I had a dream, this one I feel the need to mention

Power is a concept constantly flooding through the nerves and whatever else of my brain. Power stimulates my brain into the function of ‘mind’, which is then in a constant overdrive. Without exaggeration, when I’m sleep-deprived my waves are rapidly lapping at the shores with new concepts and ideas, and personally unexplainable, they are darker than the normal tidal crashes. Somehow, lack of sleep or actual sleeping beckons my most malicious demons to dance about my brain, but malicious isn't enough of a word. Masochistic seems much more appropriate for what all they do to me.

I've had nightmares for a very long time, as deep into my childhood as I can remember. I can still vividly recall childhood nightmares of the most insane, yet if sought, symbolic things. A common dream was of me climbing into the ‘family car’ at night in search of safety from the house’s activities, only to fall through the car and carport forever until I woke up in cold sweats. If you can't find symbolism in that, even if you know nothing of my personal history and detach the dream from me to do so, I don't believe you.

Another dream I had frequently involved me stepping out of my abandoned house via carport door and looking down to see fiery lava at my feet. I would look up to the same spot in the sky every time, past the trees across the road that shrouded a mysterious ditch that probably stretched for a mile, and see fire raining down (Envision the end of The Believers, that’s what it resembled). I had a hopeful feeling every time this dream occurred, I wished fervently for the fire of the volcano to engulf me whole and swallow me into its red-hot depths. Whether or not it would be painful or painless never crossed my dreaming mind, I knew outside of either speculation it would be painless because I loved volcanoes, and I knew whatever pain it caused me, it wasn't causing me. I was letting it hurt me, just like everything else in my non-dreaming life.

So, “I had a dream, this one I feel the need to mention,” actually I have two I’m going to relay today. These have both been dreamt in the past two weeks but are not at all abnormal. For a while, I have wanted to post some of the dreams I’ve had so others can speculate, or just point at me like a roadside freak show dreamer. They are pretty interchangeable, after all.

I don't know the bloodcurdling degree of other people's dreams, and I haven't had the time to study sleep. Considering the frequency of my nightmares, I probably should make it a relative priority on my list of ‘me-search’.

After awakening from some of the scenarios in dream form my mind creates and plays for me on its own special film, I am often terrified. It’s not a rarity for me to wake up from some of the more severe nightmares I have and lie in bed completely still for minutes at a time, anxiety-ridden. Often, even from a relatively typical dream, I’ll be anxious the rest of the day. Neither are because the nightmarish visions I have to endure night after night are extraordinarily horrifying at this point, but simply because I don't know what caused my mind to construct them. To dream of death, torture, and what Christians would call the apocalypse* so frequently leaves me in wonder for days, weeks, months, and years. I suppose now, it has been so long I could even claim a decade for some dreams.

*Or what John would call a Brave New World.

(Warning: Some things detailed in these dreams may be disturbing to some readers.)

Dream One

            Albeit being slightly smaller, I am visually my current age of seventeen, but I feel a little younger. I’m not sure how much younger I feel. I’m not a child, but I know I’m not quite an adult either because I feel like someone should be watching me. In the midst of attempting to figure out my age, it crosses my dreaming mind that maybe I’m nothing definable, likely I’m all of me all at once, because that’s how I feel the most. I go with that, and it becomes truth. I am now an infinite being of my dreamland.

            I live in an odd complex of houses because all the households look exactly the same down to color and the cars parked outside them. I look through a hole in the tall white fence that blocks off sight of the next neighborhood. From my one eye gaze I see the neighboring complex is styled in the exact same way as the one I hold residency. Anyhow, I don’t see Kauvuo (my dog), and then I realize why I was looking through the hole in the fence in the first place. Kauvuo is gone, I’m not sure where he is. He’s gone. Ran away, stolen, hit by a car, I don’t know, I cannot recall and I’m disgusted with myself. Because I cannot remember, I am motivated further to find him and provide him safety once again.

            Suddenly I’m warped through dreamland and I am now at my childhood preschool, its original housing on a ranch-style property being upheld in my dream. I’m walking across the dirt that seemed to span forever as a child, so it does so as well in this trek. I pass the horses, the pool, and the faraway picnic tables before finally reaching the fence. Another hole, but this one is gaping, I can walk through this one with ease. I step through without a second thought.

            I’m in the identical neighborhood that is only distinguishable from my own because of the fence that divides them. I begin to walk down the deserted road, not a person in sight at all tending to lawns or playing with yard toys. It’s warm evening, it’s humid and very Floridian. Finally, I reach a house that looks different than the rest. This particular residency is run down, the wooden panels are falling from the structure and the grass is dead and brown. I take unexplainable note that there are no weeds cluttering the lawn, and later sarcastically think, ‘Not yet.’ I approach the door and enter uninvited.

            I am greeted in the house by someone of my past. I am faced with one of my molesters, instantly wishing I wasn’t in a position to be possessive of them. Kauvuo comes running from somewhere within the house towards me, instantly knowing I’ve arrived to rescue him. I call to him although he can see me, and my molester does nothing to stop me from trying to retrieve my beloved dog from his disgraceful residence. He smiles, but it’s not just a smile. It’s worse than a smirk, it is sadistic, he’s going to hurt me if I claim what’s rightfully mine by entrapping me after.

            Pulled out of the house by an invisible force, I kick and scream hysterically as I’m instantly warped back into my identical but well-kept home, and I realize it’s my dad that has rescued me. I argue, I complain, I reason. He didn’t rescue me, he left Kauvuo to die, or something worse. He tells me if I wait ten days, Kauvuo will return unharmed. Regardless of the promise, I am not comfortable with Kauvuo’s location. I proclaim I will retrieve him whether my dad likes it or not, the majority of me doesn’t believe he’ll jaunt back safely after ten days anyway. He tells me I won’t be doing that, instead of the expected advice that I shouldn’t. For the first time my dad is strictly telling me ‘no’, not ‘maybe not’. I feel surrounded by unfamiliar warmth beyond my body, is this what it feels like to be protected from the most horrible of things? I am realizing that although he is protecting me at the cost of another, I am appointed the most important being. This is something I don’t experience when I am awake.

            And then I awaken.

Dream Two

            I’m staying at a friend’s house, but I am not enjoying myself. Since I arrived earlier in the evening, I’ve had a lurking feeling that someone or something was watching me, just out of sight from my glance over my shoulder. It’s the feeling I used to get when I felt extreme anxiety to the point of near insanity from irrational thoughts. I keep my cool for show purposes only, and interestingly I don’t self-destruct in the privacy of the bathroom before bed. I drift into double-sleep with thoughts of pride at not letting my anxiety get the best of me.

            Snatched in my slumber from my friend’s bed, once woken I wonder how she didn’t feel the weight on the bed shift or the door creak open and closed, why her dog didn’t bark at my captor, or why her dad didn’t hear someone enter the house in the first place. ‘It seems like it’s always me’ I think in a juvenile fashion, without considering the array of possibilities of what could take place next. This isn’t unfamiliar territory, plus I know this is just a dream. Therefore, I know the inevitable is likely to occur, upping the likelihood of my abuse.

            And it does occur. My kidnapper (almost-adultnapper?) enters the dark room, and flicks on a light switch. Above me swings a sole lamp, it is so typical of a lamp that it could have been taken right out of Sybil’s childhood kitchen. Unsurprised, I discover that I am tied to a table by legs and arms. Maybe if I combusted, maybe if I set myself on fire with one quick jerk, I could escape. I don’t even try, but the metaphorical ideas cross my mind. He approaches, and begins his work.

It’s an interesting thing, after suffering the same thing time and time again for so long, you think you’re not dreading it until it hits you in whatever form it takes shape of. In this case, its shape is that of someone else cutting open my arms to an unexplored depth.

First working on the tops of my arms, he retracts layer after single layer of skin down to the fleshiest of flesh. In squared-off folds, he’s lifted it back and exposed my bloodless pink meat. I creatively ponder on the idea of ‘if a strong wind blew, it might blow them all back into place like pages of a book’. The force of nature on my body would be beautiful, and nothing else of a sad sort. But there is no wind in this basement, and I am not even graced with a half window that spends its life barely peeking over the grass.

            Now my abuser makes his way to my inner arms. The concept of not dreading this has fled from my mind completely, at least during this act of mutilation. He plucks out straight razors from somewhere underneath my mutilation platform, and begins once again. He works the razors effortlessly down my arms, and I writhe in intense agony that my mind tries to convince me is unbearable. I’m terrified, I want to wake up, I am screaming silently. I remember to cover my mouth with a towel that isn’t there, so I say nothing instead. I make no show of emotions, but I cannot control the tears that stream from my eyes. I assure my mutilator it’s not crying because I am not sobbing. Somehow he has missed all of my veins during this process, so he slashes them last. And yet, after the razor has plucked my guitar string veins for a single note, I live.

            I wake up shaken from the nightmare. This is one of the worst types of dreams my mind has created so far, naturally I hate reliving them when they grace my sleeping mind. Dreams of this nature have made increasingly more appearances. I wonder if this dream entails my deepest desires, defensibly I argue with myself, otherwise why would I concoct this situation in dream form? This dream possibly represents an extreme form of what I’d ‘love’ to do to myself in times of delusion, this is complete self-annihilation from another’s blamable hand. There is no pleasure in this abuse, only relief that I’m not carrying out my most secret desire.

After some speculation, I realize I am doing this to myself. In my dreams of the very same nature the person is always me, regardless of what mask shrouds them to give the illusion that my body’s mutilation isn’t my fault. This time, it happened to be my biological mother’s father.