I am not very good with dreams. You know the thing that happens in your sleep kind.
In those moments when our eyes twitch about beneath our eyelids do we see things that our cognizant mind would not dare show during the day.
Perhaps they're too dangerous. Those deep dark fears of that would send your amygdala relentlessly hitting the panic button are best kept under wraps - preferably with all the trappings of a high-security prison.
Dreams where your feel your gut drop as your soul crashes back into your body are common, but are usually not threatening enough to be more than jolt you awake, sweaty but relieved that it was just a dream. Same thing for monsters that stalk you in own home that don't look quite like your home in reality but uncannily feels like home.
However, the most dangerous dreams are the ones the cross into reality that continue to play even as you are roused into consciousness.
One of the earliest, that I can't shake was when I was around 5 or 6 years old, when I slept on the floor beside my parents' bed. I was in the mouth of a cave of sorts, peering down at the cavern below me. Illuminated by the light of the unseen fire, I saw the shadow imps and demons dancing. They were alerted to my presence and gave chase to me.
I awoke sweaty and groggy in the dark room of my parents. Only the light from the street lights that filtered through the curtain gave the room a bluish hue. I couldn't stand up, as if something was holding me down. I struggled to lift my head, which was weighed down by something. On the mirror of my mother's vanity, I saw my shadow of the longest horns, like a demonic antelope, emerge as I slowly rose from the side of the bed. I had become the demon and those red eyes that stared back at me had me fall back onto the floor and pray the demon in me to go away.
I don't know why I remember that all these years later, but I still do.
There are dreams of course when I die. And the coldness that comes with it. Why was I dead? Did I live my life well-enough? Am I even alive? Was I even alive?
This is usually followed by some kind of morning amnesia, an existential crisis of sorts.
Where am I? Who am I? Do I even exist.
Real heavy stuff.
Another old dream that never left me happened in an abandoned supermarket. Well, something like that. I was with an unknown best friend of mine, a grandmother, not sure if she was mine or his. We were shopping, when the lights went dim and a pack of wolves or werewolves, not quite sure which exactly, stalked us from aisle to aisle. One or both of them were attacked, and I was left hugging one of them as they bled to death.
Again, heavy stuff for a kid. But what had lingered with me was the sense of connection with that "best friend" whose face I cannot remember, but a mournful sense of longing to get to know him, that was cut short by that tragedy.
Dreams can also serve as a medium for some kind of wish-fulfillment. Although in a way, they are the most cruel. Bad dreams are terrible, but at least when you wake up, the reality is more preferable than the nightmare.
Good dreams are cruel because they tease you with the possibility of an alternative reality.
When I was kid, it was always about Disneyland. It was such a pipe-dream for me. My first visit was when I was 4 years old, too young to fully appreciate it, but old enough to know that I liked it.
Lately, I've been plagued by similar dreams. Thoughts that I try to purge from my mind, but my subconscious betrays me time and time again.
When I wake up, I convince myself that it was just that, but when REM rolls back it reassures me yet again that it's real.
Yeah, dreams can be a bitch.
Good thing that last one was about arguing what kind of fish tempura it was at the buffet.
Then again, that diet. Dang.
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