Have you ever...
...stumbled, shaking and sweating, out of unconsciousness and away from a dreadful dream?
For the past two nights, that's been my awakening.
The uglier side of reality didn't used to intrude upon my dreams. There were KITTENS, for godssake. But these...these unconscious romps haven't been romps at all.
In one, a woman's daughter is snatched from her by a man riding a camel and wielding a specially-crafted child-snatching (half-sentient and nastily-tempered) Venus-flytrap-sort-of-elegant device made of metal wires that later - and maliciously - stabs the distraught woman in the chest. Clean entry. Clean exit. (It isn't until later in the dream that I realize she should have died from Claw Sepsis.)
So here's the poor woman, wandering naked around the desert, having lost the one thing in the world she cares the most about (and, I'm pretty sure, the one thing tethering her to sanity), and along comes a band of men on camels. She's immediately bound between camels, sobbing about her lost daughter in a language the men give no indication of understanding, and stumbling to keep up.
When the band finally stops for the night (they've come to grassland and cooler temperatures by now), The Bad happens. While I don't see them rape her, I see them one by one approach her, see her kick - exhausted but desperate - at them, hear them laugh pure evil. The dream is quite clear about what happens next.
The dream returns to the woman and band of men entering a bustling little community where everyone seems to have a job to do. The woman is barely acknowledged, but the men are welcomed home as heroes.
Some taut thing within the woman has snapped. There is murder in her eyes. I, in my impotent narrator's position, want with every fiber of my being to help her carry it out.
Time passes. Lengthening-of-hair time. The bustling community, it turns out, is some sort of model that the rest of the (crumbling) world looks to - a place where everyone works together, reduces reuses and recycles, and produces enough excess to export to the hands-outstretched outside world.
Oh. And sees absolutely nothing wrong with gang rape, but of course hasn't mentioned this to the outside world.
The dream begins to fall apart when the shell that was The Woman tries to escape The Community aboard an outbound train, but with little planning and in a place everyone's sure to look for her first. Narrator Beth is screaming silently at her to think ahead, damnit, and then Asleep Beth is slogging into consciousness.
That's Bad Dream One.
You know the sort of awake that comes to you abruptly and deposits you - fully conscious - into reality? That moment when your eyes are still closed tight, your breathing is still urgent from the trauma of the dream, but you're still a little afraid to move?
Right. That was 5 minutes ago. It felt as if the screams of "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" had just died from my lips.
The dream was a wanderin' one, and one bright spot was a floating/swimming creature that looked like he'd stepped right out of http://www.ShanaLogic.com, bless his heart. He was a wild little squashy cloud creature who frolicked through my hair and wisped away with an earring. I'm fairly certain his language was giggles.
But something snagged his squishy cloudskin, a group of hyucking-it-up boys started talking about cute things exploding, and I ran scared.
To my aunt's and uncle's house? Strange... Where we're all wandering bored around the autumn-dead front yard, and their dog (but not their dog) is sitting in the fucking fire pit. I go from person to person asking for help getting him out (the fire's close, but not touching him, and he's all jolly and Dog), but am brushed off every time. When I finally go to fetch him out alone (there's a metal bar as tall as he is around the fire, so I'm going to have to pick him up bodily), the fire finally catches him with a whoosh of angry flames and pain.
He's startled, he's in terrible pain, he's trying to get out but the bar's too high, he's Dog. I, horrified, dash inside for the fire extinguisher as my family looks impassively on - some even getting in the way or actively slowing my progress with completely un-dog on fire-related banality. I'm pleading for help, I'm getting none, my hand is on the fire extinguisher...and my legs stop working; it's as if I'm walking through high tide on legs that are asleep.
When I finally - what feels like years later - get outside, the fire is out and the dog is gone. I'm beside myself. I run from person to person, screaming the question of where he went. No one answers, but I eventually find him lying on the front porch steps - the place he's dragged himself to.
It's awful. He's shaking uncontrollably. He's ruined. I'm running toward him, sobbing my "I'm sorry"s. He's going to die, but if I can only get to him, touch his head gently, show him that someone fucking cares...
Then I'm awake. I'm shaking, I'm sweating, and I'm so so sorry.
current mood: dream-tearful
EDIT: Just to clarify, my real family would never let this happen - yet another part of the dream's horror.
For the past two nights, that's been my awakening.
The uglier side of reality didn't used to intrude upon my dreams. There were KITTENS, for godssake. But these...these unconscious romps haven't been romps at all.
In one, a woman's daughter is snatched from her by a man riding a camel and wielding a specially-crafted child-snatching (half-sentient and nastily-tempered) Venus-flytrap-sort-of-elegant device made of metal wires that later - and maliciously - stabs the distraught woman in the chest. Clean entry. Clean exit. (It isn't until later in the dream that I realize she should have died from Claw Sepsis.)
So here's the poor woman, wandering naked around the desert, having lost the one thing in the world she cares the most about (and, I'm pretty sure, the one thing tethering her to sanity), and along comes a band of men on camels. She's immediately bound between camels, sobbing about her lost daughter in a language the men give no indication of understanding, and stumbling to keep up.
When the band finally stops for the night (they've come to grassland and cooler temperatures by now), The Bad happens. While I don't see them rape her, I see them one by one approach her, see her kick - exhausted but desperate - at them, hear them laugh pure evil. The dream is quite clear about what happens next.
The dream returns to the woman and band of men entering a bustling little community where everyone seems to have a job to do. The woman is barely acknowledged, but the men are welcomed home as heroes.
Some taut thing within the woman has snapped. There is murder in her eyes. I, in my impotent narrator's position, want with every fiber of my being to help her carry it out.
Time passes. Lengthening-of-hair time. The bustling community, it turns out, is some sort of model that the rest of the (crumbling) world looks to - a place where everyone works together, reduces reuses and recycles, and produces enough excess to export to the hands-outstretched outside world.
Oh. And sees absolutely nothing wrong with gang rape, but of course hasn't mentioned this to the outside world.
The dream begins to fall apart when the shell that was The Woman tries to escape The Community aboard an outbound train, but with little planning and in a place everyone's sure to look for her first. Narrator Beth is screaming silently at her to think ahead, damnit, and then Asleep Beth is slogging into consciousness.
That's Bad Dream One.
You know the sort of awake that comes to you abruptly and deposits you - fully conscious - into reality? That moment when your eyes are still closed tight, your breathing is still urgent from the trauma of the dream, but you're still a little afraid to move?
Right. That was 5 minutes ago. It felt as if the screams of "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" had just died from my lips.
The dream was a wanderin' one, and one bright spot was a floating/swimming creature that looked like he'd stepped right out of http://www.ShanaLogic.com, bless his heart. He was a wild little squashy cloud creature who frolicked through my hair and wisped away with an earring. I'm fairly certain his language was giggles.
But something snagged his squishy cloudskin, a group of hyucking-it-up boys started talking about cute things exploding, and I ran scared.
To my aunt's and uncle's house? Strange... Where we're all wandering bored around the autumn-dead front yard, and their dog (but not their dog) is sitting in the fucking fire pit. I go from person to person asking for help getting him out (the fire's close, but not touching him, and he's all jolly and Dog), but am brushed off every time. When I finally go to fetch him out alone (there's a metal bar as tall as he is around the fire, so I'm going to have to pick him up bodily), the fire finally catches him with a whoosh of angry flames and pain.
He's startled, he's in terrible pain, he's trying to get out but the bar's too high, he's Dog. I, horrified, dash inside for the fire extinguisher as my family looks impassively on - some even getting in the way or actively slowing my progress with completely un-dog on fire-related banality. I'm pleading for help, I'm getting none, my hand is on the fire extinguisher...and my legs stop working; it's as if I'm walking through high tide on legs that are asleep.
When I finally - what feels like years later - get outside, the fire is out and the dog is gone. I'm beside myself. I run from person to person, screaming the question of where he went. No one answers, but I eventually find him lying on the front porch steps - the place he's dragged himself to.
It's awful. He's shaking uncontrollably. He's ruined. I'm running toward him, sobbing my "I'm sorry"s. He's going to die, but if I can only get to him, touch his head gently, show him that someone fucking cares...
Then I'm awake. I'm shaking, I'm sweating, and I'm so so sorry.
current mood: dream-tearful
EDIT: Just to clarify, my real family would never let this happen - yet another part of the dream's horror.