Taken

It's been a long two weeks, and I've had nightmares that I haven't posted due to lack of time. Friday night was my first good, solid night's sleep during that time, because I was changing jobs, working my last two week's notice on the night shift at one, and my training hours on the day shift at the other. Boys and girls, can we say exhausted?

I'm really little, like maybe four years old, maybe even younger. There are adults all around me, rushing around in some kind of a panic. A dark-haired lady takes me by the hand, rushes me out of my room past a vanity with a big round mirror on it. In the mirror, I can see that I'm slim, with long, dark hair like I have now,  and wearing some kind of a sleeveless summer dress with sandals. I have on a lot of ribbons and things. Everything I'm wearing seems to be green, yellow, or golden orange.

The lady picks me up and runs with me to another room, where a man with hair like mine, and a beautiful woman with bright red hair are rushing around. The man is wearing armor that has been painted green. He's carrying a sword on his back, a short mace at his hip, and a bow at his shoulder. His face looks deadly serious. The red-haired woman has put on a dark leotard, and she's holding a maternity dress, even though she's not pregnant.

The dark-haired woman hands me to the red-haired woman. As she takes me in her arms, I realize that this is my mother. She tells me to hold on around her belly, and the dark-haired woman ties scarves around me to help me stay put. Then, my mother puts on the maternity dress. I hear her tell the man, my father, that it's a good thing I'm still small. Over the maternity dress, the ladies place what feels like an apron, but if I turn my head just right, I can still see through a button hole.

I watch the dark-haired lady put on my mother's armor. It's too long, but she doesn't seem to notice that. While she's doing that, my mother's hands pick up a dagger and a little tube with some needles. They move down below my vision, and I see the dark-haired lady strap a belt around her own waist. On the belt, a sword in a scabbard hangs down past her knees. She grabs a shield, turns and runs her hand along my head through the fabric, kisses my mother on the cheek, and then runs out of the room. My father moves the bed, opens a trap door beneath it, and sends my mother and me down inside before putting the bed back in place. I hear him walk across the floor and open a window. There are more footsteps around the room, then he heads out the door. My mother sticks the tube in a hole in the trap door, and places a needle in it. She stands waiting. It's dark where we are. I can hear sounds of running throughout the house, and some shouting.

We are like that for several moments, and then I hear my father's boots again, stomping on the floor outside the door. There is the sound of metal clinking against metal, and then there is the sound of splintering wood, and a massive thump right in front of our vantage point.

We can hear fighting in front of us. My mother's breathing is fast and shallow, and I know she is scared. I know to be quiet, that we're in here because we're hiding. I press my face into her belly and hold on tightly. One soft hand runs across the back of my head. It's all the comfort she can offer.

The fighting escalates, and one of the participants bumps the bed, sliding it just a little to the side. I hear a choking sound, and another loud thump, but it's hard to tell who is down. It's quiet for a moment, then boots that are not my fathers begin walking around the room. Ever few steps, we hear someone knocking on the floor. Knock-knock... knock-knock... not our code. This person is looking for a different tone to the knocking sound, indicating empty space under the floor.

Someone speaks quietly, and a different walk approaches the bed. We hear it pushed aside, and the footsteps walk right up to the trap door. Someone drops down in front of it, knocks, and says, "This is the spot."

My mother takes a deep breath and blows into the tube. There is another choking sound from outside the hole we're in, and then there is shouting. More footsteps approach the trap door. I hear my mother blow out another needle, and another. Two more men fall, and then I hear the door open, and the blade at her hip sliding out of its sheath.

I hold my breath as I feel my mother struggle with the man above her, stabbing and slashing at him. Wetness lands on the fabric around me, and I hear a man's gurgling moan. Suddenly, we're moving up, really fast, and my mother screams. I hold on tight, trying to stay quiet. Tears roll down my face. I'm sure whoever is left alive up here is going to kill us both.

I hear footsteps, and a female voice confronts my mother, asking where the child is. That's me. I stiffen up to keep from shaking. My mother says that she sent the handmaid out the window with me, but couldn't follow, in her condition. I hear a slap, and the female stranger asks if my mother thinks she's stupid. Over my mother's horrified protests, the apron is ripped away, and then the dress. I see that we are surrounded by large men, all in robes and wearing armor. Several of them are holding onto her, with her arms pinned behind her back, and her head held still by their hands in her hair. In front of us is one petite, dark-haired woman, black-robed, with a strange shimmery look to it. 

The scary little woman steps forward and puts her hands on me, and pulls me away from my mother. I scream and hold on, but she's stronger than I am. I'm overpowered, and find myself dragged away from her, and then the men close in on her. The last thing I hear from her is the sound of her voice, screaming my name, as the woman carries me toward the door. I'm struggling and kicking, trying to get away. I feel the woman raise one hand up behind my head.

I woke from this, feeling something hit me in the back of the head, and jumped so hard I nearly fell out of bed. I was terrified beyond reason, seriously still feeling like a scared little girl for several minutes before I finally settled down.

And yet I miss them

To start this one, I need a bit of back story. I've always had a bit of a 6th sense. Not like in the movies, where everything is plain as day, just the ability to feel presences, hear and smell details that are not so obvious, but that others will notice when I point them out, and sometimes see auras or what I think of as energy disturbances. Sometimes I seem to pick up on "leftovers," energy or strong emotions that are attached to areas or objects. Once in a while, I'll have a full-on "psychic" experience, where I get an image, or a memory, or some other information that is hanging around waiting for someone susceptible to show up and feel it.

I've never been entirely comfortable with this, and have avoided messing too much with "the other side." I don't seek things out. If things find me, I do what I have to do to handle and extract myself from the situation, and try to have no more involvement than that, with the exception, at Samhain, of honoring those of my loved ones who have crossed over, or of helping friends handle and protect themselves from unwanted "other side" experiences that they have had.

In 1996, I moved in with a bunch of friends. When I say a bunch, I mean 7 of us all combining our resources together to rent a house. We had 1 kitchen, 1 bathroom, 3 guys 4 gals, a straight couple, a  1 -straight-1-bi couple, a lesbian couple, and a single gay man all living together. It was a beautiful disaster. We'd have made a great reality show.

The lesbians were into ghost hunting. My then fiance and I were practicing Wiccans. For some reason, the girls thought this should translate into a desire on my part to go ghost hunting with them.

It didn't. I refused. So, one day, my sweet buddies decided to take me out for fast food, then pull a half-bait-and-switch (we actually did get food) and take me to reputedly haunted places as kind of a psychic sensor without even giving me a heads-up. I was not a happy camper.






"This isn't the way home. Where are we going?"

I look around at my housemates. My fiance is in the front with SL & DK, with SL doing the driving. I'm in the middle of the back seat, between JD & TG, having just finished a fast food feast. I'm in the middle because it's the only way for me to have enough leg room. JD & TG are razzing me about my insanely huge appetite and how it doesn't go with my skinny ass. They're loud and funny, and I've been enjoying the camaraderie until this moment, when I realize they're taking me somewhere other than where they said we were going to go.

TG says, "This is the only way we could think of to get you out."

I admit, I've been cooped up since the accident, but I've also been in a lot of pain, and it's cold outside. I just recently found out that the reason my recovery from a simple whiplash injury has been so slow is that I have fibromyalgia.

ST pulls over in front of one of the area's more broken down farms. It's kind of odd in the Northwest Ohio area. Driving through the rural areas, you'll see everything ranging from state of the art to completely abandoned. This one looks abandoned. It's overgrown with weeds and brush, the buildings decaying, equipment sitting unused and rusted beside the slowly falling barn. Something about this place gives me the willies, and I shiver involuntarily.

"Everything ok? Why are we here? Is there something wrong with the car?"

The girls exchange a secretive smile. JD opens her door, gets out of the car, and before I can protest, grabs my arm and pulls me out too. TG is getting out on the other side. Everyone is exiting the vehicle. At this point, even my fiance is asking why we're here. We don't have a flat tire, and there were no funny noises from the motor.

I'm feeling a super-sized dose of get-the-hell-out-of-here from the barn. The energy here nauseates me. I feel the oddest sense of dread, like a kid who has been told "wait 'till your father gets home" and is anticipating far, far worse than just the lectures I had when I was a kid. I am shaking, fighting tears, and my back feels like it's covered in bee stings. I look around. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the car.

My fiance sees me losing the color in my face, shaking, and looking very upset. He is immediately right next to me, asking why we've stopped here and if I'm all right. I say we should leave, now. JD & TG start to look less sure of themselves, and ask what I'm "seeing."

I'm not seeing anything, but I'm feeling way too much. I try to push it away, mentally focusing on putting a divide between myself and the residual energy or feelings of this area. I don't know what's hitting me, but it feels totally awful. I use a technique I've learned in my Wicca studies with my fiance and some other people we practice with, drawing lines of strong, pure, positive energy around myself and spinning them into a hard, egg-shaped shell. That strongly mutes the "psychic" ambiance in my personal space, allowing me to take a more objective, uninfluenced look at what just hit me. In this case, the biggest relief I got was that my back felt better.

Something bad happened here, not just once, but over and over, to someone who was powerless to avoid it. I'm not skilled or practiced enough to be able to tell exactly what it was, because I don't practice this. I avoid this. I'm pissed as hell that they have done this to me. I don't want to be here. I told them that. Things like this are why.

I suspect that I'm feeling the residuals from a situation of serious abuse, but I can't feel how old it is, or whether it's attached to the building, or the property. It could have been anything; animal abuse, a family thing, an employer thing, a cruel slave owner, or mistreatment of native people by white immigrants. The only direction I have is the feeling that the origin of the dread is young and male.

I find myself unable to keep it to myself, and end up explaining that to the girls. They're eating it up like it's some kind of entertainment, but I'm not. Even with my shield, I feel like I'm going to heave on the lawn if we don't get out of here.

My fiance can see that I'm extremely uncomfortable with being here. He tells me he'll protect me, and he steps right up next to me, puts his arm around me, and creates the same kind of shield I just did. With him standing there, the residue is not getting through as easily, and I feel better, but I still really, really want to leave.

The girls ask if I can see anything. I'm looking at the barn, but there's no shadow or figure that doesn't belong there. The creepiest thing about the place, I tell them, is that rope hanging from the ceiling which can be seen through the sagging, half-open doors.

Both girls immediately give me the hairy eyeball. I'm confused until my fiance tells me that the barn isn't falling apart, the doors are shut tight, and there's no rope that any of the rest of them can see. When he says that, I'm finally able to see through the residue of the past, as the rot, rust, and decay just sort of slowly fade away. First, I can see through everything that isn't there, then it rapidly increases in transparency until it's gone. The house isn't the same house. It's not quite in the same spot, is made of wood instead of bricks, and is bigger. The barn is in the same spot, but it's taller, in good shape, and closed up tight. There's no farm equipment sitting out. The place is deserted, but not like before.

At that moment, the air of the place changes for me. There's a sense of the dreaded moment rapidly approaching, and I physically hear someone stomping across a hardwood floor in heavy boots. The far off sound of a deep, inhuman growl makes me jump out of my skin. It almost sounds more like someone dragging something heavy across a rough surface than a voice. I cover my ears with my hands. Whatever I'm feeling nearby wasn't here before, and it's malevolent. We could be in serious danger.

JD & TG both pepper me with questions. "What is it? What do you hear? Do you see something? Is there a ghost?"

At this point, SL & DK, both of whom have just been kind of watching, are starting to get really creeped out. If I'm going to convince anyone to leave, it'll probably be them, because JD & TG are too curious, and my fiance is bent on being a knight in shining armor. I look at DK and say, "We have to move, now. It's pissed, and it knows we're here. We have to go."

That creeps her out like nobody's business, and she starts pestering SL to get back into the car and drive away. I push my fiance toward the car and tell him to get in, at the same time shoving myself away from him. I climb into the back seat. SL agrees to leave, not willing to admit it's because he's got the heebie-jeebies, but quite able to admit that DK's emotional state is a concern. JD & TG reluctantly agree to go. As we all pile in and close the doors, I'm hit with a sense of urgency, my mind picturing SL stomping the gas and shooting forward like a race car. Something is approaching the vehicle.

SL turns the key. The car turns over, but doesn't start. He cusses a blue streak, pushing the pedal to the floor once, letting it up, and trying again. I hear pounding on the ground outside, turn to look, and see a dark shadow coming out of the barn. It looks like a big black cloud of smoke, moving slowly across the yard toward the car. I hear SL flat out yell at his car to start, still swearing like mad. My fiance puts his hands on the dashboard, closes his eyes, and quietly starts singing an elemental fire chant we sometimes use in the circle. SL turns the key, and the engine roars to life as that smokey cloud crosses the drainage ditch and reaches the car. The whole vehicle rocks sideways like something slammed into it. SL floors it and peels out of there, speeding up the road for quite a distance before slowing down. No one says a word until we get home, where I remind them "I don't go ghost hunting!" before heading up to my & my fiance's room to defrag with some music.

The actual experience was almost identical to the dream, until the last paragraph. I remember getting into the car, and SL having some difficulty starting it, but we actually got out of there without that black cloud getting anywhere near us. We drove around for awhile, hung out by a reservoir, and had a second experience I also wasn't happy about. I ended up telling the girls off a little, but I didn't wander off to sulk in my room when we got home. We sat around playing video games, instead. The memory of my fiance using the fire elemental chant to start the car was from an entirely different incident, with a different car, and for the record, after the chant, the previously unresponsive car started like nothing was ever wrong.

I don't know what made me think of this last night. We ended up having a falling-out, moving out of the house, and breaking off contact with them. It's been around 15 years since I've had any contact with anyone from that car except my then fiance, who is now my ex, but still a friend. Either way, the dream has stuck with me today. I'm not hugely bothered, but I do feel kind of weird, and to be honest, I do miss those guys.

Into the light

Inside of my heart is a tiny, bright little light. It's mine, and it's like a nightlight. I can feel the warmth of it, constructed of the right that is in me, my love for my family, my identity, my conscience. It is reminding me what I need to do. I reach in, and focus on it, holding on tightly.

My head hurts again, but it's not bad. I've felt much, much worse before. This is only a minor thing. I am not going to let it distract me.

I pull the light, stretching it over my whole heart, filling it with what is only me, and my will. I feel warm. I keep stretching and pulling, careful to keep the light close to, but under, the skin on the front. It has to be done just right, or this will be noticed. I stretch it over my ribs, grow it across my belly and my shoulders, down my arms and legs, through my throat and over my face, down into my hands and feet. It's like there's a blanket of light under my skin, warming my body.

Once the light has filled every inch, I begin to expand it down toward my back, letting it push out everything that is not me, not my will. The cold, dank, darkness begins to sink through my body, until I feel it pushing against the skin of my back, all except for in my head. There, I find a marker that must be left for now, or he'll know what I'm doing. I surround the marker with my light, isolate it, and harden the light into a solid covering, so that the marker is in place, but it is not touching me. It will remain, but it cannot poison me.

I push the light out through my back, feeling the nasty, clammy darkness oozing out before it like pus. I focus on rejecting that energy, pushing it down into the mat where it won't be seen. It's not mine. I don't want it. Go away!

Relief floods me as the last drop is pushed out, leaving me no longer longer feeling contaminated, no longer compromised. But now, I'm really, really tired again.

I could open my eyes, try to talk, but instead, I find myself drifting, and then there is nothing.

I had little fragments of dreams throughout the rest of the night, nothing I can really place today. It was like I was drifting in an out from the snippet dreams, into and out of one main dream about resting on a bed made with a hard mat, and a pillow of leaves. The whole time, I felt watched, the way my mother used to watch me when I was sick as a kid with really bad asthma, or the time I got bit by a mosquito and almost died of Encephalitis. I felt kind of tended to, for lack of a better term.

This morning, I feel more rested than yesterday, like I got about half a night's sleep... but now I'm definitely sure that I'm fighting a cold... probably a sinus infection. My son is sick, too, so we're headed off to get checked out. I swear, I have never produced this much snot in my entire life!


The word of the day is: Blaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!

A Walk in the Dark

I'm just clocking out at the end of a work shift. It's after dark. I've stayed later than I was supposed to, because someone didn't do things that are supposed to be done on first shift, and I had to catch up so that it all didn't fall on the 3rd shifter. Instead of 8 hours, I've been there for 9. It's almost midnight.

I worked on "fast forward" all night, and I'm feeling it. My legs hurt. My back hurts. My ribs hurt, and I don't even know why. I just want to go home, take more than the recommended dosage of ibuprofen, and crawl into bed with three or four blankets over me.

The last heavy thing I did tonight was change one of the big BIBs. (BIB = Bag In Box. It's the syrup for one of the colas in the soda fountain.) Those things weigh 50 pounds, and I'm the only girl at work who can really handle them. The co-worker on shift with me can't even lift the darned things. She pointed out that it was empty, watched me lift it, flip it, and shove it into place, then finished attaching it while I went out to run the nozzle to get the air out of the hose so it wouldn't spit on our customers.

Now, I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't have flipped it to turn it over. That was a bit much. The way my shoulders feel, I may have been overdoing it there... but it was fun to watch my co-worker's eyes widen when I did it. I made it look like less effort than it was. I guess it's my one weakness of ego - If I can't be cuter, I at least like being bigger and stronger than the other girls.

Once the time clock lets me out (and it takes about 5 times for it to read my print) I leave the back office, say goodbye to the night shifter, admonish him to greet everyone at the door with a smile (a robber is less likely to hit your store if he knows you're alert and you got a good look at his face as he walked in) and then head out to my van.

That's when I remember - I had to walk tonight. My van wouldn't start. It wouldn't even turn over. My husband was all ready at work, so there was nothing I could do. I walked here, and now I'm going to have to walk home.

It's only three blocks, but the way I feel, it might as well be three miles. Better start walking now, or it's only going to get worse.

I step out into the chilly air, zip up and put up my hood, and set out down the street back to my place. Every step is a battle. My body just doesn't want to move. Except when I have to cross the street, I am almost entirely focused on just putting one foot in front of the other without falling on my face. It seems like an eternity.

One block down, two more to go. I step up onto the curb, and continue trudging forward. The windows in the houses beside me are all darkened. Everyone else is all ready in bed. Even the yards are unlit. No one's porch lights are on. Shadows are starting to look creepy. I'm starting to think about all of the robberies we've had at neighborhood businesses this season. There haven't been muggings, but still... shadows are starting to look creepy.

I force my legs to work a little harder. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can rest. My thighs protest, and my hips sound off in agreement. I sound just like the crispy rice cereal I had for breakfast.

I still have 2 1/2 blocks to go. This sucks.

I'm so focused on my own movement, I barely notice and at first don't even register the movement beside a tall tree off to my right. I've passed it when I realize what I've ignored. I hear footsteps on the sidewalk behind me.

Crap. If I look back, I'm going to look paranoid. If I don't, I won't know who is behind me. I could change course, but there's no other route to my place. I'd end up walking a lot more, then having to loop around, and I don't think my legs can take that. Besides, this is the best lit part of the area. It's on a main street, not a side street.

The other walker seems to be matching my pace, right down to my uneven step. Until I started paying attention to the sound of those footsteps, I didn't even realize I was limping. Damn, I must look so vulnerable! Why didn't I call someone? I have friends who would have given me a ride.

Well, because it's rude to call people late at night, isn't it? I wasn't expecting this, so I didn't bother anyone.

I'm such a dumbass.

I feel like I'm being mocked. My stalker knows that I can hear those footsteps. When I pick up the pace, so does he. It's on. I might as well stop pretending to not know.

I turn and look, and am surprised to see that he's much further behind me than expected. I'm almost at the end of the second block, and he's still clear back by that tree. Maybe he's not following me after all. Maybe the weather is just affecting the acoustics, or something like that.

As the though goes through my head, my stalker lengthens his stride and begins to catch up. In the darkness, I can't see his face, or any other details, except that he's a big, tall guy with a coat that goes below the hips and has a hood, which he's wearing, casting a shadow over his face. On his feet are some kind of heavy soled boots. He's now advancing on me with a purpose. What is he going to do when he finds out I don't have any money?

Adrenalin shoots through my chest like fire. I turn and force my aching muscles to move. Each step is torture. I feel like I'm literally tearing my hips to shreds, but I'm running anyway. I try to scream, but I can't breathe. Behind me, I hear him catching up, but my body won't move any faster. I feel a sense of impending doom. I know this is going to hurt, but not how badly. My mind is racing, trying to figure a way out of it. I realize I'm going to have to fight.

As the thought hits me, so does he. One huge hand slams into my back, and I fall on my face, my hands, chin, my nose slamming into the pavement with a loud smacking sound. I roll over and try to kick him, but he's not there. Looking around wildly, I see him standing beyond my head. I still can't see his face. I scramble to get up, but he grabs the back of my coat and shoves me back down, face first into the sidewalk again. I'm no shortie - I'm 5' 9", but this guy makes me feel small. He's at least 7' tall, and has a good 40 pounds on me. I'm reduced to kicking and flailing uselessly, like a little kid. I feel my feet gain purchase on the sidewalk, and try to push away, but instead I feel the weight of my attacker on my back. He pushes me down, grabs my arms, and pins my hands to the ground beside my face.

I can feel his breath moving my hair. In my ear, a deep, but decidedly feminine voice says, "Do we have to do this every time?" And I realize that the chest pressed against my back is awfully soft for being a man's chest.

Oh, God. I'm being mugged by a 7 foot tall woman. I try to turn to get a look at her, but I can't move. I try to ask what she wants, but I can't breathe. My hands are pinned, and so are my legs, but the position she's in doesn't lend itself to any kind of action, unless she intends to start biting me, which she'd have done by now if that was the intention. My heart is pounding, and my whole body hurts. I figure she's waiting for me to signal surrender by not struggling any more.

I'm about to force myself to relax when I hear another voice from behind us. "You idiot. You're not going to get anything out of her that way. Cut it out." That one is male. I recognize it, but I can't remember from where. The sound of it scares the crap out of me, sending shivers through my entire body.

The shock of hearing that second voice, when I didn't even know he was there, woke me. It was dark, and my husband was in the room. He'd gotten up and gotten ready for work, and was about to leave. I was awake long enough for him to kiss me goodbye. I thought I'd get up, but it was only about four hours after I'd gotten to sleep. My head was heavy, and my body just didn't want to move. Even though the dream really freaked me out, I was so tired that I slipped back to sleep anyway. I drifted in and out for another two hours, until the light made sleep impossible. If it were dark, I could go back to sleep again right now.

I have really been feeling helpless lately, dealing with the crap I'm going through at work. This dream could be my mind's way of picking at that scab, but that doesn't explain the male voice and why it scared me so bad. I'm not sure what to think about that.

On a side note, this would never happen. My husband wouldn't let me walk home. If he came home from work and the van was still there, he'd come pick me up when my shift was over, not leave me to walk home in the dark. 

I'm getting a bad feeling about this

I'm at a party where everyone is dressed nice. It's not formal, just not an everyday hang-out, either. I've kind of blown off the dressing nice thing, but not really. I fit in (mostly) but I'm not in anything that isn't comfortable.

I don't want to be here. This isn't a party at a friend's house. I don't know everyone, or even most of the people here. I hate social situations like this, but I'm handling it. On the outside, I look pretty normal, just another guest at the party, chatting about inconsequential things with a group of people I never met before. On the inside, it's pure torture. I'm sure I'm going to say the wrong thing at some point and look completely stupid, give these people something to make fun of for the rest of their lives, and embarrass the crap out of the party's host.

I don't even know whose party this is, or why I'm here. I must have come with someone. I excuse myself from the group and begin looking around.

As I wander through different rooms, I realize I don't know anyone here. I recognize some faces as people I've seen before, but not as people I've hung out with. Why the heck am I even at this party?

A guy approaches me and puts a hand on my shoulder. He leans in like we're old pals, greets me warmly, and gives me a hug. He knows my name, but I don't know his. When he pulls me into the hug, he puts his face right next to my ear, and speaks quickly and quietly. "Don't look now, but there's a lady following you. She's been staring at you all night. She seems to be trying to pretend her movements are random, but she's definitely focused on you."

The guy steps back from the embrace, gives my arm a squeeze, and tells me it was good to see me again, and to give his regards to the family. I thank him and say I will, and admonish him to do the same. We walk away from each other. I duck between some people, and through a doorway into another room, where I step to the side and put my back against the wall. I figure I'll wait and see who comes through the doorway, but no one does. I peek around the corner.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and from behind me, a voice says, right into my ear, "You don't remember me, do you?"

I spin around to see who is behind me, but there's just groups of people talking to each other. I back into the wall again and look around, trying to see everywhere at once. I notice there's someone moving rapidly away from me across the room. I try to get through the crowd to see who it is, but suddenly people seem to be bent on getting in my way. All I can see is the top of a head with dark hair moving through the doorway on the other side of the room. As I watch, it appears that the dark was a shadow, and the hair is actually white.

I get about to the middle of the room when my "friend" from before grabs my arm. He gives me a serious look, and says, "You don't want to go there. You'll only end up in trouble again. Don't let your guard down, kid." This guy is noticeably younger than me. Why is he calling me kid?

Before I can do anything, it's all just gone. I find myself in an empty, deserted, old, decrepit house with no lights, no music, no party. The room has the same layout, even some of the same furniture, but it's all falling apart. I look around the room, but there's nothing else remarkable about it.

I'm suddenly very anxious, butterflies in my stomach, an electric feeling in my chest. I want out of here. Which way was the front room? I go back through the door that led me into this room, trying to retrace my steps, but after a few more rooms, I can't remember which way to go. There are no windows in the room I'm in. I think, if I just keep going the same direction, maybe I'll get to a room with an outside wall.

I start running. I can hear other footsteps, but I can't tell where they're coming from. Sometimes, it sounds like they're over my head. Other times, it sounds like they're behind me, but there's no one there when I look. I keep going straight, through several doorways. I come to a long hallway full of  doors, with a door at the end, and a stairway. At the top of the flight, there's a landing, and the stairs turn and continue up over my head. I can just see someone's shoes, and the long legs of a pair of wide-legged pants. A hand rests on the rail. It's impossible to tell whether the person is male or female. The fingernails aren't long or nicely manicured, but the fingers are kind of long.

The voice that was behind me at the party calls down, "You might as well come up now. You know there's no way out of here."

For some reason, I find that terribly offensive. It should be up to me, shouldn't it? I decide where I want to go and what I want to do, who I want to associate with, and so on. I look at the door, then back up the stairs. I don't want to go up there, but for some reason, I do feel kind of drawn in that direction. I'm pretty sure that when I get up there, I won't find the owner of the voice, though, and that annoys me.

I turn and walk toward the door. From behind me, I hear, "I see. You're going to make this difficult again, aren't you?"

When I woke from this, it was still dark. I felt like I'd been chastised, like a little kid who just ignored a lesson recently learned or well learned. I was still really annoyed, like someone had been pushing my buttons, even though it was just a dream. I was still really tired, too. When I went back to sleep, I dreamed again.

I'm outside in the dark, surrounded by trees and smaller plants. There's something pulling on my hair. I grab for whatever it is, and find my fingers wrapped around a wrist. I find the fingers and pry them loose, only to have something grab the front of my shirt, make a fist, and slam me against a tree. The back of my head hits hard, pain shooting forward into my sinuses.

I throw my arms up in front of my face, but whoever I'm fighting with is more interested in my ribs. The hand I pried off of my hair digs in, fingers pressing into my flesh as if to tickle, but I'm not ticklish there, just really over-sensitive. It hurts. I involuntarily collapse at the knees, pushing at my opponent's arms with my hands. A jolt of energy goes through my belly from those fingertips, making my insides feel watery. I shove the hand away and try to dodge to the side, only to feel the other hand gripping my hair again.

I kick at my assailant's knees, but I'm not hitting anything. I'm yelling and panting now, and I can feel bits of bark and leaves getting under my clothes. Ignoring the pull on my scalp, I try to wrench myself out of the person's grasp. I put both feet on the ground, lean away from the tree, and thrust. Instead of escape, I find myself in a wrestling match, with my left hand pinned to the ground by the wrist, my head turned to the side, and the hand that was in my hair pushing my cheek into the dirt. I try to roll to the left, but the weight on top of me is really heavy.

A feeling of desperation takes over. I can't move freely, but I can turn my head just enough. I sink my teeth into the edge of the hand that is holding me down. From the darkness above me, the voice from the previous dream shouts in pain. I taste the salty flavor of human skin, then blood. My attacker jerks back away from me momentarily, letting go of my wrist, and pulling out of the grip of my teeth. I draw my knees up to my chin and thrust both feet out in front of me. I hit something - it feels like someone's chest - and then I hear a body hit another tree. There is a loud grunt in that same voice. I scramble to run away, but I hear footsteps coming after me.

I know I can't outrun whoever this is. My body aches from hitting the tree and the ground. My ribs are sore from being poked. I can barely stand up. I know I can pull energy. I'm in the woods. I gather what I can, with the lack of focus I'm experiencing right now. When I do, the footsteps stop, just short of the distance I can see. From the darkness, I hear that voice again. It sounds surprised and amused. "Are you serious? Who do you think you are?"

There is a blinding light in front of me. I know it's coming. I panic, and release everything at once, pushing an unfocused blast outward before me. I feel disconnected from everything, like I'm floating. In the distance, I hear that voice bust into a tirade of cussing.

I woke with sunlight in my face. I slept until well after sunrise. I don't do that very much - I'm still used to when I had to get up at 3:30 A.M. for work every day. It feels weird for it to be so late. I don't know what to think about this dream. I'll have to figure it out later, though. I have to go to work today.
This is going to really suck. I'm in so much pain right now.

Mugged

It's been about two days since I had this one. I think it's weird enough for here, but I wanted to see how my "story" from it would go on Reddit's /r/nosleep forum first. I wrote it from the point of view of one of the dream characters. I like the way it turned out. As for the dream, I was kind of a watcher in this one. I saw it from the perspective of about 15 to 20 feet above the ground, behind the male character. I couldn't do anything to affect the actions taking place before me, no matter how badly I wanted to.


She's walking on the left side of the street. There are a lot of buildings. It looks like it used to be the good downtown area, but is now the poor, crime-ridden section of this city. Everything looks like it was once fancy, but now it's run-down, falling apart - buildings losing paint (or even bricks), cracks in the windows, holes boarded up, and so on. The sidewalk isn't in great shape, either, and the lighting is kind of iffy.

She really looks out of place here, and very vulnerable. She can't be more than twenty years old, and she doesn't look very tough. She's actually kind of small, and thin.

She's not dressed for this neighborhood, either. Her hair is too nicely styled, and her clothes are just plainly too nice. Her thin silky blouse hangs just right, and clings just right. Her skirt, though a bit short, looks like it belongs on someone in an office instead of someone walking on this street. Even her boots are inappropriate, pointy-toed little suede numbers with high heels, definitely not made to handle broken up concrete.

He steps out of the shadows about fifteen feet behind her, after she walks past the place where he was hiding. I didn't even see him until this moment. Watching her like a cat stalking a mouse, he glides forward and quietly matches her pace. He tails her for a few yards, then speeds up a bit to get closer. Quiet as he is, she seems to notice. She doesn't turn to look, just picks up her pace and holds her purse a little closer. I can feel that she is nervous, but she doesn't want to broadcast that. It occurs to me that she should forget about that concern, and just get the heck out of here.

I want to fix this. I know the guy is going to do some dastardly thing to her, definitely mug her, probably worse. He looks nasty, dirty, and mean.

I focus on getting down there to defend her, but it doesn't happen. I'm still floating.

I try to make fire come out of my hands and shoot at the stalker, but I can't. My hands won't even move.

I imagine the police pulling up.

They don't.

I mentally picture her turning around and beating the crap out of the guy with her purse.

She doesn't.

Instead, she speeds up again. He gets closer. I know she can hear him behind her.

Finally, she panics and runs. Her boots don't handle that at all, and she stumbles and trips down the street, really not moving any faster than before. The mugger tackles her, one hand over her mouth, and drags her into an alley. She fights back, kicking and squealing, but he's bigger and stronger. As soon as they're off of the street, he slams her to the ground and pins her with his body.

He asks what a spoiled little bitch like her "is even doing around here."

Instead of answering him, she suddenly and rapidly opens her mouth impossibly wide to reveal huge barracuda teeth, which she immediately sinks into the mugger's throat as her eyes turn deep red. I can hear the sound of the bite from my vantage point, almost like someone biting into a really juicy apple. It's so quick, I almost don't register what just happened. When I do, it's such a surprise that I jump.

That startled me awake. It was just a little after midnight. At first, I felt kind of vindicated... like the mugger got exactly what he deserved, given his intentions. Then, my mind worked on it a little, thinking what if that girl was a predator, and that was the plan the whole time? Maybe she used her appearance as bate to lure out a lowlife that no one would miss, then ate him. 
Since I couldn't sleep, I got up and wrote this post on /r/nosleep. I wasn't expecting anyone to notice or like it, because it was short. I was surprised to get some upvotes and responses. Anyway, maybe I'll try making fiction out of some of my other dreams. I kind of like that idea.

Have a nice plate of WTF for dinner

I am out with my husband and our friends. We don't go out much just as adults, because we all have kids, but tonight each of us is able because our kids are all with family or friends on overnight visits.

We're someplace that serves food and alcohol, and has music. I am not drinking alcohol, but I've had something to eat. There is a very laid back atmosphere here. Some groups are quieter, just talking and laughing, but others are louder and more noticeable.

We are in a spot that has a restaurant style table and chairs, but also has an easy chair, a love seat, and a coffee table. The restaurant table is low, and so are the chairs that go with it. That makes all of the seating the same height.

We've moved the tables together and are all sitting around them in one big group. We're talking about plans for things our families are going to do during the next few months, trying to coordinate a few dates so we can get together with the kids for something like a cook-out.

The girls all get up to visit the restroom. I am asked to go too. My friends and I don't usually do that. We consider ourselves "big girls" who can go to the restroom by ourselves. I figure there is something they want to talk about.

We go in, and there's no one else in there. One of my friends starts talking about a problem that is kind of embarrassing, that she feels the rest of us who are a little older and more experienced might be able to help with. Each of us relates an experience with that issue, and offers some advice. Our advice all sort of matches up. Even though it's not all the same, each of us says something that would work with what the others are offering.

After the discussion, three of us actually use the stalls. The one who doesn't heads back to the group. The other two finish before me and also head back. I hear more people come in. I come out of the stall, to see my boss from work and a few of her friends looking at me. I had not seen them in the building prior to the trip to the restroom, but they tell me they have been here the whole time, and have been watching for the opportunity to get me alone.

I try to leave the restroom, and the friend who is a police officer grabs me by the arm. I try to pull out of her grip and she moves with my motion, slamming me up against the door. She leans back then, and throws me halfway across the room. Immediately, someone else grabs my arms, pulls them behind my back, and turns me over onto my belly. I can smell pee and chemicals on the floor. I try not to let my face touch it, but someone shoves the back of my head so that my cheek is right on the drain.

I feel a foot slam into my ribs. I can hear my boss yelling obscenities, and then something hits me in the back. I start randomly kicking my feet in as many directions as I can, and find something solid but soft. The hands on my arms let go, and someone falls on my legs, then slides off between them. I turn at the waist to try to get up, but my ribs hurt really bad. At the same time, a fist slams into my face. I pull the leg up on the side where the ribs aren't hurt, and kick the woman on the floor behind me right in the face. It turns out to be the cop.

My boss stomps a foot at my hand, which is on the floor next to her. She misses and hits my wrist. She loses her balance, and I try to scramble away from her. Instead, she regains her balance and kicks me in the ribs again. At the same time, someone else kicks me in the back.

I back up against the divider between two stalls. Someone has a grip on my hair, and pulls me up. I swing wildly at the person, who is off to my left, but instead of hitting her, I end up hitting the door of a stall. My boss drives both of her fists into my gut like a boxer, and I double over and fall to my knees. She begins pounding on my back. Her friends are kicking and punching me too. There are at least four people beating on me. The pain is terrible.

I grab someone's ankle and pull, and hear someone go down with a thud. I scramble out that direction and head for the exit. The group tries to grab me and I kick at them. I open the exit door and crawl out where people can see me. No one is looking at the restroom.

My boss grabs my ankle and tries to drag me back in. I kick her in the jaw, and she falls backward, ripping the seam of my pants and taking my shoe. I see one of her teeth hit the floor. I crawl away from the door, yelling for help, but the music is too loud.

A few patrons finally do see me, but they don't do anything. They just keep eating. They have sympathetic looks on their faces, but I know that they are worried that if they get up, they'll lose their table to another group. I try to get the attention of my friends, but I'm too far away, and they're all talking to each other.

My boss and her friends come out of the restroom. They give me angry looks, but don't do anything because people can see. The patrons who noticed me get knowing looks on their faces, and one of them whispers to the patrons at the next table over. They look, and nod. Someone asks if I am ok. I say I probably need an ambulance. They all agree that yes, I should call an ambulance. No one gets up to help me, but I don't feel bad about it because I know that this is just the way things are handled at this place.

I can see the bartender watching. He is basically just making sure nothing happens out here where the patrons have to see it. He wants no drama in his place. He is also not calling anyone.

I crawl past the first two tables, to where my friends can see me. My boss is following me with a menacing look, but hanging back so that it's not obvious. I try to yell for my friends, but my chest is so sore that I can't get a deep breath. Finally, one of the guys sees me. He nudges my husband, and they get up and run to where I am. The two of them pick me up and carry me over to the love seat, where the group asks me what happened.

I tell the whole thing, explaining that the only people in the restroom were my boss and her friends, but I couldn't see which of them was hitting me at any given time except for a few of the blows dealt by my boss. My friends decide that we need to call the police.

When the police arrive, they take a statement from me, and tell me they're going to help, but then they head over to the bar and start drinking instead. Seeing their uninvolvement, my boss casually walks over to the group and starts spitting on me. When my friends try to block her, she spits over and around them. A couple of friends throw things at her, both of which hit her in the face and make a mess on her shirt. She takes a moment to grab napkins and try to clean herself, and my friends try to get me out of the building.

The door to the building is locked, and we can't get out. My ribs and back are hurting really badly, and standing makes them worse, so my husband picks me up to carry me. I wrap my arms around him and try to hold on, but using those muscles is really painful. He tells me he's got me. At the same time, my boss comes around the side, grabs my arm, and gives it a good yank. I feel myself almost fall. Another of my friends turns around and punches her in the face, and she backs off for a moment.

Her friends aren't helping, but they're watching. I can see them over by the restroom. She yells for them, and they start to come over. My friends yell to the police, "Why aren't you doing anything?" The police, who have turned toward us and have been watching, write a few things down in a notebook, and then just sit there. I realize they're documenting everything that is happening, and tell my friends to not hit back. Instead, when my boss reaches for me again, I yell at her to stop and smack her hand away. She looks offended and indignant, and reaches again, as if to slap me in the face. I again slap her hand out of the way. The bartender yells my name and says no fighting. I see the cops write that down. 

I hear an ambulance arrive outside, and realize that one of my friends has called for medical help. I tell everyone, "when the EMS opens the door to come in, we need to go out and shut it. That way, she'll be locked in here, and we can escape."

The door opens, and I see people in scrubs. They burst into the building with a gurney, pushing past us. My husband puts me on the gurney. One friend tells one of the EMTs that she thinks my ribs are broken on the left side. Another is describing the assault to another EMT. While the door is still open and everyone is distracted, another friend of mine shoves my boss outside and slams it in her face. I can hear her pounding to get back in, but the friend is leaning on it. At that moment, the cops get up and arrest the bartender. They ignore my boss's friends.

One of the EMTs begins taking my vital signs. A cuff is wrapped around my arm to get my blood pressure, and a thermometer is placed in my mouth. I see the door start to open, despite my friend's efforts, and my boss tries to come back inside. When that happens, one of the cops breaks away from the arrest of the bartender, runs over to the door, and slaps handcuffs on my boss. He steps outside with her, and I can hear him reading her rights. She is yelling back at him that it's my fault for being there, not knowing my place, and expecting to not get kicked around.

I hear one of the EMTs tell my husband, "Your wife's blood pressure is really high." I think, that can't be right. I have abnormally low blood pressure. It's always been that way. I turn to say so to the EMT, when I feel something jab me in the ribs.

This is when I woke. The jab hurt so bad that it jolted me out of the dream.
Oddly, I am in a severe amount of pain this morning. My ribs really do hurt like they're broken on the left side, where I was kicked in the dream. My back is killing me. It feels like if I could just pop it, it would feel better, but twisting and stretching (or even taking a deep breath in, or breathing out too far) hurt my ribs, right under my left breast. I've been a little sore for a few days after having slept wrong, but not like this. I really do feel like someone beat the crap out of me.

I know the dream was stress related, but I suspect that the pain existed prior to it and the stress manifested itself by creating that story in response.

I recognized the people in the dream. My friends were my real friends. My husband was himself, too. So was my boss. Her friends, though, were actually people who are with our company, most of whom have been in our store. One is a former manager. Two others are former district managers, only in the dream they were women, but in waking life they are men. The voice of the friend who is a cop was the voice of the human resources manager. I've never seen her, but I'm really familiar with that voice. My boss really does have a friend who is a cop, but she was not involved in the dream. The bartender was the current district manager. 

The police in the dream weren't the local police, either. I know those guys. They come into the store all the time and get coffee and snacks (not donuts quite so often as you might think, but a LOT of coffee.) In the dream, the officer who initiated the arrest of the district manager, then broke off to arrest my boss, is the case worker handling my unsafe working conditions complaint to OSHA, and the retaliation complaint I had to file after my employer kept me off of the schedule for a couple of months following the inspection. 

The company has been notified of the complaint, and my boss has been further retaliating by creating a hostile work environment. She has threatened me and is trying to push me out of my job. It's not a fabulous job, and if the job market were better, I'd just quit and go work somewhere else. However, I'm in an area with crazy high unemployment. I've been looking for a job for nearly three years, with no success. I have to have the paycheck, so I can't afford to leave or be fired, and my boss knows that.

Two days ago, the district manager let me know that the harassment would be condoned by the company, and I was "not permitted" to document and report it. I've let my case worker know what he said, and am waiting to find out what to do next. I may end up having to file yet another complaint. In the meantime, the harassment continues. I'm continuing to document and report, but trying to keep my boss from seeing me do it. This situation is really getting to me.

I dozed off again after that, but couldn't stay asleep. I kept having the feeling that something was in the room with me, as happens with Sleep Paralysis. When I started to dream again, it was a repeat of the one with something trying to drag me off of the bed and into the closet. I ended up dragging myself out of bed and downstairs for coffee. 

I am so tired!

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

Unidentified malevolent thing

This one was kind of weird... jumped around a lot and didn't stay as consistent as many of my other dreams because noises from outside kept waking me up. I've divided parts of the dream with asterisks (****) where I either woke completely, or at least partially, interrupting the dream, or where it skips or suddenly changes.


My family and I are moving out of a house. It's a two story "salt box" house with an attached porch. The color scheme on the outside is really hokey, pastel pinks, peaches, blues, and blue-greens painted thick so they look bright in the sunlight. Even the roof is a pastel color. It looks like whoever did the decorating wanted the house to look like candy.

The inside is more normal looking, with dark carpets, wood paneling, and light ceilings.

The house is surrounded on three sides by a mostly gravel-filled pit that was at one time a rock quarry and has been badly filled back in. On the side that isn't bordered by the pit, there is a partially paved driveway coming off of the road. Our van is parked there, with my family inside it and a bunch of our stuff loaded up.

I am going back into the house for some things. My family doesn't want me to go, because "it" will get me. I can feel the ominous presence of "it" inside the house, but whatever I'm going back in for is very important to us. I have the sense that as long as I avoid the room where "it" is, I will be ok. I think this is partly because right now is day, not night. "It" is more dangerous at night. We argue, but I insist on going in.

****************

I am inside the house. There are no lights on, but light is coming in the windows, so the house isn't extremely dark . The room I'm in is a dining room, with a big, oval-shaped varnished mahogany table and chairs for more people than just my family. I feel like I am going to deeply miss something associated with this room. There is a heavy, sad ache in my chest that makes me angry at "it" for making us leave.

I have to go upstairs to get the important thing. I have to open a door to get to the stairwell, which has a set of stairs going up on the left, and a set going down on the right. "It" is downstairs. I can feel a kind of spiritual radiation from it when I open the door. It feels icky against my skin, both hot and cold, and it makes me feel nauseated, like the feeling you get when you know something terrible has happened and you're too late to do anything about it. The feeling is strong enough at the top of the stairs to discourage going down.

Even though there are windows on one side of the basement, it's dark down there. When I turn on the light, I can see all the way to the top of the "up" stairs, but I can only see a few steps of the "down" stairs. Something in the basement goes "thunk" and then there is a scraping sound, and a low vibrating noise that might be a growl.

****************

The room I'm in is girly. The walls are pale pink on top, whitish wood paneling on the bottom, with some kind of wallpaper trim that has pictures on it in between. There is a crib in the room. It's wooden, and it's colored with some kind of a stain, not paint. It's pink and white, with little picture shapes on it. Over the crib is a little mobile. For some reason, we don't need to take those with us. I have mixed feelings about that, but it doesn't really feel like the reason for leaving the crib is something bad. There is a similar nostalgia associated with it to how I felt about the dining room.

The important thing is supposed to be in this room, on a shelf that's built in, but sticks out from the wall. It's kind of like there used to be a fireplace in this spot, but it was taken out and turned into bookshelves that are just set into the hearth. I go over there to get it, and find the bookshelves empty of all but a few incidental items. These are baby toys. One of them is a hard plastic clown that seems to have been made with the intent at producing something cute, but clowns all look kind of wrong and creepy to me, and this one is no different. It doesn't look abnormal creepy, though, just like a regular clown. When I realize that the important thing is not there, however, it really feels like the clown's overly cheerful smile is the situation's way of mocking me. It isn't talking (it doesn't - just makes a jingling noise when it's rocked) but I want to tell it to shut up.

****************

I'm in the hallway to the stairs. I've checked other rooms. I have the mental image of a set of pale blue curtains flapping in the wind because someone left a window open. It was hard to close, but I closed it before coming in here. I have not found the important thing. It is not up here. I have the feeling I'm going to have to get it out of the basement. I don't want to go down there. Even though I'm the one person out of the whole family who is able to face "it," I dread the experience.

****************

I'm outside. In front of me is the house, but it's not full sized. It looks like a 25% size scale model made for kids to play in, and it's sunk into a hill so that on one side the second story is the ground floor, and on the other side I can see the porch. The house is in the back yard of a residential property that is a mix of my parents' house and a big mansion I've seen on T.V. There is some kind of gathering, and lots of people are in the yard. Some are in fancy clothes, and some are in every-day clothes. Some are swimming in a small in-ground pool. Everyone seems to be having a fine time, and no one is noticing the little house.

I have to go back in there to get the important thing. I know that "it" is in there, and the only way for me to do this successfully is if I go in on the offensive and attack right away. When I'm standing away from it, the house is small, but when I walk up to it, it's as big as normal.

The door is open. I walk onto the porch and enter through the same dining room as before, but now I go down a hallway to the kitchen, walk through, then turn and face a set of "up" stairs. There are no stairs down in this stairwell. Those are on the other side. I recognize the layout of the kitchen and stairs as being from the home of a childhood friend, but not the dining room and hallway. I don't know if the basement stairs actually go all the way down, because we weren't allowed in the basement at her house.

I go up. "It" is in one of the rooms upstairs. As I climb the stairs, I kind of "flex" my willpower, feeling myself mentally push a "me" kind of spiritual radiation outward. It feels like kind of a mix between a light wave kind of radiation, an electrical charge, and a lightweight physical substance like steam. I can choose to not see it, or I can choose to look at it. The color is white, but if I focus on it, I can change it. I make an egg-shaped blob of it around me and harden it into kind of a whipped plasma. It isn't really physical, so it extends down through the steps I'm walking on and out past the wall. Once I've done that, I don't have to think about maintaining it any more, and I change my focus to "growing" a ball of it between my hands, in front of my chest.

****************

I'm entering a room upstairs. I have come from my grandfather's apartment, having made sure that another family member was taking him out to the car so that "it" won't get him. This room is different from the other rooms upstairs. The door is old and beaten up, and so is the door frame. It stands out against the nicely painted, unmarred wall and the clean, lacquered hardwood floor. The door is closed, but it does not latch. A shadow stretches out from under the door into the lit hallway the way light would stretch from a lit room into an unlit hallway.

I push it open with my foot. As soon as the door is open, I can feel "it" rush me.  The movement is accompanied by thumps and scraping sounds, but those sound like they're coming from all around me. I can see into the room, but the light is dim. "It" is invisible, but I have a keen sense of where "it" is and what direction "it" is moving. I shove my ball of willpower-energy at it with a focus on knocking it back against the opposite wall. I feel the ball hit, and sense "it" moving away from me. "It" hits the wall hard enough to cause the window to rattle. I step into the room, pulling another ball of willpower into my right hand.

With my spiritual level of attention focused on "it," I turn my physical attention to looking around the room for the important thing. As I turn my face away from where "it" hit the wall, it rushes me again. I have the sense that it thinks that because I'm not looking at it, I'm not paying attention. I put up my right hand and shove the ball forward. It comes out as a kind of burning plasma ball, hits "it" in the middle of "its" mass, and explodes, knocking it back and burning it. I can see green fire hovering a few feet off of the floor, flying backward. I feel a cold wind hit me from "its" direction and know that I'm feeling "its" shock, frustration, and rage. At the same time, there is a roaring sound throughout the room that is thin, like it's coming from far away. It almost sounds like the engine of a large vehicle rather than something vocal. There is another thud and rattling of windows as "it" hits the wall again.

I can feel that the important thing is in here. All I have to do is find it. At the same time, I can feel "it" getting ready to attack, building up around itself that icky, hot-and-cold, nauseating spirit radiation I felt before. Stray waves of it hit me like hard wind. It makes a sound like the deep, resonating creaking that comes from a big wooden structure under heavy strain. I turn to face "it" and focus on hardening the outside of my egg to use as a shield.

"It" shows up to my physical sight as a ball of darkness hovering above the floor. I know that I'm not seeing "its" physical form; the light just won't penetrate the area where that nasty radiation is being gathered. Outside the darkness, the light is bent and warped for a few feet, so that everything on the other side of it looks like reflections in a fun-house mirror. The visual is even more frightening than the anticipation of the attack.


This is really bad, and I am very afraid. Goosebumps form all over my body so suddenly and so tightly that they make my skin hurt. My stomach aches and my chest feels heavy.

****************

I'm outside in the yard again. There is a couple wanting to buy the little house, which now stands less than six feet tall with both "above ground" stories showing. They look all polished and spoiled. They're both dressed in gray and white business suits that look made just for them. The lady's suit has a skirt and a frilly collar. They keep calling the house a little cottage, and telling me it would make a great playhouse for their kids. They are trying to convince me to sell it to them. They argue that my kids are grown and don't need a play house, and the house is too small for adults. I don't want to sell, partly because of the way the house is (I don't want to explain why it's tiny on the outside, but life-sized on the inside) but mostly because of "it." I can't let anyone else go in there.

I improvise, and tell the couple that the house is contaminated. It is going to have to be professionally decontaminated and cleaned before I can even let them look at it, and that's going to be expensive. I tell them it would be cheaper for them if I draw them a floor plan and give them photos of the outside of the house. They argue that it would be less time consuming to just move the house, and threaten to use zoning laws to make me sell. I'm not worried about that actually happening, because if anyone comes to inspect, they won't see the house. By arguing with me and threatening me, the couple has made me mad, and I'm sorely tempted to let them "inspect" the house just to scare them away.

****************

The situation is that I have to give "it" three people. This has something to do with my family, and something to do with the important thing. It's an arrangement that happened against my wishes. I feel coerced into participation, but am going to do so because I can't force an alternative. I'm very upset about this development, and angry at myself for not seeing it coming as much as for not seeing a way out of it. I dread committing the act of exposing others to "it."

****************

I've all ready "given" two people. Both are people who caused my family harm, and who made an effort to force their way into the house to take the important thing away from us. A third has approached. He is also in the act of perpetrating some kind of dastardly deed against my family, and it involves violating our home, hurting the kids (who are now young and vulnerable), and taking from us something that I'm angry and distressed about his having taken. I have a strong sense of outrage, anger, and resentment toward this person and a feeling of impotent indignation regarding what he has done so far. These feelings lead me to decide to make him the third sacrifice. "It" doesn't care who "it" is given. "It" just requires three people.

I trick the third man into entering the little house, which is shorter than me now. I know that if he goes in there, he'll ransack the place, and inevitably enter the room containing "it," because he has no sense of presence. He won't feel the danger until too late. I've let him take something from my things. The something he took is consumable, and he has consumed it. It's something that "it" is kind of allergic to.

Moments later, I see him being dragged through the kitchen by his feet. He is screaming and fighting with his hands, trying to get away. I can feel his uncontrolled horror and repulsion, though I know he cannot see what is touching him. Somehow, he kicks loose of "its" grip. He scrambles through the kitchen, gets up while rushing down the hallway, stumbles across the dining room, and falls out the door. As he is crawling down the porch stairs and into the yard, "its" energy crashes through the window and reaches for him. He skitters away from the force of the energy, but a pair of arms only I can see (as a distortion of the light similar to what I mentioned before) reach out through the still-open door, grab his ankles, and drag him back into the house. I am left with a horrible sense of guilt and shame for having subjected another human being to this, even though I know that the alternative would have subjected me and my loved ones to something equally awful, and by doing this, I've reduced the number of people who suffer. Because I've transferred that suffering to others by choice, I can't reason the guilt away. Still, I do nothing to stop what is happening, even though I've been able to attack "it" before. My personal field of spiritual radiation feels grimy.

****************

I'm in the house again, heading into the kitchen. I have a strong feeling of wrongness and the idea that the "deal" didn't turn out the way I was led to believe it would. "It" feels both stronger and subdued at the same time. Some big change has taken place, and I have to find out what it is.

Standing in the kitchen is "it," wearing the last guy's body. "It" is no longer surrounded by darkness, but the light distortion is still the same. "It" is laughing at me, and talking about how my giving "it" a host has changed things. "It" knows that I've tried to kill "it," but not how. "It" is gloating over having a body to move around in, allowing "it" to leave the house and act in the real world to do whatever "it" wants. I realize that "it" has no idea that being bound to a body also binds "it" to the laws of physics and the laws of human society. I mentally give "it" less than 24 hours before "it" lands "its" butt in jail.

I can feel the man's spirit hovering in a corner of the kitchen. He hasn't got the ability to rationally think yet. Instead he's radiating a heavy, acidic feeling I identify as guilt. I figure out that he's coming to terms with what he tried to do to my family. I put forth that what I did to him was worse, and hope that if I can forgive what he did, that he can forgive my actions as well. A rapid series of feelings I can't identify washes across me, and I can see that the same thing is happening to "it," because "it" looks confused. Then, the area where I can feel the man's spirit fills with a white mist. That slowly fades away, and he is gone. It feels like he was able to come to terms with his life, and has found his way to another plane of existence.

"It" tries to attack me while I'm musing over the man's departure. I can tell what "it" is doing, because the margin of warped light is fluctuating rapidly. There seems to be a struggle taking place, and I realize that "it" doesn't know how to break the barrier between the physical mind and the spiritual mind, and therefore has no control over "its" spirit energy. I notice that "it" hasn't been able put up a shield, either. At the same time, there's a deep purple glow emanating from "its" belly, where the consumed something is starting to digest.

A look of extreme pain crosses "its" face and it doubles over, covering "its" stomach with "its" hands. On "its" knees on the floor, "it" throws the man's head back and lets out a scream, his jaws opening wider than they should be able to open. I see all kinds of colors flashing through the body's aura as the trapped thing inside suffers a reaction to the spiritual nature of whatever I had fed to the man before he entered the house. The sound of the scream is almost like a factory whistle, only deeper and kind of hoarse. "It" turns his face to me, black eyes glaring with a horrifying expression of hatred, resentment, and accusation. I have a split second of regret over having caused such pain, then I am shocked into taking a defensive position, as I am struck with the terrifying expectation that "it" is going to jump at me and physically attack. If it has figured out how to use the strength in a human body, it will rip me apart.

Instead, I am jolted awake before it moves.

I was so creeped out by this dream that I couldn't sleep afterward, even though it was only 4:30 A.M. when I woke. I didn't want to get up in the dark, either. I couldn't get past the feeling of anticipation that something was going to jump out of my closet. Recounting what I could remember gave me goosebumps.

I also felt bad (upon waking) about my choices when faced with the situation in the dream. I didn't feel bad about hitting first, but I can't imagine any object that would be important enough for me to go into the room and face that thing when I had my family waiting for me safe and sound in the van outside. There is no material possession that we can't either live without, or replace. Even though it was just a dream, I was kind of upset with myself for being so arrogant as to confront something that awful without a genuine need.

I felt even worse about having sacrificed three other human beings to whatever "it" was. Even though I had the definite sense in the dream that something equally horrible would happen to my family and then anyone close to us, I felt upon waking that there should have been some other way of resolving the situation. It felt like I should have found some way of defeating, or at least confining "it."

I guess I learned from this experience that if it ever comes down to my having to step on someone's throat to protect my family, I'm not going to be able to rationalize the act by choosing a "bad" (less ethical than selfish) person and convincing myself that he or she deserved it. I might feel obligated to make an effort to spare "good" (more ethical than selfish) people, but even doing that won't provide fuel for total rationalization. There will be sense of guilt over my actions if I willfully cause harm to come to another person, even if I cannot conceive of another choice.

Somehow I feel better realizing that about myself, though I hope I never have to face a situation which involves a deadly or crippling level of harm like that. It would be awful to carry the weight of having had to damage someone, even in self-defense.


My grandfather has been dead for years, but yesterday I found and watched a video that had him in it. I hadn't realized how much I miss him until the images on the screen made me cry. My grandmother wasn't in the dream, but she was in the video. She died ten years before Grandpa, and she was "gone" for two years before she died. I miss her terribly, too, but part of me was very relieved that she stopped suffering the pain of Alzheimer's when she died. They both lived with us during the end of their lives, and I helped with their care. For Grandma it was only a couple of years, but for Grandpa, it was over a decade. I would guess that is why I dreamed about making sure someone got Grandpa out of the house before I confronted "it."

My grandparents had a huge influence on my sense of good and bad, right and wrong. I am sure that, faced with the same situations I faced in the dream, they would have found a way to defeat the malevolent force on their own.


On a side note, the clown toy doesn't exist, so far as I know. I've seen the clown face before, but it was in a picture, not on a toy. The toy I had as a child that made that noise was an apple with a smiley face on it, and I have no negative memories or feelings associated with it. In fact, it was one of my favorite toys when I was little. Mom called it the "happy apple."

Childhood nightmare; lethal injection

I was still a kid when I had this one. It happened during the time my parents were building a room onto our house. I remember that it was built around the time I five, before I started kindergarten, but we also used to call the daycare I occasionally attended "school." That is probably what I was thinking of in the beginning.
This dream upset me enough back then that it has stuck with me for over thirty years, and I remember a lot of details. I can still see a lot of it in my mind's eye when I think about it.

It's the middle of the night, and I'm in my bed. I'm supposed to be sleeping, but I suddenly realize that I haven't laid out school clothes for tomorrow. I get up and quickly grab a few things and lay them out on the chair by my desk . Everything is really quiet, but now I can't sleep. I think I will get a drink of water.

I head to the kitchen, get a stool, climb up and get a glass out of the cupboard. Then, I'm standing at the sink running water when I hear soft footsteps behind me. I think that maybe my mother has heard me and has gotten up to tell me to go back to bed, but when I turn around, no one is there.

Maybe my brother is sleepwalking again. I go into the living room to make sure he's not in there. When he does that, I can usually get him to go back to bed by taking his hand and just guiding him there.

He's not in the living room, though, so I decide that while I'm finishing my water, I'll check the doors to make sure he hasn't opened the door and gone outside. He's never done that, but he's done other complicated stuff, like putting his toys on the kitchen table, so I figure it could happen.

The porch door is closed, but then when I go into the kitchen, the sliding doors are open. I go over to the door to look outside, and a tall man jumps out from behind the curtain. It's the doctor my mom took me to for an allergy shot when my doctor was out on vacation. I remember that unlike at my doctor's office, when he gave me the shot, he stuck the needle in a different part of my arm and it hurt really bad.

He has a huge syringe with a long needle on it, and he is grinning at me. It's not a normal grin. He doesn't look happy, he looks kind of confused and angry and over-excited all at the same time. His eyes are opened too wide, and his smile is, too. The stuff in the syringe is really nasty, thick gray sludge. I'm pretty sure it's poison, and if he catches me, he's going to give me a shot of it and it'll kill me. As I back away from him and he advances, it occurs to me that maybe he's come here to kill my whole family. I don't just have to get away from him. I have to wake everyone up and get them all out of the house. If we can just get out, we'll be safe.

I run down the hall back toward the bedrooms, but it doesn't go where it's supposed to, and I end up in a different set of rooms. After a moment of wandering, simultaneously trying to find my way out and hide from the killer doctor who is following me, I recognize the layout of my friend's house, except no one is there. Every room is empty. I remember then that she moved, and doesn't live in that house any more. I head out the door, turn, shut and lock it behind me. I look around, and I'm back in the kitchen.

I head down the hall to my brother's room again. This time, I keep my hand on the wall so I don't get lost, and I end up in the right place. I notice my his door is open, which is kind of unusual. Normally, he keeps his door closed. I look to see if he's in bed. He's there, but something is wrong. It takes me a minute to figure it out, then I realize his skin looks funny. He's kind of gray, and there's no movement at all. His eyes aren't moving, and his chest isn't moving. I touch him, and he's cold.

This is very bad. I slam open the door and run to Mom and Dad's room, yelling that something's wrong with my brother. Standing beside the bed, I reach out to touch Mom's hand to wake her. Her fingers are cold, and her skin is the same gray as my brother's skin. She is not breathing, either. I notice a tiny red mark on her arm. There is a drop of dried blood. The light in the room dims until I can only just see her silhouette, but I know I'm too late, and she's dead.

I run around the bed to wake my dad, and slam into something solid but soft. I yell for Dad, but he doesn't answer. A hand grabs at my arm, and something sharp grazes my skin. I pull out of the grip and back up. In the darkness, I can make out a tall shape that is not my Dad. It's the doctor. He's gotten out through the door that I locked. I don't know how, but he got to my entire family before I could wake them. They are all dead, and I'm next.

I panic and run. I can hear a high pitched whining noise, and it takes me a second before I realize it's coming from me. I'm so terrified that when I run out of the room, I run face first into the hallway wall right across from the door. At the same time, the understanding that my whole family is gone and they're never going to come back hits me, too. I turn my back to that wall and sink to the floor, horrified and filled with grief. I feel something touching me, and I know it's him. I'm not afraid any more. I don't try to get away. As I feel the needle poke into my arm, all I can think is that in a few minutes I'll be in heaven with my family instead of here with my heart breaking over their deaths. The needle poking me is really painful, and whatever he's shooting into my arm burns like acid.

That dream ended there. I don't remember if I woke up, or lapsed into another dream, but I do remember that when I got up for the day, I had to hug everyone in my family because I was so glad they were alive. 

I remember that when I got my shot at that doctor's office, I had a worse than normal reaction to it. My arm swelled up like I had half an apple up my sleeve, and had to be iced down. I was given a shot in my butt that made me shaky and hungry. It could have been an epi shot, but I think it was more likely cortisone to counteract the giant "hive" that had broken out on my arm. I remember making Mom promise that she'd never take me to him for another shot again. It didn't take much effort. 

Shots have never really bothered me, aside from at that one doctor's office. I began receiving them as a toddler, and continued to receive weekly injections until I was in college. I got very sick once in elementary school, and was given a spinal tap to test for meningitis, and had no problem handling that needle. 

I am not really sure what caused the nightmare, but a little online research tells me that the term "lethal injection" may have been uttered in the news several times that year, because there was discussion about instituting the use of it, and there was controversy. I may have heard the term on the news and associated it with my allergy shots because I know I had heard my doctor use the term "injection" when speaking of them, too.

This is the first nightmare I ever remember having in which I feared for someone other than myself.

Cornered

I get out of bed. It's still dark. I've gotten up because my alarm went off. It's early, about 3:30 A.M. and I have to get ready for work . I haven't gotten much sleep, and I am so tired that my head feels heavy. However, I have to get up, or I will be late for work.

Coffee!

I just need my coffee, and then I'll be okay.

I grab my glasses and my phone and head out of the bedroom to go downstairs and get ready for the day. I walk around the end of the bed and reach for the door handle in the dark, but instead my hand hits a wall. I hear my husband's breathing change, but he doesn't wake up.

I move along the wall, looking for the door handle. The room isn't that big, so I should be right next to it, but I can't seem to find it. Finally, I give up and open my phone to use the light it puts out. It's not very bright, but since I've been asleep, it should be enough for me to see. Oddly, somehow I've gotten into a corner. I see the door, and I head that way as my phone goes out. I reach for the handle, and boom! I run into the wall again. Opening my phone, I see that I have gotten turned around and run back into the corner.

What the heck? How did I get here? I put my hand on the wall, and start moving to the right, toward the door just two feet away from me. My phone light goes out again, and I am again in the dark. After a few seconds, my shoulder bangs into the wall. Turning on my phone light, I see that I am now facing as if I'd turned to my left. My fingers are in the corner, my shoulder is against the wall, and the door is behind me!

Now, I am really frustrated. I must be very sleepy, to keep doing this. How did I get all the way around the room and not realize it? I figure maybe I am sleepwalking.

I reach behind me. I am touching the door frame right now. With my fingers on it, I turn around. I can see the door. As I reach for it, my phone light goes off again. My fingers slam painfully into the corner, and I hear my husband's "half awake" breathing again. This time, I have not moved, and I know I did not go back to sleep. I turn on my phone light, and sure enough, I am back in the corner.

Now, I am a little bit scared. I say my husband's name. He sounds like he is almost awake, but he doesn't answer me. In a panic, I call his name again. He does not wake up. I put my fingers in the corner, and stretch to reach the door with my other hand. I can't quite get to the door handle, only the middle of the door... but I can feel the frame against my arm. With that to guide me, I slide along the wall, reaching for the edge of the door... and bang my fingers into the corner.

Now, it's no longer dark in the room. The sun is coming up, and I know I've been doing this for a couple of hours. I am all ready late for work. My phone rings, and my husband wakes up. He asks why I'm still home, and I start to move toward him so I can explain, but instead I run face first into the corner.

The impact of the corner on my face has awakened me. I have dozed in front of the computer. I woke early this morning and came downstairs before my husband left for work. I've been off work for a month, as my company has been dragging its feet with regard to getting me back on the job after a minor injury. I've been really frustrated with the process, and yesterday they sent me another item of paperwork to fill out that isn't even related to my injury. They had a whole month to send me that page, but they held it until a full work week after the last item was turned in for evaluation, and I am starting to think they are deliberately delaying my return as a means of retaliating against me for filing worker's compensation. Why else would they send me paperwork requiring a doctor to evaluate physical capabilities that were never in question, and why else (if this paperwork is so necessary) would they have waited until just now to make it available to me?


I think this dream is a function of my frustration and feelings of helplessness due to that process, and my feeling that I'm not contributing to the household because I'm not bringing in any income. I really do feel like my employer has stuffed me into a corner, and I can't get out. I think the part about slamming my fingers, though, had more to do with the fact that they are sore this morning, and my slamming face first may have been because I slumped down and hit my head on the desk . I'm fine, but the spot where my face impacted the desk is right where it hit the wall in my dream. (Don't feel bad if you laugh at this. I am!)