Nightmares

Nightmares are funny things: they're really not very scary. When you look at them by the light of day, they're mostly just ridiculous, even when you can still feel how incredibly, heart-stoppingly, achingly afraid you were when it happened. For example, when I was eleven or so I read a book of horror stories that I checked out of the library, not knowing what they were. I had screaming nightmares about a giant chicken--when my mom asked me what was wrong, why I couldn't speak, I didn't want to bring up the book (since I didn't want her watching what I checked out of the library more closely) and so I broached the conversation evasively and, as it turned out, ineffectively.

"Monsters," I said, looking away. We were in her bathroom, at probably midnight.

"What sort of monsters?" She insisted.

"...Giant, uh, pigs," I replied, because they were at least a little scarier than chickens, right?

My mom laughed at me, of course, and told me that that was a ridiculous fear and that I should go back to bed--this was all true. But I could still remember how the dream felt--I still felt that strong, undiluted fear, rushing through me. It took me a long time to go back to sleep, even while I still knew that it was a stupid thing to be afraid of.

I knew that it was ridiculous, but I still couldn't change that I was afraid. That's how strongly these things can grip you.

A more recent recurrent nightmare is almost as ridiculous, albeit much more complex. I'm in a department store, in the woman's clothing floor. It's stuffed with falls: the walls are lined with racks, the blouses and skirt-suits and pleated pants in tweed, navy and deep brown almost falling off of the hangers, bulging out into the aisles. The circular racks are just as full, and dotted thickly across the floor. I'm with my mom, and we're searching for my brother--everything appears deserted, but I know that when you go into the dressing rooms or the elevators (the elevator attendant is the one human we see, and I know that he's one of them) they take you, and turn you into a dinosaur, kind of like a velociraptor, or a Utahraptor: bigger than the former, smaller than the latter. I know that my brother's already been taken by them--he ran into a dressing room to play, or something like that--but my mom doesn't know. She doesn't listen when I tell her anything.

The last time I had this dream (so far, of course) was sometime in spring 2008, a little over a year ago, and I kept on trying to steer the dream into a new storyline, but it kept on snapping back, like a rubber band stretched too far; I would half-wake-up, turn over and huddle tighter, incredibly afraid, and fall back asleep, and I'd be doing something else, dreaming something else, and then all of a sudden I'd be back in that department store, or I'd feel the monsters approaching me, or I'd be looking for my brother again, even knowing that he might kill me and that I'd need to fight him to survive... The final scene I remember from that most-recent nightmare was my mom entering a changing room, even though I told her not to, and the elevator man coming, and I knew that I'd never see her again, even though she was still insisting that it was fine, and then I went in after her...

I've had other recurring nightmares--often they come years apart. There was one that happened in the ravine down the street from the house I was born in. We moved out when I was eight, and I no longer remember what the nightmare actually was, except for this vague sense of dread, gathering darkness and a sense that the ravine was pulling me towards it. Dreams can surprise you like that: every time I drive past this one movie theater--now fairly run-down and decrepit--along Highway 101, on the route our family takes to the Hurricane Ridge campground, I get this strange gasp of deja vu. I've had several dreams involving that movie theater (just outside of Deer Park), and I never know why: I've never been inside it, we've driven past it a lot but I've driven past a lot of movie theaters--it's a mystery.

So it's funny how much power nightmares hold over us, even though they're often so stupid. I had a nightmare several times that involved an enormous black cat--as tall as me at the shoulder--and an even bigger dog. They prowled the edge of our yard, huge smiles on their faces, and they'd wait for me, sitting right at the property line, at the top of the hill our house was at the base of, just over the crest. It was enough to unnerve me as I walked home from school, alone, the Monday after I had the dream. And then, the worst part, there was a huge black snail, biggest of all and with an eerie smile. It had huge, razor-sharp teeth, moved quickly and it was hunting me. It kept on coming closer, crossing the edges of our yard and moving towards the house. This dream terrified me--it was about a gigantic black snail. What's scary about that? Nothing at all--except for the fear that your mind can pull up out of nowhere. It doesn't even make sense...