As I grow older, my Kafka dreams get only more bizarre and painful in their existence. I reach periods of time when I don't have any of these so-called night terrors, and just when I start to feel comfortable that I may indeed get to live in a relative modicum of normality, my imagination runs away with me and kicks my ass with its karmic destruction.

The dreams are so hauntingly horrible that every time I wake up in a fog, unable to sleep any longer lest I be stuck in the Misery Zone, I feel I am only going to go more mad as I age.

The dreams almost never vary in theme-I am either a child or a protector of children, and I must always try to save myself or the children I am in charge of from some kind of deep black hunger that will skin us alive with grisly graphic violence and party in our fear. And in all of my dreams, I always fail. Always. And the destruction that is left behind is often a wave of dead and suffering, a study in abject misery.

Sometimes I even act them out. Once with X Partner Unit I apparently raced around the upstairs, opening doors to the attic and the storage space, trying to find places to hide kids. Of my actions, I remember nothing. Of my dreams, I remember everything.

See, my nightmares are the gift that keeps on giving.

The horrible monstrous visions stay with me for life.

Last night held another doozy for me. I slept restlessly, tossing and turning. Just before I woke, I was deep into one of the more disturbing dreams I have had in a long, long time. I was a little girl, around 4 or 5. I had curly brown hair and a round pale face. I had a man whom I called my Daddy who tried to look after me and take care of me.

I was also in a concentration camp, and the man I called my Daddy was one of the commandants. He made a special case for me, even though he knew my execution was coming. He looked after me and gave me extras. He let me sit on his lap. I shared a tiny space with many women, including a woman in a red nurses' uniform who tried to look after me, as I had no family of my own.

One day that woman was late to work in the camp. I had gone back to our tiny room to get a doll I had left behind when I saw the man I called Daddy take a pistol and blow the back of the nurses head off, leaving a trail of blood and bits dripping down the wall in a sea of foamy red.

This is the utter rot and vile that lives inside of my head. This is the acid waste that eats up from my ulcer and my esophagus and poisons the floorboards of my mind. These dreams-and are they only dreams?-are my companion and my reminder that I am not quite well. Angus tells me that they are only dreams-and are they only dreams?-but the images linger in my head, ruining the patina of an otherwise charmed room, turning my images sepia.

I've tried every approach-to dismiss the images, no matter how graphic or how full of carnage. To try and reassure myself that I am just the victim of an incredibly over-active imagination. To debate the images and try to decipher what they mean-in trying to protect children, am I trying to protect me? To try to put into context what had me dreaming like that-did I dream about an axe murder since I watched the tail end of Nightmare on Elm Street III in a laughingly drunken stupor?

Or is it just that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?

And when I wake from the dreams, I am always so tired and so distressed. I feel like laying down and trying to go back to sleep, only my demons can find me and chase me there. I don't think the violence is representative of what I myself am capable of-I deplore violence actually, and am pleased I am something of a pacifist.

Maybe it's just that, for some people, the Boogeyman is real. He's real, and he's right inside our heads, and until we learn to break bread with the little bastard, he's going to rattle his chains and thump the floorboards. In which case, I'd better get baking.

Hope he likes chocolate chips.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 12:57 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 772 words, total size 4 kb.

1 Geez what ARE you eating before you go to bed?? I was going to go with straight analysis of the dream before you described that Concentration camp dream - I have no explanation for that one. Damn. That one makes my nightmares a romp through the meadow in comparison.

Posted by: lostdawill at December 30, 2004 01:42 PM (jNeD2)

2 Hey, Solomon's first for the first time ever. I don't really have anything noteworthy to say ("Does he ever?" many of you are thinking), but I wanted to be the first to respond. Ohhhhhhhhhh, lostdawill just barely beat me. Maybe next time. But don't break bread with or even pretend to be the boogeyman's friend. Eradicate that loser.

Posted by: Solomon at December 30, 2004 01:50 PM (k1sTy)

3 My "kafka" dreams share themes but never involve all the violence that yours do. I'm so sorry. If it helps, try to remember that dreams that make you wake in terror never have the same impact in the light of day.

Posted by: Ice Queen at December 30, 2004 01:52 PM (F6gzK)

4 Or at least they're not supposed to. (I'll eventually learn to proofread before I hit enter.)

Posted by: Ice Queen at December 30, 2004 01:53 PM (F6gzK)

5 I have some pretty graphic, awful dreams as well. I don't even like to think that my mind could come up with stuff so horrible, but there it is. I think my only saving grace is that even though mt nightmares are terrible, I very rarely have them and most times i can't remember them. For that I'm grateful because the ones I can remember I wish i could forget.

Posted by: emily at December 30, 2004 02:10 PM (plXME)

6 a lot of times sleeping pills induce a dreamless state. But anyway, your mind is telling you its time to squeeze a kid out.

Posted by: pylorns at December 30, 2004 02:23 PM (FTYER)

7 As I get older, the frequency of night terrors lessens, but the content of them gets worse and worse. It's like a concentrated mix of bile that builds up and ends up making me feel like insomnia isn't such a bad thing.

Posted by: amber at December 30, 2004 02:31 PM (/ydz0)

8 I don't usually remember my dreams. I guess that could be either a blessing or a curse.

Posted by: Kate at December 30, 2004 04:32 PM (OLQTK)

9 I'm sorry to hear about your dreams; I can empathize. I tend to have a nightmare once a week or so, and the older I get the vivid and gruesome they are. Nuclear wars, cities burned by bombs, beheadings in the French Revolution, villages destroyed by invading forces...and always, always the worst part is the utter helplessness I feel. I'm way organized in life, and I think when things start spinning out of control, in my life or in the world, that helplessness manifests itself in my dreams. In, you know, really, really sucky ways. It seems to me that you're a caring, sensitive person who wants to take care of the world around her (or so I pick up from your writings), and your dreams seem to be trying to give you more to take care of (children to hide, etc.) than you can deal with. I don't know why that is. But I did read once that one of the horror writers (Stephen King, maybe?) got all his ideas from his nightmares. Yikes! That's resourceful. Sorry for the huge comment.

Posted by: Lesley at December 30, 2004 04:44 PM (yQGoT)

10 I assume you've seen a professional about this? Could it have anything to do with your desire to have a child and your inability to do so?

Posted by: bigdocmcd at December 30, 2004 06:18 PM (AkmDD)

11 I often read, rarely comment. We all have nightmares, for various reasons. You have them often, but that's not unusual. It sounds as though you try to keep everything under control all the time, and yet you lose control, and this manifests itself in your clumsiness (recently posted) and your nightmares, and wherever else. You can control what happens in your dreams, you just have to become a conscious participant. Instead of letting the dream happen to you, get hold of the sucker. I'm not saying defeat the evil forces in one swoop, or even fix everything that's wrong. Start simple. Look at your hand, in your dream. If your hand turns into something, then stop it. Just look at your hand. It's a hand, nothing more. Then after you've mastered this, stop being a child in your dreams. If you show up as a child, then turn yourself into an adult. If there's something horrible happening, observe it without emotion. If you can't do anything, don't react, just observe. Conjure up a weapon. And then fly over the carnage/horror and wave a magic wand. And I'm not kidding. It's simple. It's so difficult to do. It could take you months, or a few weeks to master these techniques. Or you could continue to have these dreams because you actually don't want to let them go, no matter what your conscious brain says. If you choose to do nothing about them, then you have to accept that you've made that choice. You aren't defined by your separate parts, no matter how much you want to be. Your brain, your heart, your body, your ulcer (and why aren't you taking antibiotics for that?), these are all you. Quit fighting with yourself, there's nothing positive that can come of it. Ah, I've gone on quite a bit. I have a tendency to do that. Have a happy new year, enjoy your time ahead as it unfolds, no matter what it brings.

Posted by: hilary at December 31, 2004 02:39 PM (qIqUu)

12 I have the same sort of problem, but it's during the day while I'm awake that it occurs. I once had to leave a pool because I was absolutely sure that there was somehow something in it that was out to get me.

Posted by: Tim at January 22, 2005 04:37 AM (OG1e2)

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