To really know me is to know I suffer from nightmares: full color, demented, real-feeling nightmares. I have for as long as I can remember. In August, I always have at least one dream where I forget to make the copies for the first day of school. Naked at school? Oh yeah- all the time. Oh, and my students routinely try to revolt and kill me. The week before yearbook day, let me know if you want a good laugh. People often try to murder me, friends and family betray me, and at least a few times a year I actually dream of my death.
These are the normal nightmares- the ones I am used to. In the dream, I am scared. In the dream I am frantic. When I wake up, I am shaking. Once I realize it was a dream, I am ok. I even laugh at my warped mind. Then I go back to sleep. Once or twice a year a dream really upsets me even after it was over, but those were more realistic dreams. Usually my dreams just made for fun lunchroom discussion as we tried to analyze the warped interior of myself.
Have I read into dreams? You bet! Usually I find things that say I have too much stress in my life (when I don't feel any), am scared of something (yes... I'm really scared my students will start hacking at me with pitchforks), or that I am lacking something in my life.
I do believe that my dreams are products of my subconscious; I just haven't usually understood where the problems come from.
Another thing I've never been able to do is change my dreams or wake myself from them. A lot of people have suggested I try, but in my dreams I didn't realize it was a dream, so I couldn't wake up. They always seem real.
My dreams changed last May. In May, I could no longer say I didn't know the root of my nightmares. There was a clear answer: I began dreaming of his affair, or at least it began creeping into my nightmares.
The first one I had that related to the affair was the strangest. It was just after I had found out about the affair, and Andy was supposed to be moving out in the next few days. I was narrating my dream with a voice over. I showed up at "high school" and everyone was talking about mine and Andy's breakup. Another girl rubbed it in that he was "hers" now, even though he had just saved me from my car smashing into a wall (brakes were out). Then, I noticed that my body parts were all scattered around the lawn of the school- my skin, my bones, my eyes... I had been disassembled and thrown across the grass. Then a demon showed up in front of me- an ugly creature like Gollum in L.O.T.R. He explained that this is how he'd chosen for me to do die, because he had been killed to early by mistake. His compensation was he got to choose the next death, and he wanted mine to be horrible. Then he vanished in this bright light, and I was left staring at my bones.
After that, the dreams were more normal, but more hurtful than usual, because they seemed to ring of truth. I dreamed of the actual affair; I dreamed Andy was telling me I'd ruined his life; I dreamed others were telling me how I'd deserved this in my life. At one point, in my dream, Andy sat me down at lunch and explained the new sex position he and her had tried that night before. And then, in my dreams she started coming to my house, trying to harm me- calling the cops on me, turning my neighbors into a mob against me, trying to kill me with a knife.
And these dreams disturbed me to my core. I woke up shaking and crying. I couldn't sleep after these dreams. I didn't want to sleep the next night, for fear of what I would dream. The girl used to having nightmares, was finally afraid of them. They were no longer based on unknown things- they were based on a very real, traumatic experience. I couldn't sleep. I even looked into PTSD, because the number one sign of having it is nightmares.
So why write this down? Why write it now?
BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD THOSE DREAMS IN ALMOST TWO MONTHS NOW! My normal nightmares have returned, and I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER!
The return of normal nightmares means a return of myself. It means the pain is subsiding- even in the depths of my warped subconscious, the pain is subsiding.
Certainly, I've had nightmares in the last two months. A few nights ago I had a dream where the city where I lived was going to flood- Noah & the ark type of flood- but we couldn't get out of the city. I was in the school where students had cleaned out their lockers and were just playing in the hallway- knowing they would soon die. The walls started to leak water. I knew there was a way to get everyone to safety, but no one would listen to me. I was running around trying to get people to come with me, but it was like no one heard me. Eventually the flood came...
No idea where that dream came from...
The best thing happened last night though- I had a dream where I was terrified- "damned to hell" terrified- but I knew it was a dream and woke myself up. I CONQUERED MY OWN NIGHTMARE, AND MADE IT END.
In my dream, I was working with a small group of advanced students. I was walking behind the couch where they were sitting, and noticed a pile of computer cords all over the floor. (This is actually very normal in my room... dumb story if you want to hear it.) As soon as I saw them, I got very dizzy and faint. I tried to walk away from it, but was almost pulled over the cords. I fainted, but could still tell what was going on around me. I couldn't talk or move, but I could tell that one of my students was calling for help on the phone. Then, I started to notice that I was actually being pulled by something- an unseen force. It was trying to pull me under the couch and down into the floor. There wasn't a hole in the floor- I was just sinking into it. In my mind I panicked and was overcome with this huge fear. I started to realize that every time I walked by the cords lately, I had felt faint. Something had been trying to get me... and it couldn't be friendly. I tried fighting and started to thrash around- telling myself, "Jamie, you can move, you can move, you can move." I was able to break free from the force that held me. Then, a gray, horned, skull-like woman approached me. She said I was going to hell, and she wasn't go to let me go. In my dream I realized that the devil was after me, and I had to fight it. I began kicking and screaming, but she was winning.
Then, I told myself, "Jamie... this is a scary dream. It is only a dream and all you have to do to win is wake up Jamie. Wake up Jamie... wake up Jamie..." and all of a sudden my dream faded into my bedroom. I was awake, and I was safe.
I conquered my nightmare last night. And I went back to sleep. Even all the dream theories are correct- that are nightmares are from our subconscious, then my subconscious must be believing that I can overcome anything, and that is something worth blogging about.
If you don't suffer from nightmares, you might not realize what a huge thing this is for me, but I promise... it is worthy of this post.
Sleep well.
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