. There are a lot of big windows. It looks like a convention center. We're not going in this way. Instead, my driver takes us around the back . As we head that way, the junior escort pulls out a cell phone, presses two buttons, puts the phone up to his ear, and says something about a prescription having been filled. As he hangs up, I see a man come out of a side door and open a bay door (like a garage door,) behind which is a big wide tunnel. We drive into the tunnel, which is about 50 yards long.
From there, it opens out into a parking garage. We drive right up to a door. The car stops, and the senior escort gets out. As I am not told to get out, I sit still. The senior escort has his gun out. He is looking around. He points at the junior escort, who also gets out and looks around. The Senior escort opens the door and looks inside. He steps through the door and turns on a light. Then, he comes back to the car, opens the door and helps me out. He ushers me into the hallway. I hear the car drive away, and the junior escort's footsteps as he hurries to catch up with us. The junior escort shuts and locks the door behind us.
The hallway is several yards long. At the other end is a stairwell. Between the entrance and the stairwell is another door. I don't notice that door until we are almost up to it. The senior escort stops us, takes out a key, unlocks the door, and opens it. He steps in, looks around, then motions for us to follow. There are stairs in this room, which isn't much bigger than a normal sized passenger elevator. We go single file up the stairs. Even if that hadn't been the safest way to go, we'd still have to do it that way. There isn't much room on these stairs.
The top of the stairway opens into a backstage area. There are costumes, props, and tools here. There is a light, and I can hear someone speaking. Stage fright sets in, and my heart starts pounding. I hate public presenting, almost as much as public speaking. Even though I don't have to say much, I still have a whole audience full of people looking at me.
There were several times when just the knowledge that I was going to be on a stage in front of an audience was enough to jolt me awake. In real, waking life, I have terrible stage fright. I don't even like interacting with strangers at all unless it's a type of interaction which has kind of a script (like checking out at a cash register - your stuff gets checked in, you are asked if there is anything else you need, you are given your total, and you pay.) I can handle big group things, like being in a choir, but not just being up there on my own. Doing anything solo or in a small group on a stage sends me into a cold sweat. Eventually, I had this part of the dream enough times that I slept through the jolt.
I can hear a male voice talking. He's saying something about most forms of cancer being DNA mutations caused by damage done by viruses from and related to the herpes family. Having been able to go through and identify the link, he had connected the majority of types and subtypes of cancer to specific herpes or herpes related viruses. That had led him to research which resulted in a set of vaccinations and inoculations which would combat these viruses, and first halt and then reverse the growth of tumors caused by them.
Throughout the lecture, he cited experience with his first test subject, who had been given a terminal diagnosis with no hope before applying for his assistance. This was the only type of subject he had been willing to work with, because he needed someone who was not receiving chemotherapy or radiation treatment, in order for him to know whether or not his treatment was working.
I was the test subject.
He described my condition as a formidable challenge, and stated that he would not have chosen me as a test subject because I was so far advanced that I'd been given only weeks to live. The only reason he gave me the treatment was that his own personal ethics would not allow him to turn his back on someone he might be able to help. As he spoke, I began to remember the conversation I'd had with him in his office.
He had told me that there was less than a single percent chance that I would benefit from the treatment, but he was willing to try if I was. At worst, I might hasten my death as my immune system battled the virus. At best, I might at least go out feeling better than before the shots. Having all ready accepted that my time was up, I felt compelled to do the experiment just to see if I could help find a cure. I had agreed to receive his treatment with the understanding that I was willing to accept whatever the result, and signed papers to that effect.
I surprised him. The drug eliminated the virus from my system, and without the virus to run interference for the cancer cells, my body had identified them as foreign matter. I was really, really sick for about a week, and my doctor thought I was going to die from the treatment. Instead, I got better... and better, and better, until there was no sign of the disease at all.
In treatment with the scientist, I discussed with him every aspect of my personal health, including my history, my medicines, and my diet. It turned out that my dietary philosophy had enhanced the effectiveness of the medicine, and had strengthened my body enough to handle the battle between my immune system and the tumor cells. I was skinny as a scarecrow when I came out the other end of it, but I won. I was cured. There were no tumors, and no signs of cancer showed up in the various tests the scientist used to look for it.
Testing continued for a year, with no return... then two, then two more, and pretty soon we were at five years. During that time, more patients were tested with the drug, with the same success as was seen with me, but only if they followed my diet. Those who did not hit more hurdles and had a much more difficult recovery.
The scientist gives me an introduction that ends in "living proof of the cure," and I realize it's time for me to walk out onto the stage. I step forward out of the wings onto the brightly lit floor. Halfway across the stage, standing at the podium, is the familiar man who treated me, wearing a suit and tie instead of his white lab coat and scrubs. Behind him, staring from the other wing, I see his assistant, standing with his hands in his pockets.
As I step out of the wing, he pulls his right hand from his pocket, points a gun at me, and shoots. I feel something hot and hurtful happen in my throat, right above my collar bone. Pain bursts through to the back of my neck . Blood sprays out in front of me, and I can't breathe. I can't feel my arms and legs. Everything around me seems to be moving upward, and I realize I'm falling down.
Here is where the dream has always ended up until last night. Last night, it got more graphic. It was weird.
There is another shot, and a red stain blooms across the front of the assistant's white shirt, right under his nerdy red bow tie. He looks down at his chest in surprise.
The scientist's look of pride and almost parental affection morphs into a shocked, horrified stare and gasp. He stammers, then runs toward me. I feel a jarring pain in my neck as my fall stops momentarily, then I'm sliding sideways instead of falling straight down. I have a weird sense of almost but not quite nausea. It's like motion sickness, but I don't think I'm going to throw up. It's almost more in my chest, and almost like there's a weight on it.
The scientist runs toward me, and as he approaches I see a red spray hit his white shirt. I have the bizarre, disjointed concern that he's not going to get his deposit back on it, and then everything becomes so blurry that I can't see. I hear someone shouting that an ambulance is needed, and feel someone's hands touching my throat. Something cold and hard is pressed up against the inside of my throat, and I am suddenly again able to suck air into my lungs. I still can't move anything, and my vision is worthless. I hear another voice say that it looks like "it" came out through the spine. That is followed by, "Hold her head still."
That's where it ends.
I woke this morning with a slightly sore throat. It got better right away when I had my coffee, but until I got something to drink, it kind of ached like a sore muscle. Along with that, I was just plain tired. I really had a tough time coming out of the sleep state, even with my annoying, beeping alarm right next to my head. I hit snooze twice, but didn't dream any more. I dozed off just enough that it felt like my snooze was going off right after the original alarm. I've been tired all day, too, almost like I didn't sleep properly last night, even though I didn't wake up the whole night.
I find some of the details of this really weird, like the cure itself. I can remember the feeling of "duh, why didn't we think of this before?" in the scientist's lab when using drugs to cure herpes and other blistering viruses reversed the growth of various forms of cancer. I had the feeling that the connection had been right there, with many clues leading to it, but no one had pursued the research simply because other avenues were more popular.
Dreaming about getting shot through the throat is really creepy and weird. The feeling of suffocation was terrifyingly familiar, as I grew up with severe childhood asthma and more than once almost did suffocate.
The conspiracy thing creeped me out, too. I've heard and seen discussions among people who suspect or believe that pharmaceutical companies have a cure for cancer, but are withholding it from the public because they make more money on chemo and radiation. I don't have a position on that, really. I've looked into it, and there is some odd stuff on both sides of the argument. I don't trust non-pharmaceutical healers any more than I do druggists. After all, they have a financial stake in their end of the medical spectrum, just as much as anyone else involved. Still, it's a scary and compelling thought.
In waking life, I've never had full blown cancer, but I've had cells which were becoming cancer. I found out I had precancerous cells when I was pregnant with my son. I am now missing a chunk of my cervix, have scar tissue, and make sure to get the proper tests regularly, but nothing has shown up during the 13 years since then, so now it's just a habit. Colon cancer runs in my dad's side of the family, but only among smokers, and that divider is absolute. I don't smoke, and I never will, and that's why.
This dream has really made me think.. I know from talking to the gyno that the HPV virus, a herpes virus that causes genital warts, does lead to cancerous tumors on the cervix due to DNA mutation which takes place in the warts. (I don't have HPV. I've had negative tests over and over. Not everyone who gets cervical cancer has the virus.) I know from reading that there is actually a pretty wide variety of viruses which are of the herpes family. Chicken pox is a herpes virus. So is the virus that causes lip sores, and it's not the same virus that causes genital herpes. I've also read that mononucleosis (the kissing disease that gives you a sore throat and makes you feel extremely exhausted) is related to herpes.
I suppose it would make sense that if one herpes virus causes DNA mutations which make tumors form, others might also do the same. If so, there are enough variations to account for many if not all of the various forms of cancer that exist in the modern human population. I wonder if, 20 years from now when the first people to get the chicken pox vaccine hit their 40s, we'll see a generational reduction in the occurrence of some cancers, as many of them will never have suffered the pox. It makes as much sense as the pollution theories that link cancer to the intake of various foreign substances labeled carcinogens (like cigarette smoke or burnt food). I wonder if anyone has ever looked into the idea.
This is what it was like the first time I dreamed it:
I'm in the kitchen of a house. It's a nice kitchen, and I'm comfortable here as far as feeling like I belong and feeling welcome. I'm waiting for two men to come pick me up. They are officers of a law enforcement agency that is something of a cross between FBI and Secret Service, but it's not either of those things. They are supposed to be guarding me on the way to a location where I am going to share important information with a group of people who are going to use that information to help the general public of the entire world.
What the information is, is not on my mind at the moment. I'm more worried about the faction of people who do not want the information to exist. Their interest is in exploiting for profit a condition or circumstance which will end if the information is shared and practical use of it is made. I am proof of and container of the information, so my life is in danger.
To be absolutely certain that I'm not taken by whoever this enemy is, I have a code question to ask my escorts, to which there is a code reply that I know to expect. I'm to do this even though the escorts will show me their credentials, and even though the senior escort will be wearing an item that is also supposed to act as an identifier to me.
I wait nervously for a few moments, then there is a knock at the door. I follow the protocol which was given to me for this event. First, I look out the kitchen window to make sure no one is pointing a gun at the door. Then, I look out the spyhole in the door. I see that the shorter man is wearing the designated item. I press a button to speak over the speaker, and request credentials.
These are slipped through the mail slot onto the floor. I continue to watch through the spyhole until the escorts take three steps back from the door. Then, I pick up the credentials and examine them. They are in order. I press the button again, and ask the question, and look through the spyhole again. The senior escort approaches the speaker, presses the button, and gives the correct reply.
I open the door and step outside. The men rush me into an older (late 90s) black 4 door sedan with tinted windows, and a tinted barrier between the high front seat and the back . I notice two odd details about the car. First, the tires don't fit the style of the car at all. The tread is deeply textured, and the tires are oddly wide. The vehicle sits up from them a little more than it should, not enough to look raised like a truck, but enough to look slightly off. The other thing is the license plate. It only has numbers, no letters. I notice it because within the sequence is a series of numbers that I actually use for something.
The driver takes off before I get my seat belt on. Then, I realize there is no seat belt. The senior escort explains that we need to be able to get out quickly in case of an attack, and that there are other protections in case of an accident. I haven't ridden without a seat belt in almost thirty years, and I feel positively naked. On the seat in front of me, I see a handle like the ones that are sometimes on passenger doors in a car to pull it shut. There is also what looks like a cover for an airbag.
Several times, I had just that part of the dream. There was nothing before or after it, and I woke with no idea what the information was that had people wanting to kill me. I am absolutely nobody to the rest of society - just another warm body. I don't even have a college degree. I could not imagine what the heck kind of information I could possibly have that anyone else would think anywhere near that important.
Eventually, the dream expanded:
As we leave the neighborhood, two other cars just like the one we're in fall in around us, one in front and one in back..They both have the same license plate we do.
My driver passes the car in the front. Then, the rear car passes both us and the car behind us. A fourth car just like the other three, also with the same plate, joins the line from behind and passes all of us. Then, we come to a parking lot. All four cars drive into the lot, go different directions, drive past each other, and then line up and exit. It's like a game of cups, with a walnut underneath, only I figure we're trying to fool a viewer in another vehicle.
We leave town. There are four different ways to go from the last intersection in town; a left or right turn, a straight shot onto a two lane county highway, and an exit ramp onto an interstate highway. Each car goes a different direction. We do not take the interstate, because that would be expected.
We drive for what seems like a long time. My escorts are not very conversational, except at the beginning when I am given a set of safety instructions, including the order that whatever they tell me to do, I must do without hesitation or question, even if it sounds odd. I nod in agreement. I know these guys are experts, and I am not, so I'll do whatever they say.
This is where the dream is inconsistent. Sometimes the ride is uneventful. Sometimes it is not. When it is not, it goes like this:
I'm watching the area around us, even though I do feel safe with these men. I do not want to be distracted or unaware, because I might not hear what they say to me if I do that. Because I'm watching all around us, I notice reflected in the barrier in front of me a vehicle approaching quickly from the rear. I notice it at the same time as my escorts do, and I slouch down in my seat and put my hands against the back of the front seat, but at the same time as I do that, the car I am in speeds up. Then, we change lanes, and the approaching vehicle speeds past us. I can feel the car slowing rapidly as the other vehicle goes past. I keep an eye on it, and maintain my posture. Our driver returns to the correct lane before there is oncoming traffic. All of this takes less than ten seconds.
My escort says, "Good instincts" and keeps his eyes on the vehicle.
I feel pleased that I did the right thing.
I see brake lights, but at the same time, we are approaching a turn. My driver, still moving slowly, turns off of the road. Once the turn is made, he speeds up a lot, much faster than the speed limit of this road. I watch in the tinted divider, expecting to see that other car coming up behind us again. When it does, I grab the handle in the back of the front seat with both hands, and brace my feet against the bottom.
As expected, our pursuer approaches rapidly. My senior escort turns to face the back, and pushes a button in the door. A section of the frame around the rear windshield opens just enough for him to stick the barrel of a large pistol out through the hole. He tilts it down, and shoots at the road in front of the other car. The car swerves, but does not alter its course. Another shot is fired, and it looks like the car behind us is losing air in one tire. Then, suddenly the tire blows with a loud bang. The vehicle swerves wildly for a moment, then pulls off of the road. My driver slows a bit, then turns into a field and drives through it back toward the road we'd been on before, driving diagonally through fields and yards. The ride is bumpy, but it feels almost like the vehicle was made to go off road.
After the first time I dreamed the pursued version, it seemed like that was the one that happened more frequently. Once we escape from the pursuer, there is no more variation in the dream, and there is no more travel.
We're in front of a sprawling, modern building. There are a lot of big windows. It looks like a convention center. We're not going in this way. Instead, my driver takes us around the back . As we head that way, the junior escort pulls out a cell phone, presses two buttons, puts the phone up to his ear, and says something about a prescription having been filled. As he hangs up, I see a man come out of a side door and open a bay door (like a garage door,) behind which is a big wide tunnel. We drive into the tunnel, which is about 50 yards long.
From there, it opens out into a parking garage. We drive right up to a door. The car stops, and the senior escort gets out. As I am not told to get out, I sit still. The senior escort has his gun out. He is looking around. He points at the junior escort, who also gets out and looks around. The Senior escort opens the door and looks inside. He steps through the door and turns on a light. Then, he comes back to the car, opens the door and helps me out. He ushers me into the hallway. I hear the car drive away, and the junior escort's footsteps as he hurries to catch up with us. The junior escort shuts and locks the door behind us.
The hallway is several yards long. At the other end is a stairwell. Between the entrance and the stairwell is another door. I don't notice that door until we are almost up to it. The senior escort stops us, takes out a key, unlocks the door, and opens it. He steps in, looks around, then motions for us to follow. There are stairs in this room, which isn't much bigger than a normal sized passenger elevator. We go single file up the stairs. Even if that hadn't been the safest way to go, we'd still have to do it that way. There isn't much room on these stairs.
The top of the stairway opens into a backstage area. There are costumes, props, and tools here. There is a light, and I can hear someone speaking. Stage fright sets in, and my heart starts pounding. I hate public presenting, almost as much as public speaking. Even though I don't have to say much, I still have a whole audience full of people looking at me.
There were several times when just the knowledge that I was going to be on a stage in front of an audience was enough to jolt me awake. In real, waking life, I have terrible stage fright. I don't even like interacting with strangers at all unless it's a type of interaction which has kind of a script (like checking out at a cash register - your stuff gets checked in, you are asked if there is anything else you need, you are given your total, and you pay.) I can handle big group things, like being in a choir, but not just being up there on my own. Doing anything solo or in a small group on a stage sends me into a cold sweat. Eventually, I had this part of the dream enough times that I slept through the jolt.
I can hear a male voice talking. He's saying something about most forms of cancer being DNA mutations caused by damage done by viruses from and related to the herpes family. Having been able to go through and identify the link, he had connected the majority of types and subtypes of cancer to specific herpes or herpes related viruses. That had led him to research which resulted in a set of vaccinations and inoculations which would combat these viruses, and first halt and then reverse the growth of tumors caused by them.
Throughout the lecture, he cited experience with his first test subject, who had been given a terminal diagnosis with no hope before applying for his assistance. This was the only type of subject he had been willing to work with, because he needed someone who was not receiving chemotherapy or radiation treatment, in order for him to know whether or not his treatment was working.
I was the test subject.
He described my condition as a formidable challenge, and stated that he would not have chosen me as a test subject because I was so far advanced that I'd been given only weeks to live. The only reason he gave me the treatment was that his own personal ethics would not allow him to turn his back on someone he might be able to help. As he spoke, I began to remember the conversation I'd had with him in his office.
He had told me that there was less than a single percent chance that I would benefit from the treatment, but he was willing to try if I was. At worst, I might hasten my death as my immune system battled the virus. At best, I might at least go out feeling better than before the shots. Having all ready accepted that my time was up, I felt compelled to do the experiment just to see if I could help find a cure. I had agreed to receive his treatment with the understanding that I was willing to accept whatever the result, and signed papers to that effect.
I surprised him. The drug eliminated the virus from my system, and without the virus to run interference for the cancer cells, my body had identified them as foreign matter. I was really, really sick for about a week, and my doctor thought I was going to die from the treatment. Instead, I got better... and better, and better, until there was no sign of the disease at all.
In treatment with the scientist, I discussed with him every aspect of my personal health, including my history, my medicines, and my diet. It turned out that my dietary philosophy had enhanced the effectiveness of the medicine, and had strengthened my body enough to handle the battle between my immune system and the tumor cells. I was skinny as a scarecrow when I came out the other end of it, but I won. I was cured. There were no tumors, and no signs of cancer showed up in the various tests the scientist used to look for it.
Testing continued for a year, with no return... then two, then two more, and pretty soon we were at five years. During that time, more patients were tested with the drug, with the same success as was seen with me, but only if they followed my diet. Those who did not hit more hurdles and had a much more difficult recovery.
The scientist gives me an introduction that ends in "living proof of the cure," and I realize it's time for me to walk out onto the stage. I step forward out of the wings onto the brightly lit floor. Halfway across the stage, standing at the podium, is the familiar man who treated me, wearing a suit and tie instead of his white lab coat and scrubs. Behind him, staring from the other wing, I see his assistant, standing with his hands in his pockets.
As I step out of the wing, he pulls his right hand from his pocket, points a gun at me, and shoots. I feel something hot and hurtful happen in my throat, right above my collar bone. Pain bursts through to the back of my neck . Blood sprays out in front of me, and I can't breathe. I can't feel my arms and legs. Everything around me seems to be moving upward, and I realize I'm falling down.
Here is where the dream has always ended up until last night. Last night, it got more graphic. It was weird.
There is another shot, and a red stain blooms across the front of the assistant's white shirt, right under his nerdy red bow tie. He looks down at his chest in surprise.
The scientist's look of pride and almost parental affection morphs into a shocked, horrified stare and gasp. He stammers, then runs toward me. I feel a jarring pain in my neck as my fall stops momentarily, then I'm sliding sideways instead of falling straight down. I have a weird sense of almost but not quite nausea. It's like motion sickness, but I don't think I'm going to throw up. It's almost more in my chest, and almost like there's a weight on it.
The scientist runs toward me, and as he approaches I see a red spray hit his white shirt. I have the bizarre, disjointed concern that he's not going to get his deposit back on it, and then everything becomes so blurry that I can't see. I hear someone shouting that an ambulance is needed, and feel someone's hands touching my throat. Something cold and hard is pressed up against the inside of my throat, and I am suddenly again able to suck air into my lungs. I still can't move anything, and my vision is worthless. I hear another voice say that it looks like "it" came out through the spine. That is followed by, "Hold her head still."
That's where it ends.
I woke this morning with a slightly sore throat. It got better right away when I had my coffee, but until I got something to drink, it kind of ached like a sore muscle. Along with that, I was just plain tired. I really had a tough time coming out of the sleep state, even with my annoying, beeping alarm right next to my head. I hit snooze twice, but didn't dream any more. I dozed off just enough that it felt like my snooze was going off right after the original alarm. I've been tired all day, too, almost like I didn't sleep properly last night, even though I didn't wake up the whole night.
I find some of the details of this really weird, like the cure itself. I can remember the feeling of "duh, why didn't we think of this before?" in the scientist's lab when using drugs to cure herpes and other blistering viruses reversed the growth of various forms of cancer. I had the feeling that the connection had been right there, with many clues leading to it, but no one had pursued the research simply because other avenues were more popular.
Dreaming about getting shot through the throat is really creepy and weird. The feeling of suffocation was terrifyingly familiar, as I grew up with severe childhood asthma and more than once almost did suffocate.
The conspiracy thing creeped me out, too. I've heard and seen discussions among people who suspect or believe that pharmaceutical companies have a cure for cancer, but are withholding it from the public because they make more money on chemo and radiation. I don't have a position on that, really. I've looked into it, and there is some odd stuff on both sides of the argument. I don't trust non-pharmaceutical healers any more than I do druggists. After all, they have a financial stake in their end of the medical spectrum, just as much as anyone else involved. Still, it's a scary and compelling thought.
In waking life, I've never had full blown cancer, but I've had cells which were becoming cancer. I found out I had precancerous cells when I was pregnant with my son. I am now missing a chunk of my cervix, have scar tissue, and make sure to get the proper tests regularly, but nothing has shown up during the 13 years since then, so now it's just a habit. Colon cancer runs in my dad's side of the family, but only among smokers, and that divider is absolute. I don't smoke, and I never will, and that's why.
This dream has really made me think.. I know from talking to the gyno that the HPV virus, a herpes virus that causes genital warts, does lead to cancerous tumors on the cervix due to DNA mutation which takes place in the warts. (I don't have HPV. I've had negative tests over and over. Not everyone who gets cervical cancer has the virus.) I know from reading that there is actually a pretty wide variety of viruses which are of the herpes family. Chicken pox is a herpes virus. So is the virus that causes lip sores, and it's not the same virus that causes genital herpes. I've also read that mononucleosis (the kissing disease that gives you a sore throat and makes you feel extremely exhausted) is related to herpes.
I suppose it would make sense that if one herpes virus causes DNA mutations which make tumors form, others might also do the same. If so, there are enough variations to account for many if not all of the various forms of cancer that exist in the modern human population. I wonder if, 20 years from now when the first people to get the chicken pox vaccine hit their 40s, we'll see a generational reduction in the occurrence of some cancers, as many of them will never have suffered the pox. It makes as much sense as the pollution theories that link cancer to the intake of various foreign substances labeled carcinogens (like cigarette smoke or burnt food). I wonder if anyone has ever looked into the idea.
It's a Gas, Gas, Gas
I'm driving my son to school. I'm thinking about the morning's schedule, and also about his ridiculous homework assignment for the week .
This morning, I have to drop him off, go home, throw my work clothes on, and leave so I can get to work in half an hour, because I am actually starting my shift on the half hour, something no one ever does at my workplace. I know my boss did it to screw with me, though, so I didn't say anything to her, but just took it in stride. That I am not upset about it will totally piss her off.
The homework assignment, though... that has me upset. My son is assigned to watch a political movie that we can't find online, the library doesn't have, and the video store in our neighborhood has to order out. It's a fictional story called, "Having My Own." Also, the summaries and lesson plans about the movie which I just got done reading online have me up in arms about it. It looks like the school is trying to indoctrinate the kids with the idea that having personal possessions is morally wrong, and they should instead consider everything to be public domain, including their own lives. I'm going to have to go talk to the teacher about the movie before class, then drive home and get ready. That is going to leave me 5 minutes to get ready before I have to go to work, but I've gotten ready in 5 minutes before.
As we near the corner where we make our first turn, there is a thunderous boom, as if someone set off a dud firecracker. Immediately after that is a rumbling sound accompanied by major shaking of the ground. I actually watch the road in front of me ripple like waves in water. The pavement cracks up and chunks of it disappear into the ground. Instinctively, I put the van in park as the bumps and jolts jostle us all over the place. Then, I grab my son's hand. His eyes are as wide as they can get. I can tell he's shocked and horrified. I'm pretty sure the expression on my face isn't helping. I'm terrified of earthquakes.
There is nothing we can do. We're shaking too hard to have any kind of controlled movement, and we don't have any idea what is going to happen. There isn't some shelter to go to where we can get away from the earthquake, like you can with a tornado.
The shaking makes it hard to hold onto my son's hand, but I do not let go. I tell him to just hang on, that it will stop soon. Behind me, there is a crashing sound, and I turn my head to look . The house on the corner has fallen into a hole in the ground that was not there before. It looks like the house in the movie Poltergeist, crumpling up and getting sucked into a void at the end, except that it stopped at the crumpling up stage. God, I hop no one was home!
There is a crack coming from the hole. It's not headed toward us, but I throw the van into drive and try to move it forward anyway. I have to let go of my son to do that. I don't want to, but I need both hands to drive, and I need to get us away from that hole.
We move forward a couple of yards, but the shaking makes it really hard to steer. We get thrown to the side. I feel the whole van come up off of the pavement as the ground launches us upward. Then, we slam back down with two tires up on the curb. I keep driving. I can see in the rear-view mirror that the crack has completely crossed the street behind us, and it's getting wider. Traffic that was back there is making u-turns and driving the other way to escape it. The other side of the crack is also lower than our side. All I can see of the cars is the top of the windows and the roof of each as it turns. The city bus is taller. I can see the driver's frightened, determined face as he turns the bus around, running over the curb in the process.
In that split second I took to glance in the rearview mirror, another crack has opened in the pavement in front of us, this one along the center of the lane I'm in. I barely manage to steer around it before moving on, but it keeps opening and remains parallel to us. I drive over the curb and through the yard of the house on the next corner, onto a side street. As I do, I see smoke coming from the crack, and there is another boom. Something inside tells me this isn't an ordinary Earthquake.
I punch the pedal and drive through the neighborhood, speeding away from the shaking ground. The further away I get, the less shaking there is, until finally we stop in a location where we can feel the car shimmying, but the ground beneath us isn't bucking and rolling any more. I look back, and there are huge, billowing clouds of smoke behind us, coming from the direction of the gas station/convenience store where I work . There is a third boom, this one sounding almost cartoonish, and now I can see flames. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the clock . It is not yet time for the school to even open its doors. The entire experience so far has taken all of two minutes.
People are coming out of their houses. A man in pajama pants, a bathrobe (but no shirt), and slippers approaches my car. I roll down the window and tell him how and why we ended up in his neighborhood. He says, "You don't know what's going on, do you?" and I answer "no, but I think there is a fire."
He tells me that the gas stations are blowing up. First (my station), then (the station across the street), and it sounds like now (the station on the opposite corner) just blew too. The first explosion took out a natural gas line, and they're worried about (the three gas stations down the street) going up next. The fire from (my station) has spread to (the neighboring business) and is starting to ignite the houses in the neighborhood. They've all ready called every fire station in the metro area to fight the fire.
My son says "What about our apartment? Can the fire reach that far?"
I tell him we can't worry about that right now. We're alive, and we're safe, and that's all that matters. I say that if that many firefighters show up, they will probably be able to contain the fire. They aren't going to let it spread, because it's too close to the military base. The soldiers will probably be called to help fight it. In my mind, though, I am thinking I may be wrong. A fire like that could spread quickly through the neighborhood, and they may have their hands full just trying to keep it away from the base. I can tell my son has his doubts, too. It's all over his face.
I remind him that at least none of us are caught in the fire. We're safe, and we (and his father, who is at work) can get further away whenever we want.
The man's wife comes outside with a portable radio. I can hear the DJ saying that my son's school is canceled for the day due to risk of the fire spreading, and for one stupid second I panic about having to call off work ... then I remember I don't have work because my workplace has exploded.
Oh, my God. My work place has exploded. There was probably no warning, either. My co-workers are probably dead. It's Monday. I think about who was there, and realize that if they didn't get away before the explosion, the two totally single moms I work with are both dead. Who is going to take care of their children?
The hitting home of the thought must show on my face, because the guy asks me if I am ok . I look at him, and tell him that I work at (my station.) Then it hits my son. He looks at me and says, "You could have been there." I can see the horror rising in his demeanor, and I try to calm him down, but the tears hit anyway.
At the same time, the man turns to his wife, and says, "She works there. She's one of them." I don't know what he means, but his expression suddenly hardens into deadly seriousness. He reaches into the van, as if to grab my shirt. I shove his arm back out, throw the van into drive, and speed away. The man actually chases me for several yards before giving up. I can see him pull a cell phone out of the pocket of his robe and start dialing. I turn the corner and pull out onto the main road, driving away from the neighborhood.
I call my husband's number and leave him a voicemail stating that no matter what, he is not to go home until he hears from me, that I don't know what's going on, but (my station) just blew up and a neighbor just called me "one of them" and tried to grab me. I call my parents and tell them about the incident, and that my son and I are headed their way. I call the hub of my social group, with whom I've been hanging out since college. I tell her what I've witnessed, and advise her to get her family, all of their meds, and their important papers (things she can grab quickly) out of the house and out of the neighborhood NOW. Before hanging up, I tell her about what the man said, and that I don't know what is happening, but something is very wrong. I tell her where I am going, that my son is with me and my husband is not, and ask that after she has her family to safety, she check on him. She agrees. She tells me she is glad to hear from me and know that I was not at work .
I call another very close friend, also a hub of another social circle that kind of overlaps with the first one, and go through the same discussion, though she lives a few miles away from the neighborhood, while my first phone call lives close to me.
I call my husband's mom and leave a message letting her know that we are all ok, and none of us were in the fire.
Looking at the clock, I can see that only another two minutes has passed. We have to pull over into a parking lot to let emergency crews drive past us toward the fire. They are coming down both sides of the divided road... during rush "hour" (which lasts half of the day in our neighborhood). I take a moment to once again try to calm my son, reminding him that we're safe, I wasn't in the fire, and the important thing now is to stay levelheaded and deal with the situation as it is. He looks shaky and teary-eyed, but he nods and says ok . He asks if we're going to Grandma's, and I say yes. He asks why the man called me "one of them" and I admit I have no idea, but that it bothers me enough that we're getting out of town until we find out. Then, the emergency crew is past, and we get back on the road.
We start driving. We are away from the fire, and from the nearby gas stations, heading out of town. Behind us, I hear a succession of small explosions, and a whooshing sound. It occurs to me that this is probably a natural gas explosion. At the same time, the whooshing sound gets really loud, and something slams into us from behind. Our van is picked up and thrown forward. We land on the flat bed of a semi that is in front of us, as if it were transporting us. The semi is still moving. It swerves, and we go flying sideways off of it and onto the grass. The whole time, I'm still trying to steer. When we land, I stomp the pedal to the floor and drive back up onto the road, passing several crashed vehicles until I find an open space. I can feel that there is damage to the van, but I keep driving. There is one more popping boom behind us. I hope my friend has gotten her family out of the house.
I grab my phone and dial my husband's number again. This time, he's on break and he answers. I tell him what has happened. I tell him to leave work and get out of town. I tell him a place where I'll meet him outside of the metro area. I tell him he needs to let our friend know he is all right, because she's going to check on him if he doesn't. I start to tell him I've called his mom, when there is another explosion behind us. This time, I think it may be someone's car blowing up. My husband hears the sound come across the phone, and he asks what is happening.
This is where I woke. At the same moment, I had a feeling of relief that stuff was not blowing up at his location.
In real life, my son has had no such ridiculous school assignment. So far as I know, there is no such movie, either. Homework assignments are sometimes made which require last minute acquisition of materials which are a challenge for us to get, and that does frustrate me.
I have not recently been scheduled to go to work on the half hour, and probably won't, but it's not that odd for it to happen, and it used to be a regular thing. The three gas stations on the same corner are real, and so is one down the street that I dreamed about, but it's a mile or more away, not that close. The rest of the stations were just part of the dream.
If something like that happened, it would take longer than two minutes for the news to pick it up and start reporting on it, and if we landed on and slid off of a flatbed semi like that in my big old van, we'd probably roll.
About half an hour after I got up this morning, there was thunder and rain. I'm wondering if there was thunder in the night. Maybe the sound of that inspired the dream. On the other hand, it could be that I've dreamed this because of the upheaval in my life.
There is a lot of stress right now related to work, family, distance, and pressure my son is dealing with at school. In real life, my boss is kind of gaslighting me. What she doesn't realize is that I know it's happening. I've noticed that my lack of response to it is really pissing her off, and I'm kind of having fun with that. In the meantime, though, she is being rotten in other ways I'm going to get into here.
I think the detail about the homework was inspired by some real life stuff that is happening there. There is an undercurrent of political agenda, (mostly union related) but nothing I can directly confront, and I do find it threatening and annoying. However, I am able to discuss school reality versus real life reality with my son, and help him to come to rational, logical conclusions about what he is seeing and hearing there.
Anyway, I must have tensed up in response to the shaking... I feel like I had a workout last night, and possibly like I have a mild case of whiplash. Darned fibromyalgia!
This morning, I have to drop him off, go home, throw my work clothes on, and leave so I can get to work in half an hour, because I am actually starting my shift on the half hour, something no one ever does at my workplace. I know my boss did it to screw with me, though, so I didn't say anything to her, but just took it in stride. That I am not upset about it will totally piss her off.
The homework assignment, though... that has me upset. My son is assigned to watch a political movie that we can't find online, the library doesn't have, and the video store in our neighborhood has to order out. It's a fictional story called, "Having My Own." Also, the summaries and lesson plans about the movie which I just got done reading online have me up in arms about it. It looks like the school is trying to indoctrinate the kids with the idea that having personal possessions is morally wrong, and they should instead consider everything to be public domain, including their own lives. I'm going to have to go talk to the teacher about the movie before class, then drive home and get ready. That is going to leave me 5 minutes to get ready before I have to go to work, but I've gotten ready in 5 minutes before.
As we near the corner where we make our first turn, there is a thunderous boom, as if someone set off a dud firecracker. Immediately after that is a rumbling sound accompanied by major shaking of the ground. I actually watch the road in front of me ripple like waves in water. The pavement cracks up and chunks of it disappear into the ground. Instinctively, I put the van in park as the bumps and jolts jostle us all over the place. Then, I grab my son's hand. His eyes are as wide as they can get. I can tell he's shocked and horrified. I'm pretty sure the expression on my face isn't helping. I'm terrified of earthquakes.
There is nothing we can do. We're shaking too hard to have any kind of controlled movement, and we don't have any idea what is going to happen. There isn't some shelter to go to where we can get away from the earthquake, like you can with a tornado.
The shaking makes it hard to hold onto my son's hand, but I do not let go. I tell him to just hang on, that it will stop soon. Behind me, there is a crashing sound, and I turn my head to look . The house on the corner has fallen into a hole in the ground that was not there before. It looks like the house in the movie Poltergeist, crumpling up and getting sucked into a void at the end, except that it stopped at the crumpling up stage. God, I hop no one was home!
There is a crack coming from the hole. It's not headed toward us, but I throw the van into drive and try to move it forward anyway. I have to let go of my son to do that. I don't want to, but I need both hands to drive, and I need to get us away from that hole.
We move forward a couple of yards, but the shaking makes it really hard to steer. We get thrown to the side. I feel the whole van come up off of the pavement as the ground launches us upward. Then, we slam back down with two tires up on the curb. I keep driving. I can see in the rear-view mirror that the crack has completely crossed the street behind us, and it's getting wider. Traffic that was back there is making u-turns and driving the other way to escape it. The other side of the crack is also lower than our side. All I can see of the cars is the top of the windows and the roof of each as it turns. The city bus is taller. I can see the driver's frightened, determined face as he turns the bus around, running over the curb in the process.
In that split second I took to glance in the rearview mirror, another crack has opened in the pavement in front of us, this one along the center of the lane I'm in. I barely manage to steer around it before moving on, but it keeps opening and remains parallel to us. I drive over the curb and through the yard of the house on the next corner, onto a side street. As I do, I see smoke coming from the crack, and there is another boom. Something inside tells me this isn't an ordinary Earthquake.
I punch the pedal and drive through the neighborhood, speeding away from the shaking ground. The further away I get, the less shaking there is, until finally we stop in a location where we can feel the car shimmying, but the ground beneath us isn't bucking and rolling any more. I look back, and there are huge, billowing clouds of smoke behind us, coming from the direction of the gas station/convenience store where I work . There is a third boom, this one sounding almost cartoonish, and now I can see flames. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the clock . It is not yet time for the school to even open its doors. The entire experience so far has taken all of two minutes.
People are coming out of their houses. A man in pajama pants, a bathrobe (but no shirt), and slippers approaches my car. I roll down the window and tell him how and why we ended up in his neighborhood. He says, "You don't know what's going on, do you?" and I answer "no, but I think there is a fire."
He tells me that the gas stations are blowing up. First (my station), then (the station across the street), and it sounds like now (the station on the opposite corner) just blew too. The first explosion took out a natural gas line, and they're worried about (the three gas stations down the street) going up next. The fire from (my station) has spread to (the neighboring business) and is starting to ignite the houses in the neighborhood. They've all ready called every fire station in the metro area to fight the fire.
My son says "What about our apartment? Can the fire reach that far?"
I tell him we can't worry about that right now. We're alive, and we're safe, and that's all that matters. I say that if that many firefighters show up, they will probably be able to contain the fire. They aren't going to let it spread, because it's too close to the military base. The soldiers will probably be called to help fight it. In my mind, though, I am thinking I may be wrong. A fire like that could spread quickly through the neighborhood, and they may have their hands full just trying to keep it away from the base. I can tell my son has his doubts, too. It's all over his face.
I remind him that at least none of us are caught in the fire. We're safe, and we (and his father, who is at work) can get further away whenever we want.
The man's wife comes outside with a portable radio. I can hear the DJ saying that my son's school is canceled for the day due to risk of the fire spreading, and for one stupid second I panic about having to call off work ... then I remember I don't have work because my workplace has exploded.
Oh, my God. My work place has exploded. There was probably no warning, either. My co-workers are probably dead. It's Monday. I think about who was there, and realize that if they didn't get away before the explosion, the two totally single moms I work with are both dead. Who is going to take care of their children?
The hitting home of the thought must show on my face, because the guy asks me if I am ok . I look at him, and tell him that I work at (my station.) Then it hits my son. He looks at me and says, "You could have been there." I can see the horror rising in his demeanor, and I try to calm him down, but the tears hit anyway.
At the same time, the man turns to his wife, and says, "She works there. She's one of them." I don't know what he means, but his expression suddenly hardens into deadly seriousness. He reaches into the van, as if to grab my shirt. I shove his arm back out, throw the van into drive, and speed away. The man actually chases me for several yards before giving up. I can see him pull a cell phone out of the pocket of his robe and start dialing. I turn the corner and pull out onto the main road, driving away from the neighborhood.
I call my husband's number and leave him a voicemail stating that no matter what, he is not to go home until he hears from me, that I don't know what's going on, but (my station) just blew up and a neighbor just called me "one of them" and tried to grab me. I call my parents and tell them about the incident, and that my son and I are headed their way. I call the hub of my social group, with whom I've been hanging out since college. I tell her what I've witnessed, and advise her to get her family, all of their meds, and their important papers (things she can grab quickly) out of the house and out of the neighborhood NOW. Before hanging up, I tell her about what the man said, and that I don't know what is happening, but something is very wrong. I tell her where I am going, that my son is with me and my husband is not, and ask that after she has her family to safety, she check on him. She agrees. She tells me she is glad to hear from me and know that I was not at work .
I call another very close friend, also a hub of another social circle that kind of overlaps with the first one, and go through the same discussion, though she lives a few miles away from the neighborhood, while my first phone call lives close to me.
I call my husband's mom and leave a message letting her know that we are all ok, and none of us were in the fire.
Looking at the clock, I can see that only another two minutes has passed. We have to pull over into a parking lot to let emergency crews drive past us toward the fire. They are coming down both sides of the divided road... during rush "hour" (which lasts half of the day in our neighborhood). I take a moment to once again try to calm my son, reminding him that we're safe, I wasn't in the fire, and the important thing now is to stay levelheaded and deal with the situation as it is. He looks shaky and teary-eyed, but he nods and says ok . He asks if we're going to Grandma's, and I say yes. He asks why the man called me "one of them" and I admit I have no idea, but that it bothers me enough that we're getting out of town until we find out. Then, the emergency crew is past, and we get back on the road.
We start driving. We are away from the fire, and from the nearby gas stations, heading out of town. Behind us, I hear a succession of small explosions, and a whooshing sound. It occurs to me that this is probably a natural gas explosion. At the same time, the whooshing sound gets really loud, and something slams into us from behind. Our van is picked up and thrown forward. We land on the flat bed of a semi that is in front of us, as if it were transporting us. The semi is still moving. It swerves, and we go flying sideways off of it and onto the grass. The whole time, I'm still trying to steer. When we land, I stomp the pedal to the floor and drive back up onto the road, passing several crashed vehicles until I find an open space. I can feel that there is damage to the van, but I keep driving. There is one more popping boom behind us. I hope my friend has gotten her family out of the house.
I grab my phone and dial my husband's number again. This time, he's on break and he answers. I tell him what has happened. I tell him to leave work and get out of town. I tell him a place where I'll meet him outside of the metro area. I tell him he needs to let our friend know he is all right, because she's going to check on him if he doesn't. I start to tell him I've called his mom, when there is another explosion behind us. This time, I think it may be someone's car blowing up. My husband hears the sound come across the phone, and he asks what is happening.
This is where I woke. At the same moment, I had a feeling of relief that stuff was not blowing up at his location.
In real life, my son has had no such ridiculous school assignment. So far as I know, there is no such movie, either. Homework assignments are sometimes made which require last minute acquisition of materials which are a challenge for us to get, and that does frustrate me.
I have not recently been scheduled to go to work on the half hour, and probably won't, but it's not that odd for it to happen, and it used to be a regular thing. The three gas stations on the same corner are real, and so is one down the street that I dreamed about, but it's a mile or more away, not that close. The rest of the stations were just part of the dream.
If something like that happened, it would take longer than two minutes for the news to pick it up and start reporting on it, and if we landed on and slid off of a flatbed semi like that in my big old van, we'd probably roll.
About half an hour after I got up this morning, there was thunder and rain. I'm wondering if there was thunder in the night. Maybe the sound of that inspired the dream. On the other hand, it could be that I've dreamed this because of the upheaval in my life.
There is a lot of stress right now related to work, family, distance, and pressure my son is dealing with at school. In real life, my boss is kind of gaslighting me. What she doesn't realize is that I know it's happening. I've noticed that my lack of response to it is really pissing her off, and I'm kind of having fun with that. In the meantime, though, she is being rotten in other ways I'm going to get into here.
I think the detail about the homework was inspired by some real life stuff that is happening there. There is an undercurrent of political agenda, (mostly union related) but nothing I can directly confront, and I do find it threatening and annoying. However, I am able to discuss school reality versus real life reality with my son, and help him to come to rational, logical conclusions about what he is seeing and hearing there.
Anyway, I must have tensed up in response to the shaking... I feel like I had a workout last night, and possibly like I have a mild case of whiplash. Darned fibromyalgia!
Through the Wall
I'm not at home. I'm in a room with wood paneling on the walls. I'm supposed to be sleeping there, but I'm nervous. There are rumors about this place.
I didn't want to be here, and I'm doing this under protest. I've been pushed into it because things come after me, and "they" want to find the thing that is here.
I can't even bring myself to close my eyes. I know it's coming. I might as well just be ready.
I'm terrified of what is going to happen, but I'm also angry. I shouldn't have to do this.
My thoughts are interrupted with a line of deeper darkness opens up in the wall, and a set of claws pokes through it. I watch and listen in horror as the thing that is here pulls reality in that space open like a curtain, creating a dark hole. There is a ticking sound as it approaches. It lets out a loud, angry moan as it comes through toward me.
This one was a challenge. I couldn't just get the experience across with a gif because there was more to the fear than just the appearance of the thing in the wall (and also my drawing is nowhere near as creepy as the thing was!) I don't have much in the way of editing software, though. This was made in G.I.M.P. and windows media, with freeware sounds added from Soundbible's Royalty Free Sounds pages
I actually had the dream last week. It's taken me this long to get from an original sketch (really crappy) and jotted notes to this blog post.
I didn't want to be here, and I'm doing this under protest. I've been pushed into it because things come after me, and "they" want to find the thing that is here.
I can't even bring myself to close my eyes. I know it's coming. I might as well just be ready.
I'm terrified of what is going to happen, but I'm also angry. I shouldn't have to do this.
My thoughts are interrupted with a line of deeper darkness opens up in the wall, and a set of claws pokes through it. I watch and listen in horror as the thing that is here pulls reality in that space open like a curtain, creating a dark hole. There is a ticking sound as it approaches. It lets out a loud, angry moan as it comes through toward me.
This one was a challenge. I couldn't just get the experience across with a gif because there was more to the fear than just the appearance of the thing in the wall (and also my drawing is nowhere near as creepy as the thing was!) I don't have much in the way of editing software, though. This was made in G.I.M.P. and windows media, with freeware sounds added from Soundbible's Royalty Free Sounds pages
I actually had the dream last week. It's taken me this long to get from an original sketch (really crappy) and jotted notes to this blog post.
Pliable Stalker
This one is another regular character of my nightmares, but fortunately, I haven't seen it much lately.
It's really hard to fight or get away from. Its long arms are very flexible, can get longer and skinnier, bigger or smaller, and can re-shape themselves to fit into any little crevice or hole. If I lock a door, it just reaches into the keyhole and unlocks it. If I run, it stretches and runs faster than me. It will catch up with me, run beside me, and grin like mad.
If I try to fight back by physical means, I find myself wrapped up in those arms, with the fingertips becoming more solid and digging into my ribs like knives while I'm bitten around the hands, face, neck, and shoulders.
Sometimes, the glow that shows from inside of him made those bites burn like fire.Other times, there was no heat, but that glow lit up everything around him, so I couldn't use darkness to hide. Sometimes it was as though there was blood all over him.
If I'm having a borderline lucid dream, I can escape by flying away, though the arms stretch after me. There is a limit to the length it can achieve.
Sometimes, I get to the point of lucid where I know I can defy the laws of physics, but still don't realize I'm dreaming (weird, I know but happens to me a lot) and I can use "magic" to kill it, but even with that lucidity, anything related to fire doesn't hurt it. Instead, I fly up in the air and shout "light," and a ball of light will shoot from my hands, grow as it goes, and engulf the thing in brightness until I can't see it. There is always this ragged Godzilla kind of scream from inside the light, and then it disappears, leaving behind scorch marks and blood.
I used to dream about this thing all the time, though less frequently now, with the setting often being some unfamiliar building. Not knowing the territory made it harder to run away, and if the dream is not at least somewhat lucid, I am generally awakened by the pain of being bitten, often to find that the pain is actually real life sore muscles or joints. I suspect that this is one of the things my subconscious made up in the dream state to explain the arthritis and fibromyalgia pain I generally just ignore under waking circumstances... in which case, a demonic tormentor seems perfectly logical to me.
It's really hard to fight or get away from. Its long arms are very flexible, can get longer and skinnier, bigger or smaller, and can re-shape themselves to fit into any little crevice or hole. If I lock a door, it just reaches into the keyhole and unlocks it. If I run, it stretches and runs faster than me. It will catch up with me, run beside me, and grin like mad.
 |
| "Hello. Would you like to stay for dinner?" |
If I try to fight back by physical means, I find myself wrapped up in those arms, with the fingertips becoming more solid and digging into my ribs like knives while I'm bitten around the hands, face, neck, and shoulders.
Sometimes, the glow that shows from inside of him made those bites burn like fire.Other times, there was no heat, but that glow lit up everything around him, so I couldn't use darkness to hide. Sometimes it was as though there was blood all over him.
If I'm having a borderline lucid dream, I can escape by flying away, though the arms stretch after me. There is a limit to the length it can achieve.
Sometimes, I get to the point of lucid where I know I can defy the laws of physics, but still don't realize I'm dreaming (weird, I know but happens to me a lot) and I can use "magic" to kill it, but even with that lucidity, anything related to fire doesn't hurt it. Instead, I fly up in the air and shout "light," and a ball of light will shoot from my hands, grow as it goes, and engulf the thing in brightness until I can't see it. There is always this ragged Godzilla kind of scream from inside the light, and then it disappears, leaving behind scorch marks and blood.
I used to dream about this thing all the time, though less frequently now, with the setting often being some unfamiliar building. Not knowing the territory made it harder to run away, and if the dream is not at least somewhat lucid, I am generally awakened by the pain of being bitten, often to find that the pain is actually real life sore muscles or joints. I suspect that this is one of the things my subconscious made up in the dream state to explain the arthritis and fibromyalgia pain I generally just ignore under waking circumstances... in which case, a demonic tormentor seems perfectly logical to me.
Faces in the night
Sometimes my sleep is just restless for no apparent reason, and I have a kind of nightmare that doesn't go anywhere. Instead, I briefly see huge, still images in the dark, experience short, scary scenes, and am awakened by loud phantom noises.
The noises are often loud banging noises, as if someone is rapidly knocking on the side of my dresser really hard. Other times, I hear a panicked voice screaming something over and over, usually a protest of some kind but sometimes my name. Sometimes, instead, it's some kind of hysterical rambling in which the speech is too fast for me to understand most of the words. Once in a while, I hear a loud boom, like a bomb has gone off, or it'll be the sound of metal crashing into metal and glass breaking. That one I can identify as a remnant of a past trauma - as a child, I was in a car accident with my Mom. She was severely injured, and almost died in the car while we were waiting for the EMS to arrive.
The still images can be anything from a scary face or monster to strange landscapes. They are only there for a few seconds before I am on to the next thing, or awake, depending on how startling the image is. One recurring image is a huge reddish monster face with horrible, pointy teeth. It often appears closer to my feet, and if I wake from seeing it, I usually also jerk my knees up to my chest as I wake.Another is the face of a long-dead relative (who I never met - this is a face from a photo) seen just by itself, as tall as a person, right next to my bed, and looking horribly angry. From the stories I've heard, she was psychotic and extremely abusive of others.
The short scenes are worse. Those usually involve something coming after me, something trying to bite and/or eat me, or something doing something terrible to someone I know. These are always over from start to finish before I get a chance to respond. Usually, they wake me up, and most of the time, they're accompanied by one of those loud noises. There are a few that are recurring scenes or themes. One, I've come to think of as looming faces.
These are usually scary human or monster faces that come at me out of the dark. Sometimes that wakes me. If not, I usually get bitten. Often, the faces are making noises, ranging from an odd whine or growl to nonsense syllables.
One that happens a lot is a rapid, repeating "Na-na-na" that gets louder as the face gets closer to me. It's spoken in a sharp tone, as an adult would do with "no-no-no" to a little kid about to hurt herself on something she's not supposed to touch.
Another is faces that change after they appear, seeming to melt, or go through rapid color changes. Sometimes they turn into other faces, from human to monster, or from monster to nastier monster. 
The weirdest short scene dream, a rare one that really messes up the rest of my night, is the blasting dream. It starts with this huge booming sound like thunder, close by but not right next to me. Immediately following the boom, everything in my sight is ripped apart and starts flying toward me. That includes people if the scene includes any. As everything gets close to me, I see smoke and sometimes flames behind the flying debris.
I wake when the blast hits me. It always feel like when you accidentally belly-flop into a pool, and all of your skin smacks at once, except this is a hundred times worse. When I wake up, my skin where the nerves went off in response to the dream always feels tight and sore, like after a sunburn, for several minutes, as if I really did smack into a pool of water.
I think these dreams are a product of high levels of stress, and sometimes of other normal causes of sleep disturbances (like noises outside, illness, or pain from fibromyalgia) because the pattern of them happening seems to follow times when those factors are in play.
Surgery (2 gifs)
I run a cash register at work. There is one customer who comes in daily, buys the same thing every day, and insists on paying only at my register, at least when I am there. Seriously, he'll wait in line to pay at my register when the other cashier is open and waiting, and even if she calls him over to her register, he won't move out of my line. He pretends to not hear her. If I go into the back room to hide from him, he'll wait over by the coffee until I come back out, just so he can pay at my register.
This guy really, really creeps me out. It isn't just the insistence on contact. Different customers at our place do prefer specific cashiers, often because one of us may have their orders memorized, sometimes because they like our sense of humor, etc.
This guy is different. He doesn't talk, doesn't smile, and moves with a measured, meticulous care in everything he does, right down to folding his receipt and putting it into the pocket of his green scrubs. And he doesn't wear his facility ID when he comes into the store. He's the only one in scrubs without a facility ID. Everyone else who comes in wearing scrubs has a photo ID card on a lanyard or a name tag pinned to their chests for some kind of medical or dental facility. Then again, everyone else has scrubs with brighter colors on them, too. It makes me wonder what the guy does. Is he a surgeon (who might not wear a tag because it could fall into his patient?)
Worst of all, though his movements are insanely slow and careful, he does not watch what he is doing. He stares at my face the whole time he's at my register. This is not like other men, who make eye contact, smile, and sometimes harmlessly flirt. His face is nearly expressionless. I almost feel analyzed by that stare. If this guy isn't a shrink, he's kind of scary. If he is, he's being really rude. Either way, I guess he bugs me even more than I thought. He showed up in my nightmares.
I've come out from behind the register to keep the coffee stocked up while my co-worker runs to the restroom and my boss goes to the shed for supplies. We just had a big rush of customers come through, but now there is no one in the store except for us, and I'm the only one on the sales floor. Half of our pots were empty when I started. I've got two down, four to go. I load them up and set them brewing.
I'm about to turn around to return to the register when something hits the back of my head, really, really hard. Holy crap, it hurts! I think my co-worker has hit me, and turn to see why, but it isn't her. The last thing I see before passing out is that creepy customer in the dingy looking green scrubs. For once, his face has an expression. He looks surprised.
I'm on my back. My hands are tied above my head, and my feet are tied beyond my line of sight. I try to lift my head to see, but I can't because there is a strap holding it in place.
I'm laying on something moderately soft. It almost feels like a massage table or a thick gym mat. It's wide and stable enough that when I wiggle, it stays put. A quick glance around the me shows little. The room is small, maybe only 8 feet wide by twelve feet long. There is no window, just a door, a light overhead, and a lamp down by my feet. Hanging on the wall nearby is a lacy white dress.
Finally, I notice the creepy scrub guy. He is standing next to the dress. To the scrubs, he's added a cap, a mouth cover, and gloves. He sees me awake, and approaches. When he comes up next to me, I see that there is also some kind of tray table. I can't get a good look at it because the strap keeps me from turning my head.
He lifts something up. At first, it looks like he's holding a bag of water. He moves his hand, and the bag jiggles like unflavored gelatin. I am confused. Why is he showing me gelatin?
He points at me, then at the bag of gelatin. I still don't know what the heck he means. I must look as scared and confused as I am, because he jabs his finger at me again, directly at my chest, and then points again to the bag. He picks something up off of the tray table. It makes a clinking noise. Then, he shows it to me.
He's holding a scalpel. He lays it in the other hand with the bag. He points at himself, then at the scalpel, the bag, and my chest. Probable understanding dawns on me. I think he is telling me that is a breast implant, and he's going to cut me open and put it into my breast. He notices the change in expression on my face. He picks up another implant, and holds the two together up next to his chest, and nods. Then, he puts them back on the table.
He doesn't put down the scalpel. He doesn't pick anything else up, either. He just takes the scalpel in his right hand, and puts his left hand on my left breast, the side facing him.
This is when I realize that I am naked, and that he is really going to cut into my body with that scalpel. It doesn't look like he's going to knock me out first, either. I'm not sure which thought is more horrifying... knowing he plans to cut me without anesthetic, or the thought of being unconscious again with him in the room. I start begging him not to do this.
I tell him I don't want bigger breasts. I don't want surgery. I don't want to be cut open. He just looks at me.
I ask why he is doing this. He points at me, then at the dress. Again, I am confused. He wants to give me breast implants so I'll fit into the dress? I don't get it. Then I realize... it's a lacy white dress. The back hangs down a bit further than the front. It's a lacy white dress with a train. Hanging off of the shoulder is a flowery headpiece, with a short veil. That's a wedding dress.
I start to tell him that I can't marry him, because I'm all ready married, but something inside stops me. What if he's messed up enough to hunt down and kill my husband so I'll be single? What will he do if I just tell him I don't want him? I'm tied down, and he has sharp cutting tools. I had better not piss him off.
I tell him that I have back and neck problems, that breast implants will make those worse. I ask him to please not alter my body. His eyes look amused, then he utters a thin, whispery laugh. He moves over to the dress, and with his elbow, moves it aside. Behind it is a small window. Looking through the window is one bizarre looking big red eye. The eye is almost as big as his head. He points to me, then the dress, then the eye.
I have no chance of persuading him. He's not doing this for himself. He's doing it for whatever huge, terrifying thing is on the other side of that wall. Nothing I say could change his mind. He's going to perform surgery on me while I'm awake, and then he's going to give me to that thing, whatever it is, that is so huge its eye is as big as his head. I start to realize this can't be real. I'm trying to turn my head fast, so I can wake up, but the strap prevents me. I can feel tears on my cheeks.
He returns to me and again starts maneuvering my breast. The scalpel descends, and I feel it cut into the flesh just below my nipple.
The pain is intense, sharp, pinching, and burning. I scream and pull against the bonds on my hands and feet, but they hold tight. The surgeon looks at me sternly and shakes his head.
Yeah. Sooo... I swear... next time he comes in, I'm hiding in the restroom until he leaves. O.o
This guy really, really creeps me out. It isn't just the insistence on contact. Different customers at our place do prefer specific cashiers, often because one of us may have their orders memorized, sometimes because they like our sense of humor, etc.
This guy is different. He doesn't talk, doesn't smile, and moves with a measured, meticulous care in everything he does, right down to folding his receipt and putting it into the pocket of his green scrubs. And he doesn't wear his facility ID when he comes into the store. He's the only one in scrubs without a facility ID. Everyone else who comes in wearing scrubs has a photo ID card on a lanyard or a name tag pinned to their chests for some kind of medical or dental facility. Then again, everyone else has scrubs with brighter colors on them, too. It makes me wonder what the guy does. Is he a surgeon (who might not wear a tag because it could fall into his patient?)
Worst of all, though his movements are insanely slow and careful, he does not watch what he is doing. He stares at my face the whole time he's at my register. This is not like other men, who make eye contact, smile, and sometimes harmlessly flirt. His face is nearly expressionless. I almost feel analyzed by that stare. If this guy isn't a shrink, he's kind of scary. If he is, he's being really rude. Either way, I guess he bugs me even more than I thought. He showed up in my nightmares.
I've come out from behind the register to keep the coffee stocked up while my co-worker runs to the restroom and my boss goes to the shed for supplies. We just had a big rush of customers come through, but now there is no one in the store except for us, and I'm the only one on the sales floor. Half of our pots were empty when I started. I've got two down, four to go. I load them up and set them brewing.
I'm about to turn around to return to the register when something hits the back of my head, really, really hard. Holy crap, it hurts! I think my co-worker has hit me, and turn to see why, but it isn't her. The last thing I see before passing out is that creepy customer in the dingy looking green scrubs. For once, his face has an expression. He looks surprised.
I'm on my back. My hands are tied above my head, and my feet are tied beyond my line of sight. I try to lift my head to see, but I can't because there is a strap holding it in place.
I'm laying on something moderately soft. It almost feels like a massage table or a thick gym mat. It's wide and stable enough that when I wiggle, it stays put. A quick glance around the me shows little. The room is small, maybe only 8 feet wide by twelve feet long. There is no window, just a door, a light overhead, and a lamp down by my feet. Hanging on the wall nearby is a lacy white dress.
Finally, I notice the creepy scrub guy. He is standing next to the dress. To the scrubs, he's added a cap, a mouth cover, and gloves. He sees me awake, and approaches. When he comes up next to me, I see that there is also some kind of tray table. I can't get a good look at it because the strap keeps me from turning my head.
He lifts something up. At first, it looks like he's holding a bag of water. He moves his hand, and the bag jiggles like unflavored gelatin. I am confused. Why is he showing me gelatin?
He points at me, then at the bag of gelatin. I still don't know what the heck he means. I must look as scared and confused as I am, because he jabs his finger at me again, directly at my chest, and then points again to the bag. He picks something up off of the tray table. It makes a clinking noise. Then, he shows it to me.
He's holding a scalpel. He lays it in the other hand with the bag. He points at himself, then at the scalpel, the bag, and my chest. Probable understanding dawns on me. I think he is telling me that is a breast implant, and he's going to cut me open and put it into my breast. He notices the change in expression on my face. He picks up another implant, and holds the two together up next to his chest, and nods. Then, he puts them back on the table.
He doesn't put down the scalpel. He doesn't pick anything else up, either. He just takes the scalpel in his right hand, and puts his left hand on my left breast, the side facing him.
This is when I realize that I am naked, and that he is really going to cut into my body with that scalpel. It doesn't look like he's going to knock me out first, either. I'm not sure which thought is more horrifying... knowing he plans to cut me without anesthetic, or the thought of being unconscious again with him in the room. I start begging him not to do this.
I tell him I don't want bigger breasts. I don't want surgery. I don't want to be cut open. He just looks at me.
I ask why he is doing this. He points at me, then at the dress. Again, I am confused. He wants to give me breast implants so I'll fit into the dress? I don't get it. Then I realize... it's a lacy white dress. The back hangs down a bit further than the front. It's a lacy white dress with a train. Hanging off of the shoulder is a flowery headpiece, with a short veil. That's a wedding dress.
I start to tell him that I can't marry him, because I'm all ready married, but something inside stops me. What if he's messed up enough to hunt down and kill my husband so I'll be single? What will he do if I just tell him I don't want him? I'm tied down, and he has sharp cutting tools. I had better not piss him off.
I tell him that I have back and neck problems, that breast implants will make those worse. I ask him to please not alter my body. His eyes look amused, then he utters a thin, whispery laugh. He moves over to the dress, and with his elbow, moves it aside. Behind it is a small window. Looking through the window is one bizarre looking big red eye. The eye is almost as big as his head. He points to me, then the dress, then the eye.I have no chance of persuading him. He's not doing this for himself. He's doing it for whatever huge, terrifying thing is on the other side of that wall. Nothing I say could change his mind. He's going to perform surgery on me while I'm awake, and then he's going to give me to that thing, whatever it is, that is so huge its eye is as big as his head. I start to realize this can't be real. I'm trying to turn my head fast, so I can wake up, but the strap prevents me. I can feel tears on my cheeks.
He returns to me and again starts maneuvering my breast. The scalpel descends, and I feel it cut into the flesh just below my nipple.
The pain is intense, sharp, pinching, and burning. I scream and pull against the bonds on my hands and feet, but they hold tight. The surgeon looks at me sternly and shakes his head.
Yeah. Sooo... I swear... next time he comes in, I'm hiding in the restroom until he leaves. O.o
Chased! (with GIF)
She has me trapped in the basement of an apartment building. She's been making me do all of the cooking and cleaning, and especially lots of heavy lifting, but she's been feeding me really well, too. I've become fairly strong, and kind of buff. Oddly, I rarely see her eat what I've been cooking, though she isn't losing any weight.
I don't remember how I got here, but I remember her acting really weird. She hugs me from behind a lot, and sometimes just feels my arms or pinches my butt. She also spends a lot of time just standing around and staring at nothing. She gets annoyed if she thinks I am not eating enough.
Her voice is raspy, and she speaks carefully but with a bit of a lisp and a slur, like a stroke survivor with speech difficulty. Her movements are kind of drunken-clumsy, too.
I don't know what exactly is on her mind, but I've got to get out of here. I have such a bad feeling. Aside from the obvious - I've been kidnapped and am being held against my will - there is something more about her that really, REALLY creeps me out.
I realize what it is when she decides I've reached peak muscle mass.
I'm in the middle of preparing a stew when she comes lurching into the room looking agitated. I know I haven't done anything to make her angry, but I instinctively back away from her anyway. She comes after me, arms outstretched, and grabs at me. She is drooling. Her eyes are red, like she hasn't slept for a week, and as her grasping hands latch onto my arms, she tries to bite me.
I pull away from her and run for the door. She has forgotten to close it. A half growl, half moan of anger comes from her as she shuffles after me. I slam the door in her face and lock it just as she used to lock me in. I hear her pounding on the other side of it, then she stops and I hear a key rattling in the lock . She can escape. I have to get out of here!
I am in a hallway. I run to the other end, where there is a door. Opening it, I find stairs. I run up those, and find myself in a dimly lit room. There are huge picture windows there. I can hear her shuffling down the hallway. I slam the stairway door, and try the windows, and they are locked. I grab a small wooden table, and smash it into the window. The table breaks, but the window remains in one piece.
She is on the stairs. I run from this room into another room, where there is another stairway. I run up those stairs. They go up much further than the ones from the basement. I go up several floors, turning between each flight of stairs and running up the next without thinking, until I come to another door. I can hear her on the stairs far below me.
I go out this latest door and find myself on the roof of a tall building. If she comes out that door, and I don't get off of this roof, I'm going to be trapped. I run to the edge. It's really high off of the ground.
I jump into the air. I think about moving up and forward. I have to move my arms and legs like I'm swimming to get it started, but it happens. I'm flying away from the building. I look back, and she is coming out the door. I hear a scream of rage and frustration coming from her as she runs to the edge of the roof. She jumps and falls to the sidewalk below with a loud splat. At first, I think I've escaped, but then I see her running along the ground beneath me, looking up.
I'm going to have to find something to fly over that she can't cross. I get an idea of where I am. I can see familiar landmarks. I turn and head east. Maybe I can lose her in the mountains.
My zombie nightmares aren't usually quite this one-on-one, but then again, the zombies in them aren't normally this tenacious, either. I can usually get away by getting on the other side of a closed door, or into a different location than the beginning of the dream. I'm usually not alone, and when I am, I'm usually coming from or heading back to a group. This dream really creeped me out, because I didn't have any kind of feeling related to who might still be left unscathed and ok. What if we were the only two people left in the world? What if I could never get away from her?
I don't remember how I got here, but I remember her acting really weird. She hugs me from behind a lot, and sometimes just feels my arms or pinches my butt. She also spends a lot of time just standing around and staring at nothing. She gets annoyed if she thinks I am not eating enough.
Her voice is raspy, and she speaks carefully but with a bit of a lisp and a slur, like a stroke survivor with speech difficulty. Her movements are kind of drunken-clumsy, too.
I don't know what exactly is on her mind, but I've got to get out of here. I have such a bad feeling. Aside from the obvious - I've been kidnapped and am being held against my will - there is something more about her that really, REALLY creeps me out.
I realize what it is when she decides I've reached peak muscle mass.
I'm in the middle of preparing a stew when she comes lurching into the room looking agitated. I know I haven't done anything to make her angry, but I instinctively back away from her anyway. She comes after me, arms outstretched, and grabs at me. She is drooling. Her eyes are red, like she hasn't slept for a week, and as her grasping hands latch onto my arms, she tries to bite me.
I pull away from her and run for the door. She has forgotten to close it. A half growl, half moan of anger comes from her as she shuffles after me. I slam the door in her face and lock it just as she used to lock me in. I hear her pounding on the other side of it, then she stops and I hear a key rattling in the lock . She can escape. I have to get out of here!
I am in a hallway. I run to the other end, where there is a door. Opening it, I find stairs. I run up those, and find myself in a dimly lit room. There are huge picture windows there. I can hear her shuffling down the hallway. I slam the stairway door, and try the windows, and they are locked. I grab a small wooden table, and smash it into the window. The table breaks, but the window remains in one piece.
She is on the stairs. I run from this room into another room, where there is another stairway. I run up those stairs. They go up much further than the ones from the basement. I go up several floors, turning between each flight of stairs and running up the next without thinking, until I come to another door. I can hear her on the stairs far below me.
I go out this latest door and find myself on the roof of a tall building. If she comes out that door, and I don't get off of this roof, I'm going to be trapped. I run to the edge. It's really high off of the ground.
I jump into the air. I think about moving up and forward. I have to move my arms and legs like I'm swimming to get it started, but it happens. I'm flying away from the building. I look back, and she is coming out the door. I hear a scream of rage and frustration coming from her as she runs to the edge of the roof. She jumps and falls to the sidewalk below with a loud splat. At first, I think I've escaped, but then I see her running along the ground beneath me, looking up.
I'm going to have to find something to fly over that she can't cross. I get an idea of where I am. I can see familiar landmarks. I turn and head east. Maybe I can lose her in the mountains.
My zombie nightmares aren't usually quite this one-on-one, but then again, the zombies in them aren't normally this tenacious, either. I can usually get away by getting on the other side of a closed door, or into a different location than the beginning of the dream. I'm usually not alone, and when I am, I'm usually coming from or heading back to a group. This dream really creeped me out, because I didn't have any kind of feeling related to who might still be left unscathed and ok. What if we were the only two people left in the world? What if I could never get away from her?
Him again
I'm walking along the side of a lake that is bordered by a lot of big rocks. There isn't exactly a path, just an area that is kind of more flat than the rest, made by smaller rocks and stones. There are also trees and bushes around me, and I can't see very far ahead, but I can hear the repeated sound of something patting against the water.
The foliage starts to thin out as I continue moving forward. I can see a guy up ahead skipping stones along the water. Something about him makes me mildly uneasy, like I'm hanging out with people who are going to get caught doing something unacceptable, and I'm going to be implicated by association. I seriously consider going back the way I came, just to avoid him.
Before I get the chance, he speaks up with my voice, sounding simultaneously petulant and reproachful: "Don't bother, stupid. You can't get away from me."
He flings another stone across the water. This one really goes, traveling quite far and getting several hits before sinking. It moves so fast leaving his hand that it makes a whistling noise.
For a moment, I feel scared because of what he said, but I don't get the feeling that this guy is going to physically harm me. I can tell that he is angry, but he's not acting aggressive. He's sulking. He's also right, I realize. I can't avoid him. If I walk back the way I came, he'll just be somewhere along that path, too.
As I approach more closely, I can see who he is. I've met him before. He's me, but he's not me. I used to try to keep him on a leash, but now I can't do that without destroying part of myself. I was right about my uneasy feeling. This guy gets me into trouble all the time.
I am just a few feet away from him. Now that I know who I'm dealing with, I know I need to get him to talk about what is bothering him. I start to ask, and he cuts me off with "Why are you asking questions without wanting answers?"
He turns and walks away from me. I chase after him, and he runs. The chase takes us into a little brick building. From the outside, it looks unimposing, like maybe a little storage building. Inside, it's quite large and ornate. I can't help but stop to look around. When I do, I realize I'm in the lobby of a courthouse.
He enters a room at the other end of the lobby. I follow. Inside, there is a hearing going on. The judge is me, in a powdered wig, with half-sized bifocals , a robe, and a sledgehammer as a gavel. The prosecutor is also me, in a pantsuit, with a briefcase, rectangular glasses, and a really severe looking bun in my hair. The defense attorney is me with wispy curls, a whimsical tie-dyed hippie dress, and huge, bookworm glasses. There is a "me" baliff, too, a six-foot amazonian thug with short hair, bulging muscles, and no glasses, dressed in a uniform and standing with crossed arms glaring down at the defendant, my boss. There are several versions of me sitting where a jury should be. Most of them don't stand out, but one is dressed in my work uniform, and another is completely naked, though no one seems to notice.
The judge looks up and says, "Is this the witness?" The male me says "Yes, I brought her."
Suddenly I'm on the witness stand. I can see the seats behind the participants, where my family and some of my friends are sitting. The prosecutor gets up and asks me questions about things my boss has done to me and how they have affected my family. As I talk about my experiences with her all in one sitting, I begin to understand why the male me is so upset. The jury is glaring hatefully at the defendant by the time the prosecutor says there are no more questions.
I'm sitting in the audience with my family. The judge is talking, but the boss is turned around and glaring at me. She keeps throwing little things at me, and missing. When one lands close, I realize what she is throwing is little round turds. She is laughing, even though she looks angry. When the turds don't hit me, she pulls a bunch of little knives out of her purse and starts throwing those. They are hitting my family.
I yell for the bailiff, but before she can get there, the male me jumps between my family and my boss. He has a huge club, and begins pounding her while I move my family away out of her reach. He is shouting obscenities as he strikes again and again with the club. She stabs him in the ribs with one of the little knives, but it's tiny and barely does any damage. His club, on the other hand, is leaving huge bruises and even broken bones.
I send my family into another room where they will be safe, and shout for the bailiff to stop the beating. The bailiff rushes over and grabs the male me, pulling him back just as he swings the club at my boss's head. The club grazes the top of her head, and there is blood, but she will survive. Behind her on the desk is one of the cash registers from work. I realize that in the process of beating her, he has smashed it, too.
He looks at me and says, "Really? You're defending her after all she's done?" and then we are back at the lake, and he's skipping stones across the water again. I see several of my co-workers swimming near the edge of the water, and they don't look happy. One of them tells me that they have to just keep swimming here because there is no place else to go.
A shark fin appears behind them, and I tell them to climb out of the water. They look at me sadly, and I realize they can't get out. The shark swims closer, and my male self starts skipping stones at it. It shies away from those, but it is still circling the swimmers. I can see parts of bodies floating in the water, and I realize these are her previous victims.
On the ground beside my male self, I see what looks like a cannon with a harpoon sticking out of it. I tell him to use that on the shark. He gives me a sharp look, and very quickly says, "I have your permission?"
Somehow, I feel like I'm giving him permission to do something much bigger and more complex than this, but if I don't give it, that shark is going to eat the swimmers. I realize that there are versions of me in there, and worse, members of my family as well. Frightened, I tell him, "Yes, do whatever you have to do! Just stop that shark!"
He drops the hand full of little flat stones and grabs the cannon, turning it to aim at the shark. He fires it, and makes a direct hit. The water around the fin darkens with blood. Grabbing the attached rope, he hauls the shark over to where he is standing, then pulls it up out of the water onto the ground. I move closer so I can see it, even though I am terrified of sharks. I see the tail, the back, and the big fin on the top, but above the fin is a manager's uniform shirt from my workplace. Above that, a warped version of my boss's face stares at me. It has human eyes, but a shark's mouth, complete with teeth. The mouth is opening and closing as if she's still trying to bite, but she can't move from the spot where she is, so I am safe. There is a huge gash along the side of the shark body, and the rocks are covered with blood. Down the way from us, the rock border around the lake turns into a beach. One by one, the people in the water pull themselves out onto the shore, including the versions of me, who work together to pull my family out of the water.
The male me looks at her, then at me. I realize that if I don't let it happen this way, she's going to just keep eating people. I have to let him do what he thinks will be most effective, even if I am going to feel bad about how it turns out for her.
The foliage starts to thin out as I continue moving forward. I can see a guy up ahead skipping stones along the water. Something about him makes me mildly uneasy, like I'm hanging out with people who are going to get caught doing something unacceptable, and I'm going to be implicated by association. I seriously consider going back the way I came, just to avoid him.
Before I get the chance, he speaks up with my voice, sounding simultaneously petulant and reproachful: "Don't bother, stupid. You can't get away from me."
He flings another stone across the water. This one really goes, traveling quite far and getting several hits before sinking. It moves so fast leaving his hand that it makes a whistling noise.
For a moment, I feel scared because of what he said, but I don't get the feeling that this guy is going to physically harm me. I can tell that he is angry, but he's not acting aggressive. He's sulking. He's also right, I realize. I can't avoid him. If I walk back the way I came, he'll just be somewhere along that path, too.
As I approach more closely, I can see who he is. I've met him before. He's me, but he's not me. I used to try to keep him on a leash, but now I can't do that without destroying part of myself. I was right about my uneasy feeling. This guy gets me into trouble all the time.
I am just a few feet away from him. Now that I know who I'm dealing with, I know I need to get him to talk about what is bothering him. I start to ask, and he cuts me off with "Why are you asking questions without wanting answers?"
He turns and walks away from me. I chase after him, and he runs. The chase takes us into a little brick building. From the outside, it looks unimposing, like maybe a little storage building. Inside, it's quite large and ornate. I can't help but stop to look around. When I do, I realize I'm in the lobby of a courthouse.
He enters a room at the other end of the lobby. I follow. Inside, there is a hearing going on. The judge is me, in a powdered wig, with half-sized bifocals , a robe, and a sledgehammer as a gavel. The prosecutor is also me, in a pantsuit, with a briefcase, rectangular glasses, and a really severe looking bun in my hair. The defense attorney is me with wispy curls, a whimsical tie-dyed hippie dress, and huge, bookworm glasses. There is a "me" baliff, too, a six-foot amazonian thug with short hair, bulging muscles, and no glasses, dressed in a uniform and standing with crossed arms glaring down at the defendant, my boss. There are several versions of me sitting where a jury should be. Most of them don't stand out, but one is dressed in my work uniform, and another is completely naked, though no one seems to notice.
The judge looks up and says, "Is this the witness?" The male me says "Yes, I brought her."
Suddenly I'm on the witness stand. I can see the seats behind the participants, where my family and some of my friends are sitting. The prosecutor gets up and asks me questions about things my boss has done to me and how they have affected my family. As I talk about my experiences with her all in one sitting, I begin to understand why the male me is so upset. The jury is glaring hatefully at the defendant by the time the prosecutor says there are no more questions.
I'm sitting in the audience with my family. The judge is talking, but the boss is turned around and glaring at me. She keeps throwing little things at me, and missing. When one lands close, I realize what she is throwing is little round turds. She is laughing, even though she looks angry. When the turds don't hit me, she pulls a bunch of little knives out of her purse and starts throwing those. They are hitting my family.
I yell for the bailiff, but before she can get there, the male me jumps between my family and my boss. He has a huge club, and begins pounding her while I move my family away out of her reach. He is shouting obscenities as he strikes again and again with the club. She stabs him in the ribs with one of the little knives, but it's tiny and barely does any damage. His club, on the other hand, is leaving huge bruises and even broken bones.
I send my family into another room where they will be safe, and shout for the bailiff to stop the beating. The bailiff rushes over and grabs the male me, pulling him back just as he swings the club at my boss's head. The club grazes the top of her head, and there is blood, but she will survive. Behind her on the desk is one of the cash registers from work. I realize that in the process of beating her, he has smashed it, too.
He looks at me and says, "Really? You're defending her after all she's done?" and then we are back at the lake, and he's skipping stones across the water again. I see several of my co-workers swimming near the edge of the water, and they don't look happy. One of them tells me that they have to just keep swimming here because there is no place else to go.
A shark fin appears behind them, and I tell them to climb out of the water. They look at me sadly, and I realize they can't get out. The shark swims closer, and my male self starts skipping stones at it. It shies away from those, but it is still circling the swimmers. I can see parts of bodies floating in the water, and I realize these are her previous victims.
On the ground beside my male self, I see what looks like a cannon with a harpoon sticking out of it. I tell him to use that on the shark. He gives me a sharp look, and very quickly says, "I have your permission?"
 | |
| Employees are friends, not food! |
He drops the hand full of little flat stones and grabs the cannon, turning it to aim at the shark. He fires it, and makes a direct hit. The water around the fin darkens with blood. Grabbing the attached rope, he hauls the shark over to where he is standing, then pulls it up out of the water onto the ground. I move closer so I can see it, even though I am terrified of sharks. I see the tail, the back, and the big fin on the top, but above the fin is a manager's uniform shirt from my workplace. Above that, a warped version of my boss's face stares at me. It has human eyes, but a shark's mouth, complete with teeth. The mouth is opening and closing as if she's still trying to bite, but she can't move from the spot where she is, so I am safe. There is a huge gash along the side of the shark body, and the rocks are covered with blood. Down the way from us, the rock border around the lake turns into a beach. One by one, the people in the water pull themselves out onto the shore, including the versions of me, who work together to pull my family out of the water.
The male me looks at her, then at me. I realize that if I don't let it happen this way, she's going to just keep eating people. I have to let him do what he thinks will be most effective, even if I am going to feel bad about how it turns out for her.
Brain Eater
Its dark outside. Very little light comes in through the window, even though there is a full moon, and there is a street light right outside. I've heard a shuffling noise, and I'm going down a hallway toward a room where I think the sound originated.
It's even darker there. I don't want to go in there in the dark.... too scary! I search for a light switch. It takes a couple of minutes, and during that time I hear the sound again, like someone standing in one place, but moving his or her feat around restlessly.
I find the light switch, but as I reach for it, it occurs to me that if I turn on the light, I'll lose the element of surprise. If someone has broken in and is looting that room, he'll know I'm out here as soon as light comes pouring in through the door. I make a mental note of where the switch is, then I tiptoe down the hall to the door.
I peek through the crack between the hinges. I can see the feet and legs (up to the knees) of a man laying on his side on the floor. The feet are twitching, and every so often, his whole body moves as if something is pulling or pushing on a part outside my vision. That's when the shuffling sound happens, as if the sole of a shoe is moving on a wood floor, but the man's shoes aren't making that sound.
At the same time, I can hear a sloppy wet sound, like someone with a really runny nose sniffling while trying to find a tissue. I move a little, trying to change the angle of my view. I can see further up the man's legs to his waist. There seems to be some kind of thin, lightweight gray fabric laying across his upper body.
Leaning closer to the door and moving further to my right, I can see that the fabric is some kind of covering worn by a bald, really pale figure bent over the body. I can't see much of it, just the back of the head. The fabric starts halfway up the back of the head, and continues on down, flowing like a cloak, or a graduate's robe.
I lean forward to try to get a better look, bringing my cheek into contact with the door frame. The snuffling sound is louder now, and sounds more like someone slurping soup. I can see the man's head. Something I can't get good focus on is holding onto the top of it. It seems to be covered by more of that fabric. His hair is soaking wet, and there is blood on his neck. A white, bony looking appendage is sticking out of the back of his head. I gasp with horror and take a step back. When I do, the thing hunched over the man looks up, then turns to face the door.
I'm immediately nauseated by its appearance, even though it doesn't look incredibly horrifying. Something about it makes me feel just wrong, like having motion sickness or being dizzy from a drug. My limbs feel heavy, and the air around me feels dirty and somehow drippy, like there's some kind of poison in it. I don't want to breathe this. My stomach lurches, and I gag.
The bony appendage I was seeing is the thing's elongated face, which looks like someone grabbed the end of it and pulled, stretching it to a point. It looks solid and hard, but the end is definitely flexible, because it's moving back and forth. I hear sniffing sounds again. It turns its vacant, hollow, beady eyes in my direction, and I see that blood has dripped from its... beak? ... and stained the front of its robe. I hear a hissing sound coming from it, and the door swings open to reveal the rest of the room.
At its feet, the man's body falls forward, showing a hole in the back of his head, where the skull meets the spine. I can see bone, not just the edge of the skull, but the inside of it. The brain is gone, the fluid is gone, even the top of the spine is gone.
A thin, whiny moan comes from the creature standing over the body. It moves smoothly toward me.
Finally, my fear breaks and I run, as I realize that it intends to do to me whatever it has done to this man. I head for the light switch, hoping that the light will scare it away, but the switch is gone. During the second that I pause looking for it, I feel something soft graze the back of my other arm. I scream and bolt down the hallway. There is a door at the end. I'm working my muscles as hard as I can, but I feel like I'm moving under water, fighting the resistance of the dense substance around me and odd currents that pull me off balance. I can hear a heavy, low sound, like one long toot on a low brass instrument, with the pitch getting lower, and lower, and lower, as if the sound were intended to imitate a liquid running down a slope.
Behind me, I can hear the thing shuffling rapidly along the hallway, as if its feet don't work right, or as if it's moving on something other than feet. I am afraid to find out how close to me it is. I just have to get to that door. Twice, I feel something warm on the back of my neck and swing my arm wildly behind me to bat it away. The second time, I come into contact with something cold, hard, wet, and rubbery. I hear a high, thin wail, and I realize that the thing was right behind me. I slam into the door at the end of the hall. It feels heavier than it should as I shove it open and stumble through. Turning, I slam it behind me, right in the monster's face. I hear a thud as it runs into the door. I turn the lock, then push a chair in front of it. Even that feels heavy, and it's just a simple little wooden dining chair. I can still hear the brass sound, but now it is so far into the bass area that it is like a low growl. I can feel it vibrating in my chest.
I turn to run out the kitchen door and almost run into the monster. Somehow, it has gotten behind me even though I heard it run into the door. It knocks me down into the chair. I feel something like hands, but without the solidity of having bones, grab me through the thin fabric that hangs down over its body. I am thrown to the floor. I kick my feet to turn myself over. It takes monumental effort just to move my leg, but I make it happen. To do that, I have to actually look at my leg, even though I'm horrified of not keeping visual track of what the monster is doing. In what seems like slow motion, I kick upward and feel my boot impact against something solid. I hear a crunch and a horrible sound, like a really loud train whistle, but higher pitched. I look and see that I've hit it in the bottom of that beak, and there is a crack along the... jaw? ... where my boot heel landed. The sound makes my head vibrate, like the time I had the really bad sinus infection and sat in with the choir, only it's not just my sinuses. It's my whole head, and the vibration hurts terribly. It feels like my skull is going to split.
I'm crawling toward the door, still intent on getting away, even though I know that the only way to escape this thing is to fight it and break that beak. The nauseous sensation is creeping into my chest. My hands and feet are freezing, but my belly and chest feel hot. It's hard to breathe. The air has taken on a thick, clinging sweetness that tastes almost like bubble gum. There is still pain from the effects of the monster's scream. My vision is messed up, too. It's like I can't get my eyes to open all the way. I feel lightheaded and kind of sleepy, and my whole body feels heavy. It's so hard to move that doing so is taking nearly all of my concentration. I get glimpses of the thing sitting back and watching me, but most of the time I can't see anything but a blur. I can feel that I am almost to the door. If I can just open it, I can escape and fly away. I just have to reach it.
Then, suddenly, I can see the monster's weirdly shaped, deep set and bulging black eyes an inch or two in front of my face, and I feel something grabbing at my shoulders. Adrenaline shoots up through my chest like a lightning bolt.
I have suspected for a long time that this dream is influenced by the time during my childhood when I got sick from a mosquito bite. I contracted a virus that caused swelling in the brain and nearly killed me. The virus made me very sick, causing vertigo, lethargy, nausea, widespread inflammation and pain, extremely high (up to 107ยบ) fever, vision and hearing difficulties, and vivid full-sensory hallucinations, but the symptom that to this day (over two decades later) sticks out the most in my memory is the terrible, crushing headache that it caused. Had someone asked me during that ordeal if I wanted a hole drilled in my head to relieve the pain, I would have agreed to it. Since then, I've had rather a vindictive fearful loathing of mosquitoes.
The earliest I can remember having this nightmare is during the experience of that illness, and I remember it more as a waking nightmare (hallucination) than an actual dream. The house I'm in during the dream is an odd conglomeration of parts of houses I've been in during life, not a real place. The kitchen is the living room to a relative's house, but with appliances and a dining area instead of living room furniture. The hallway is the hallway outside my old room at my parents house, but with a door to the kitchen instead of the closet door at the one end, and who knows what at the other. The room the man was killed in is a friend's father's den, but the man was no one I know. It's like my head just put a bunch of elements together to make up a setting to house the nightmare.
I always wake up at this same point, in a cold sweat and with my heart pounding madly, usually still nauseated, and often with a splitting headache. After having this dream, I do not feel rested, I usually have kind of a foggy/clumsy day with more than the usual muscle and joint aches, and I feel oddly "off" all day as if there is something really important I'm supposed to take care of, but can't remember it. Normally, that does not end up being the case, and there's no disastrous "oh, crap I forgot (insert vital factor here)" moment, but it still feels that way all day.
It's even darker there. I don't want to go in there in the dark.... too scary! I search for a light switch. It takes a couple of minutes, and during that time I hear the sound again, like someone standing in one place, but moving his or her feat around restlessly.
I find the light switch, but as I reach for it, it occurs to me that if I turn on the light, I'll lose the element of surprise. If someone has broken in and is looting that room, he'll know I'm out here as soon as light comes pouring in through the door. I make a mental note of where the switch is, then I tiptoe down the hall to the door.
I peek through the crack between the hinges. I can see the feet and legs (up to the knees) of a man laying on his side on the floor. The feet are twitching, and every so often, his whole body moves as if something is pulling or pushing on a part outside my vision. That's when the shuffling sound happens, as if the sole of a shoe is moving on a wood floor, but the man's shoes aren't making that sound.
At the same time, I can hear a sloppy wet sound, like someone with a really runny nose sniffling while trying to find a tissue. I move a little, trying to change the angle of my view. I can see further up the man's legs to his waist. There seems to be some kind of thin, lightweight gray fabric laying across his upper body.
Leaning closer to the door and moving further to my right, I can see that the fabric is some kind of covering worn by a bald, really pale figure bent over the body. I can't see much of it, just the back of the head. The fabric starts halfway up the back of the head, and continues on down, flowing like a cloak, or a graduate's robe.
I lean forward to try to get a better look, bringing my cheek into contact with the door frame. The snuffling sound is louder now, and sounds more like someone slurping soup. I can see the man's head. Something I can't get good focus on is holding onto the top of it. It seems to be covered by more of that fabric. His hair is soaking wet, and there is blood on his neck. A white, bony looking appendage is sticking out of the back of his head. I gasp with horror and take a step back. When I do, the thing hunched over the man looks up, then turns to face the door.
I'm immediately nauseated by its appearance, even though it doesn't look incredibly horrifying. Something about it makes me feel just wrong, like having motion sickness or being dizzy from a drug. My limbs feel heavy, and the air around me feels dirty and somehow drippy, like there's some kind of poison in it. I don't want to breathe this. My stomach lurches, and I gag. The bony appendage I was seeing is the thing's elongated face, which looks like someone grabbed the end of it and pulled, stretching it to a point. It looks solid and hard, but the end is definitely flexible, because it's moving back and forth. I hear sniffing sounds again. It turns its vacant, hollow, beady eyes in my direction, and I see that blood has dripped from its... beak? ... and stained the front of its robe. I hear a hissing sound coming from it, and the door swings open to reveal the rest of the room.
At its feet, the man's body falls forward, showing a hole in the back of his head, where the skull meets the spine. I can see bone, not just the edge of the skull, but the inside of it. The brain is gone, the fluid is gone, even the top of the spine is gone.
A thin, whiny moan comes from the creature standing over the body. It moves smoothly toward me.
Finally, my fear breaks and I run, as I realize that it intends to do to me whatever it has done to this man. I head for the light switch, hoping that the light will scare it away, but the switch is gone. During the second that I pause looking for it, I feel something soft graze the back of my other arm. I scream and bolt down the hallway. There is a door at the end. I'm working my muscles as hard as I can, but I feel like I'm moving under water, fighting the resistance of the dense substance around me and odd currents that pull me off balance. I can hear a heavy, low sound, like one long toot on a low brass instrument, with the pitch getting lower, and lower, and lower, as if the sound were intended to imitate a liquid running down a slope.
Behind me, I can hear the thing shuffling rapidly along the hallway, as if its feet don't work right, or as if it's moving on something other than feet. I am afraid to find out how close to me it is. I just have to get to that door. Twice, I feel something warm on the back of my neck and swing my arm wildly behind me to bat it away. The second time, I come into contact with something cold, hard, wet, and rubbery. I hear a high, thin wail, and I realize that the thing was right behind me. I slam into the door at the end of the hall. It feels heavier than it should as I shove it open and stumble through. Turning, I slam it behind me, right in the monster's face. I hear a thud as it runs into the door. I turn the lock, then push a chair in front of it. Even that feels heavy, and it's just a simple little wooden dining chair. I can still hear the brass sound, but now it is so far into the bass area that it is like a low growl. I can feel it vibrating in my chest.
I turn to run out the kitchen door and almost run into the monster. Somehow, it has gotten behind me even though I heard it run into the door. It knocks me down into the chair. I feel something like hands, but without the solidity of having bones, grab me through the thin fabric that hangs down over its body. I am thrown to the floor. I kick my feet to turn myself over. It takes monumental effort just to move my leg, but I make it happen. To do that, I have to actually look at my leg, even though I'm horrified of not keeping visual track of what the monster is doing. In what seems like slow motion, I kick upward and feel my boot impact against something solid. I hear a crunch and a horrible sound, like a really loud train whistle, but higher pitched. I look and see that I've hit it in the bottom of that beak, and there is a crack along the... jaw? ... where my boot heel landed. The sound makes my head vibrate, like the time I had the really bad sinus infection and sat in with the choir, only it's not just my sinuses. It's my whole head, and the vibration hurts terribly. It feels like my skull is going to split.
I'm crawling toward the door, still intent on getting away, even though I know that the only way to escape this thing is to fight it and break that beak. The nauseous sensation is creeping into my chest. My hands and feet are freezing, but my belly and chest feel hot. It's hard to breathe. The air has taken on a thick, clinging sweetness that tastes almost like bubble gum. There is still pain from the effects of the monster's scream. My vision is messed up, too. It's like I can't get my eyes to open all the way. I feel lightheaded and kind of sleepy, and my whole body feels heavy. It's so hard to move that doing so is taking nearly all of my concentration. I get glimpses of the thing sitting back and watching me, but most of the time I can't see anything but a blur. I can feel that I am almost to the door. If I can just open it, I can escape and fly away. I just have to reach it.
Then, suddenly, I can see the monster's weirdly shaped, deep set and bulging black eyes an inch or two in front of my face, and I feel something grabbing at my shoulders. Adrenaline shoots up through my chest like a lightning bolt.
I have suspected for a long time that this dream is influenced by the time during my childhood when I got sick from a mosquito bite. I contracted a virus that caused swelling in the brain and nearly killed me. The virus made me very sick, causing vertigo, lethargy, nausea, widespread inflammation and pain, extremely high (up to 107ยบ) fever, vision and hearing difficulties, and vivid full-sensory hallucinations, but the symptom that to this day (over two decades later) sticks out the most in my memory is the terrible, crushing headache that it caused. Had someone asked me during that ordeal if I wanted a hole drilled in my head to relieve the pain, I would have agreed to it. Since then, I've had rather a vindictive fearful loathing of mosquitoes.
The earliest I can remember having this nightmare is during the experience of that illness, and I remember it more as a waking nightmare (hallucination) than an actual dream. The house I'm in during the dream is an odd conglomeration of parts of houses I've been in during life, not a real place. The kitchen is the living room to a relative's house, but with appliances and a dining area instead of living room furniture. The hallway is the hallway outside my old room at my parents house, but with a door to the kitchen instead of the closet door at the one end, and who knows what at the other. The room the man was killed in is a friend's father's den, but the man was no one I know. It's like my head just put a bunch of elements together to make up a setting to house the nightmare.
I always wake up at this same point, in a cold sweat and with my heart pounding madly, usually still nauseated, and often with a splitting headache. After having this dream, I do not feel rested, I usually have kind of a foggy/clumsy day with more than the usual muscle and joint aches, and I feel oddly "off" all day as if there is something really important I'm supposed to take care of, but can't remember it. Normally, that does not end up being the case, and there's no disastrous "oh, crap I forgot (insert vital factor here)" moment, but it still feels that way all day.
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