Unsettling Night
Oct. 28th, 2007 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosIt's always interesting to me what constitutes a "nightmare". I think a nightmare is not about whether or not the dream images are explicitly scary, but how it makes you feel. I've had dreams that could have been nightmares, but felt more like satisfying adventures. And I've had dreams with non-scary images that left me with a pounding heart and my light turned on for the rest of the night.
Last night was unsettling. Readers of my primary journal know that Friday night and Saturday morning were very hard for me as I continued to process LM's death (May 31st). I had a nice afternoon and evening with a friend, but when I went to bed around 10:30 I was very tired and feeling very, very lonely. Going to sleep was made more difficult by the fact that I kept hearing what I thought could be sounds of someone trying to get into the house: like a key in my front door, or rattling that could be my garage door. Each time it proved to be nothing, but it left me edgy.
I was awakened at midnight by the beeping of an electronic alarm. I was halfway into the hall, heading for my kid's room, when I realized that although it sounded like her clock, it was getting fainter as I moved away from my rooms. I doubled back and followed the sound through my bathroom and into my walk-in closet, finally finding the clock on the floor in the corner under the rolled-up yoga mat.
WTF??
My daughter has been staying with her father since Friday afternoon. How did her clock get into my closet? And if the alarm was set for midnight, why didn't I hear it Friday night? (I am easily awakened.) And what was it doing set for midnight in the first place?
I went back to bed feeling edgy, but got back to sleep and eventually had a dream that unfolded from being reasonably uncongruous, even pleasant, to weird, to extremely scary.
I'll skip the pleasant, incongrous part and go straight to the weird: which was being in a dentist chair having my teeth -- or a particular tooth -- worked on by a dentist I was seeing for the first time and didn't particularly trust. In the way of dentists, he was chatting to me as he worked, continuing to talk as he finished, got up, washed his hands, and etc.
Eventually the dentist turned out to look and sound like Ron Weasley -- which is very weird because I'm not a huge Potter fan and have no feelings one way or the other about Ron. He was starting to explain/complain to me that he wasn't allowed to even talk to people alone unless there was a surveillance camera watching. The implication was that there was a fear he would molest or otherwise harm someone. And at some point during this complaint I began to see shadowy, bat-like wings coming out of back, wings that I silently labeled "demonic." I resolved to get out of the chair and out of the room and away from him as quickly as possible -- and the dream obligingly changed to my own bedroom.
I'm not sure if I actually woke up at that point, or only thought I did, or I did wake up and then slide directly back into the dream. But I was aware of lying in my bed, looking at my half-open french doors into the lit hallway, thinking about "Ron" and his wings. Then I saw a silhouette of a large man coming through the doors toward me. I was startled but not unduly alarmed because the silhouette was that of LM -- but it could also have been Michael -- and either would have been welcome in my bedroom.
But as the figure reached the side of my bed and bent toward me, I realized that it was totally black and featureless, and not either of my lovers. It bent to kiss me, and a I heard a sound that was half a sigh, half a satisfied animal grunt -- a sound that LM used to make. A split-second before its lips touched mine I came wide awake, terrified.
To my relief, I did not feel any persistent sense of presence. My worst nightmares (which are very rare) are not entirely dissipated when I wake, and I continue to feel the presence of something dark and scary in my room with me. That didn't happen here.
It was 5am, and I had no desire to go back to sleep, given the way I had edged in and out of the dream before. I was very afraid that if I went to sleep again that dark figure would be waiting for me. Eventually I got up, came downstairs, and finished my book, finally going back to sleep on the couch at 7am. I slept peacefully and woke at 9:30.
Last night was unsettling. Readers of my primary journal know that Friday night and Saturday morning were very hard for me as I continued to process LM's death (May 31st). I had a nice afternoon and evening with a friend, but when I went to bed around 10:30 I was very tired and feeling very, very lonely. Going to sleep was made more difficult by the fact that I kept hearing what I thought could be sounds of someone trying to get into the house: like a key in my front door, or rattling that could be my garage door. Each time it proved to be nothing, but it left me edgy.
I was awakened at midnight by the beeping of an electronic alarm. I was halfway into the hall, heading for my kid's room, when I realized that although it sounded like her clock, it was getting fainter as I moved away from my rooms. I doubled back and followed the sound through my bathroom and into my walk-in closet, finally finding the clock on the floor in the corner under the rolled-up yoga mat.
WTF??
My daughter has been staying with her father since Friday afternoon. How did her clock get into my closet? And if the alarm was set for midnight, why didn't I hear it Friday night? (I am easily awakened.) And what was it doing set for midnight in the first place?
I went back to bed feeling edgy, but got back to sleep and eventually had a dream that unfolded from being reasonably uncongruous, even pleasant, to weird, to extremely scary.
I'll skip the pleasant, incongrous part and go straight to the weird: which was being in a dentist chair having my teeth -- or a particular tooth -- worked on by a dentist I was seeing for the first time and didn't particularly trust. In the way of dentists, he was chatting to me as he worked, continuing to talk as he finished, got up, washed his hands, and etc.
Eventually the dentist turned out to look and sound like Ron Weasley -- which is very weird because I'm not a huge Potter fan and have no feelings one way or the other about Ron. He was starting to explain/complain to me that he wasn't allowed to even talk to people alone unless there was a surveillance camera watching. The implication was that there was a fear he would molest or otherwise harm someone. And at some point during this complaint I began to see shadowy, bat-like wings coming out of back, wings that I silently labeled "demonic." I resolved to get out of the chair and out of the room and away from him as quickly as possible -- and the dream obligingly changed to my own bedroom.
I'm not sure if I actually woke up at that point, or only thought I did, or I did wake up and then slide directly back into the dream. But I was aware of lying in my bed, looking at my half-open french doors into the lit hallway, thinking about "Ron" and his wings. Then I saw a silhouette of a large man coming through the doors toward me. I was startled but not unduly alarmed because the silhouette was that of LM -- but it could also have been Michael -- and either would have been welcome in my bedroom.
But as the figure reached the side of my bed and bent toward me, I realized that it was totally black and featureless, and not either of my lovers. It bent to kiss me, and a I heard a sound that was half a sigh, half a satisfied animal grunt -- a sound that LM used to make. A split-second before its lips touched mine I came wide awake, terrified.
To my relief, I did not feel any persistent sense of presence. My worst nightmares (which are very rare) are not entirely dissipated when I wake, and I continue to feel the presence of something dark and scary in my room with me. That didn't happen here.
It was 5am, and I had no desire to go back to sleep, given the way I had edged in and out of the dream before. I was very afraid that if I went to sleep again that dark figure would be waiting for me. Eventually I got up, came downstairs, and finished my book, finally going back to sleep on the couch at 7am. I slept peacefully and woke at 9:30.
