(no subject)
I never wrote this up because I was so exhausted when I drove back from PA, but Saturday night I had what I think was the scariest nightmare I ever had. And it wasn't scary in the usual way. What was scary about it was that it was a nightmare, but I was sure I was awake.
I have this thing sometimes in nightmares where I try to scream and I can't make any sound. I can talk to other "characters" in the dream in a normal voice, generally, but if I get scared and go to make any louder vocalizations, I simply can't do it. There was one time when I had this problem in my nightmare and I actually did make a noise, and it woke me up because I vocalized in real life. So I'm pretty sure that when I try to scream in a nightmare and can't, it's because I'm physically trying to vocalize, but my sleeping body won't let me do it, so it filters back into the dream as inability to vocalize. (I also have a theory about these weird dreams I have where I can't see straight--I think my eyes cross sometimes in my sleep. But that's another story...)
Anyway, I had read a ghost story a couple of days before that involved this woman walking downstairs at 5 AM and seeing her daughter in the living room watching TV. She spoke to her daughter, but her daughter didn't react, so the woman realized something was wrong and went back upstairs to check her daughter's room, and her daughter was asleep in bed. This story really freaked me out, and it fed into this nightmare.
There was something earlier on in the dream about somebody becoming invisible and not knowing it and interacting with visible people and freaking them out. So eventually there was a point in the dream where I was lying in bed in my room, and somebody invisible--probably a ghost or evil spirit of some kind--started moving my body against my will. She was pulling my arm up and down and moving me around and I couldn't stop it. I tried to yell at her to stop it, and swear at her, and finally tried to scream for help, and of course was unable to vocalize. Finally she stopped and I was able to get up and get some help. So I went to my parents' room and tried to tell them about the invisible girl and my inability to scream for help, and they were looking at me like I was crazy--just like they really would look at me if I ever told them there was an invisible entity moving my body around without my permission. Then I went back to my room for a minute, and when I came back they were both standing in the bathroom, and I was talking to them some more, and I looked into their bedroom (there's a door in our house between the bathroom and my folks' bedroom) and an image of my mother was lying in bed. And I knew that it was really my mom in the bathroom and an image in the bed, but it was definitely there. So I was telling them that she was lying there, and pointed out where her hand, and arm, and shoulder were, etc. So they, still looking at me like I was going nuts, kindly told me to just go back to my room and get dressed. So I went back to my room and was getting dressed and started thinking, "These things can't possibly be real--they're just like in a nightmare." But I tacitly knew I was awake. So the next thought was, "I must have finally gone crazy. They're going to have to take me to a psychiatrist--and what is this going to do to my grad school schedule? And they're going to put me on medication--is it going to interfere with my anxiety meds?" It was all just terribly realistic.
Anyway, the dream eventually moved on and got less scary, and then I woke up. But I really think that it was the scariest nightmare I've ever had, simply because it was so psychologically freaky.
If there's a deeper meaning to this dream, I think it's that with my anxiety issues and my family history of depression, I'm worried that I may eventually develop depression, and I really don't want that. So I think the nightmare just took the worry one step darker and deeper into actual insanity, which is part of the reason the dream was so scary to me.
I have this thing sometimes in nightmares where I try to scream and I can't make any sound. I can talk to other "characters" in the dream in a normal voice, generally, but if I get scared and go to make any louder vocalizations, I simply can't do it. There was one time when I had this problem in my nightmare and I actually did make a noise, and it woke me up because I vocalized in real life. So I'm pretty sure that when I try to scream in a nightmare and can't, it's because I'm physically trying to vocalize, but my sleeping body won't let me do it, so it filters back into the dream as inability to vocalize. (I also have a theory about these weird dreams I have where I can't see straight--I think my eyes cross sometimes in my sleep. But that's another story...)
Anyway, I had read a ghost story a couple of days before that involved this woman walking downstairs at 5 AM and seeing her daughter in the living room watching TV. She spoke to her daughter, but her daughter didn't react, so the woman realized something was wrong and went back upstairs to check her daughter's room, and her daughter was asleep in bed. This story really freaked me out, and it fed into this nightmare.
There was something earlier on in the dream about somebody becoming invisible and not knowing it and interacting with visible people and freaking them out. So eventually there was a point in the dream where I was lying in bed in my room, and somebody invisible--probably a ghost or evil spirit of some kind--started moving my body against my will. She was pulling my arm up and down and moving me around and I couldn't stop it. I tried to yell at her to stop it, and swear at her, and finally tried to scream for help, and of course was unable to vocalize. Finally she stopped and I was able to get up and get some help. So I went to my parents' room and tried to tell them about the invisible girl and my inability to scream for help, and they were looking at me like I was crazy--just like they really would look at me if I ever told them there was an invisible entity moving my body around without my permission. Then I went back to my room for a minute, and when I came back they were both standing in the bathroom, and I was talking to them some more, and I looked into their bedroom (there's a door in our house between the bathroom and my folks' bedroom) and an image of my mother was lying in bed. And I knew that it was really my mom in the bathroom and an image in the bed, but it was definitely there. So I was telling them that she was lying there, and pointed out where her hand, and arm, and shoulder were, etc. So they, still looking at me like I was going nuts, kindly told me to just go back to my room and get dressed. So I went back to my room and was getting dressed and started thinking, "These things can't possibly be real--they're just like in a nightmare." But I tacitly knew I was awake. So the next thought was, "I must have finally gone crazy. They're going to have to take me to a psychiatrist--and what is this going to do to my grad school schedule? And they're going to put me on medication--is it going to interfere with my anxiety meds?" It was all just terribly realistic.
Anyway, the dream eventually moved on and got less scary, and then I woke up. But I really think that it was the scariest nightmare I've ever had, simply because it was so psychologically freaky.
If there's a deeper meaning to this dream, I think it's that with my anxiety issues and my family history of depression, I'm worried that I may eventually develop depression, and I really don't want that. So I think the nightmare just took the worry one step darker and deeper into actual insanity, which is part of the reason the dream was so scary to me.