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I do not have nightmares. Atleast not as other people recognize them. I mean, sure I have dreams where monsters or hideous foes hurt, maim, humiliate, and or anihilate me. Hell, I have a reoccuring theme were I'm being chased, generally by a mysterious guy who I know wants to rape me, and no matter what I do I can't get away fast enough. Just the theme of not being able to move fast enough is common enough. My limbs wont function properly, desperately straining to work despite the molasses like atmosphere that is my internal landscape. But none of these dreams frighten me beyond the dream world. Even in the dreams most of the time I recognize that it's not real, even if I can't conceive of any other reality, and I've often enough found the strength to get away from the monster, redirect the course of the story,and every once in a while not just force my limbs to move correctly, but beat the living s**t out of the guy. When I wake I never gasp in relief. I rarely have to turn on the light and calm down before again finding sleep. A lot of the time I'm well rested and in retrospect, find my dreams amuseing.
My <b>real</b> nightmares are never funny.
The first nightmare I ever remember having happened when I was two or three. It wasn't a nightmare in the normal sense. Nothing was hurting me. No dark ominous atmosphere overwhelmed my sense. Rather it was a simple story where my brother and I, as older children, perhaps eight or ten, had to travel across the country interviewing our various relatives (point of interest: I've met maybe two or three of my almost fifty extended relation-ever) in hopes of finding our mother whom had disapeared. It was a mystery story in which we were concerned, but not overly anxious. The actual dream did not frighten me. It was the wakeing that did. I was so consumed in the reality of the experience, that when I awoke a genuine terror that my mother was no longer there consumed me. My first true memory of terror is running all over our home screaming for my mother, only to find her safe and secure in our living room getting ready for work. That feeling of complete and total hysteria has stayed with me my whole life.
Another nightmare that stays with me is one in which I seriously considered killing my cat. My cat is like the younger sibling I've never had and the child I've yet to have all wrapped into one in my mind. He's a sociopathic homicical narcissist as all felines are, and no one who doesn't have a cat they feel this way for could understand my devotion as anything other than lunacy. When I was about sixteen or seventeen I had a dream in which he killed our fish. This was not my actual fish at the time. No this was the embodiment of all three of the great fish who were my only pets during middle school and the early years of highschool. It was Blau, Charlie Blau, and Sir Jump Alot all rolled into one. In the dream Grasshopper and the fish had a final showdown and when it was done The Fish was no more. That bothered me, but the part that terrified me and does to this day, was my reaction. I was so consumed with grief and rage over what Grasshopper had done that I murdered him in vengeance. I woke from this dream not simply terrified over what I had done to my cat, but over what that reaction said. A creature whom I loved killed another a creature whom I love, and I lashed out and killed them. I killed someone I valued completely and do not want to imagine or live life without. But the fear that that weakness is actually apart of my character sometimes causes me to physically shake. I can't contemplate how I could abandon my responsibility towards Grasshopper so far as to give him up in such an occurence, yet alone to harm him. What if I didn't harm him? What if I didn't even abandon him? I could reshape the home environment to ensure he never did anything like that again and move on. Thats what I would do. But again just the fear of not being able to like or love him anymore overwhelms me.
Which brings us up to my latest masterpiece. I've always had a very open relationship with my mother. It comes of having lost my father young, and her ability to perceive me objectively as well as, as her daughter. Everytime I've learned something new about the human condition I've discussed it with her. So, when she and I used to dicuss what she and I would do if became a teenage mother it wasn't uncomfortable or even a discussion of how I Was Not To Engage In Sex Before Legal Adulthood. It was more like these are your options, start thinking about what you want to do now. I figured pretty young that I wouldn't want to abort ever. I think that's something every person has to decide for themself, and everyone has exceptions or addendums, but the thought that I could create a life from me and than selkfishly abandon the possiblity of it really bothers me. If you were paying attention to the dream described above, you'll get how I feel about stuff like this. I also never seriously considered adoption. I think it's a great system, but I have little enough true family as is without feeling like that would be some kind of betrayal. And I know it is not. Sometimes it's the best option. Just not the best option for me. So, it kind of shocked and horrified me that in the first dream ever in which I found myself preganant, the thought of keeping and trying to raise the child sent me into such a cowardly panic that I spent the majority of my unconscious time tryng to justify aborting and or adopting out the child. I mean I know I'mnot ready to have kids. I also seriously doubt my abiliy to be a good parent. I've just never had the obvious opposeing natures of my beliefs about careing for my own children and my genuine fear of my ability to take care of anyone without seriously damageing them brought to my attention before. I woke up genuinely ashamed and horrified of myself.
These are nightmares. These are the kind of dreams that don't just cause your heart to race and the blood to chill. These dreams cause you to doubt your worth as a human being and highlight the fears that unconsciously shape your every decision. I don't have them often. Most of my dreaming is kind of like my own personal lucid story time. But when one of these bad boys infilitrates my nocturnal thought processes it hits me like a bat to the gut. I'm left bleeding and bruised internally and it takes me weeks to recover.
The funny thing is, that when I write them like this, I am terrified, but even I recognize they don't seem very scary at all.
 Rearmost Tree Slug · Sun Apr 05, 2009 @ 02:46am · 0 Comments |
