Submitted by Jen...
I am a chronic sufferer of nightmares. All of my life I have been plagued by nightmares and it leads to some pretty strange goings on in my bedroom late at night. Last night was no exception...
The beginning of my dream was what could be described as odd, but not terribly upsetting. I was on some kind of boat and my adopted Chinese son came up to me to tell me that some other kid had stolen his toy. I thought it was weird that I couldn't really remember this kid's name, but I decided to go and investigate the toy situation anyway. So I went up to this other kid and said,
"Hey, did you steal what's-his-name's toy?" and he said,
"Yeah, I put it up on that shelf over there".
So I headed over to the shelf, and what I found there was a dead goldfish on a plate of rice. At this point I thought,
"You know, I really should hang out with that kid more and learn his name...and maybe why he considers a dead goldfish on a plate of rice a toy".
Then the dream changed and I suddenly found myself on a very overcrowded train. In the dream, I knew several of the people on the train, but they weren't people that I know in real life. So I got into a conversation with one of the people and I was telling them what it feels like to have the life sucked out of you (because, you know, if you are a chronic nightmare sufferer such as myself, this has happened to you...), when Wham! It starts happening AGAIN! I thought to myself,
"Ugh, not again!"
Then I was in my bed, having the life sucked out of me, and I felt myself being grabbed and dragged out of my bed...but I didn't hit the floor, instead I was being dragged suspended three feet off the floor, out my bedroom door and down the stairs. Now this is what tips me off that I am having a dream...never mind the neglected Chinese kid that I adopted but never learned his name, or the being dragged suspended in mid air, it's the fact that I don't actually have stairs outside my bedroom door that clues me in to the possibility that I might be dreaming!
Now over the years I have become so accustomed to having nightmares that I believe I have developed some defense mechanisms to deal with them. I don't know why, but there is usually a point during most of my nightmares at which I realize I am dreaming, and I have a standard test that my brain immediately employs to gauge whether or not I am awake. It is whether or not I can make sound. Inevitably, if I am dreaming, I will try to yell and won't be able to make the sound come out...and when this happens, I know that I am asleep and I start willing myself to wake up!
So there I was, being dragged down the stairs that don't exist, and I decided to yell for help. My first attempt, difficult but definitely audible. Uh oh! My second attempt, clear as day...this was the point where I became convinced that this was really happening! I really was being dragged suspended three feet off the ground down the stairs outside my bedroom door that don't exist...this truly was a predicament! So I decided I better get some help and I yelled again!...and then it happened,
"Jen!",my eyes shot open and I exhaled a deep breath...in my bed...
"you were having a bad dream", Clayton said from beside me.
But my mind wasn't done playing tricks on me yet, I barely heard Clayton because I was too preoccupied watching a gargantuan spider work it's way across the ceiling from across the room and onto the wall over my head.
"Is there something on the ceiling?", I asked Clayton as calmly as I could.
"Uh...no...", came his reply.
"Are you sure?", I was not at all convinced.
"I think you might still be dreaming", he said.
I sat up and looked at the clock, huh...I feel awake. I looked back at the ceiling, couldn't be sure, so I put on my glasses and looked again...nope nothing there.
"Were you dreaming about bugs?", Clayton asked me.
"Oh no, my dream was way scarier than bugs!"
Jen
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