Dreams and Nightmares
Ever since I can remember, I've been a pretty vivid dreamer. As a young girl going through her night terror phase, this sucked.
As a young woman, my dreams (good and bad) were the source of raw inspiration for my writing...at least when I wasn't battling insomnia every other night.
As an adult, it's apparently back to sucking again. But you'd think that as a rational adult I'd be able to wake up and dismiss my subconscious and go about my day, after all, it's not like the nightmare visions that haunt me can jump out of my brain and cause me actual harm, right?
Well, as the saying goes, knowing and believing are two very different things.
Last night ran the sliding scale of awesome to pants-shittingly terrifying, as seems to be the case with most of these dreams. Each dream comes in acts, which can be connected or not--last night they weren't, at least so far as I remember. The first half of the dream I was hanging around this awesome futuristic college with a bunch of friends from Newark. I'd gotten work in the combination science lab/library, working on archiving experiments done on a revolutionary computer system called S.H.E.R.L.O.C.K (I don't remember what it stood for, but I was told in dream, and it was pretty cool. These are the things I should remember, not the scary crap.) From what I remember of the explanation of the computer system, it was a partially holographic simulator that was designed to make a play-thing of all the established laws of physics, and show how certain substances and structures (there was something going on with a bridge in one piece of footage I was archiving) would react.
Pretty awesome shit.
Then we get to act two. I'm with an old lady, walking through what very well could be a park. She's very high strung, and we're there to relax; it's getting late in the day and everything has a beautiful golden hue to it; practically the definition of a perfect spring afternoon. It's worth noting that in real life, there are a lot of old women I count as very dear friends--they're mostly relatives or friends of my grandmother who never lost touch with the family after her death-- so the idea of going for a walk with an old woman isn't just a normal idea for me, it's also comforting. I don't remember exactly what the woman was saying, but she was obviously concerned about how she'd been acting lately. I spent a lot of time consoling her and saying that whatever happened wasn't a big deal, that everyone has bad days. I ask if she's been worried or stressed about anything in particular and she emphatically replies that no, she hasn't. She just didn't know what came over her, but for some reason, she seems convinced it'll happen again. We start talking about doctors, mostly psychologists. The old woman seems set on going to see a traditional doctor while I suggest trying a more spiritually oriented version, a shaman or priest of sorts.
At this point, we pass by a man in a suit and tie carrying a briefcase, who scoffs openly at my suggestion of a spiritual advisor. He says something along the lines of "those won't do you any good anymore," before picking up his pace and passing us ahead on the trail.
Which is about when everything goes to hell in a hand basket. The old woman stops in her tracks on the path and just, stares at me. She's a frail thing with a pronounced nose and already somewhat shrunken features and a small smile. Then her features morph, her eyes go so far back in her head they turn black and her mouth comes to take up pretty much the entire lower portion of her face.
And she tries to eat me.
For some reason at this point in the dream I'm sure she's possessed and after a short struggle to get her away from me, bolt up the path. The chase goes through a house at one point and a gun is involved--thankfully her aim is horrendous. But there are a few more moments of her catching me and me wrestling her off, (which only seem to impress upon me that holy god, this bitch has a lot of teeth, and they're all pointy and jagged) until finally I catch up to the guy who passed us earlier. I try to convince him the old woman I was with is now a flesh eating abomination, but he doesn't believe me until he actually sees the woman. Together, we're able to get her down, and by down I mean seemingly dead. The guy I'm with is aghast that he appeared to just help murder a terrified old woman and is in the process of calling an ambulance, while I do the logical thing and use a length of rope to bind her to a nearby tree. I somehow managed to do this while using my new companion as a meat shield.
The last thing I remember is ducking behind the guy's legs just as the old woman starts to come to. The last thing I see her do before I wake up is smile....
I think I'm actually going to be a little sick every time I see an old lady now.
As a young woman, my dreams (good and bad) were the source of raw inspiration for my writing...at least when I wasn't battling insomnia every other night.
As an adult, it's apparently back to sucking again. But you'd think that as a rational adult I'd be able to wake up and dismiss my subconscious and go about my day, after all, it's not like the nightmare visions that haunt me can jump out of my brain and cause me actual harm, right?
Well, as the saying goes, knowing and believing are two very different things.
Last night ran the sliding scale of awesome to pants-shittingly terrifying, as seems to be the case with most of these dreams. Each dream comes in acts, which can be connected or not--last night they weren't, at least so far as I remember. The first half of the dream I was hanging around this awesome futuristic college with a bunch of friends from Newark. I'd gotten work in the combination science lab/library, working on archiving experiments done on a revolutionary computer system called S.H.E.R.L.O.C.K (I don't remember what it stood for, but I was told in dream, and it was pretty cool. These are the things I should remember, not the scary crap.) From what I remember of the explanation of the computer system, it was a partially holographic simulator that was designed to make a play-thing of all the established laws of physics, and show how certain substances and structures (there was something going on with a bridge in one piece of footage I was archiving) would react.
Pretty awesome shit.
Then we get to act two. I'm with an old lady, walking through what very well could be a park. She's very high strung, and we're there to relax; it's getting late in the day and everything has a beautiful golden hue to it; practically the definition of a perfect spring afternoon. It's worth noting that in real life, there are a lot of old women I count as very dear friends--they're mostly relatives or friends of my grandmother who never lost touch with the family after her death-- so the idea of going for a walk with an old woman isn't just a normal idea for me, it's also comforting. I don't remember exactly what the woman was saying, but she was obviously concerned about how she'd been acting lately. I spent a lot of time consoling her and saying that whatever happened wasn't a big deal, that everyone has bad days. I ask if she's been worried or stressed about anything in particular and she emphatically replies that no, she hasn't. She just didn't know what came over her, but for some reason, she seems convinced it'll happen again. We start talking about doctors, mostly psychologists. The old woman seems set on going to see a traditional doctor while I suggest trying a more spiritually oriented version, a shaman or priest of sorts.
At this point, we pass by a man in a suit and tie carrying a briefcase, who scoffs openly at my suggestion of a spiritual advisor. He says something along the lines of "those won't do you any good anymore," before picking up his pace and passing us ahead on the trail.
Which is about when everything goes to hell in a hand basket. The old woman stops in her tracks on the path and just, stares at me. She's a frail thing with a pronounced nose and already somewhat shrunken features and a small smile. Then her features morph, her eyes go so far back in her head they turn black and her mouth comes to take up pretty much the entire lower portion of her face.
And she tries to eat me.
For some reason at this point in the dream I'm sure she's possessed and after a short struggle to get her away from me, bolt up the path. The chase goes through a house at one point and a gun is involved--thankfully her aim is horrendous. But there are a few more moments of her catching me and me wrestling her off, (which only seem to impress upon me that holy god, this bitch has a lot of teeth, and they're all pointy and jagged) until finally I catch up to the guy who passed us earlier. I try to convince him the old woman I was with is now a flesh eating abomination, but he doesn't believe me until he actually sees the woman. Together, we're able to get her down, and by down I mean seemingly dead. The guy I'm with is aghast that he appeared to just help murder a terrified old woman and is in the process of calling an ambulance, while I do the logical thing and use a length of rope to bind her to a nearby tree. I somehow managed to do this while using my new companion as a meat shield.
The last thing I remember is ducking behind the guy's legs just as the old woman starts to come to. The last thing I see her do before I wake up is smile....
I think I'm actually going to be a little sick every time I see an old lady now.