Dreams
June 16, 2008
by Nate
What follows is a recounting of a dream I had last night. I’m putting it in the extended entry so that no one who is uninterested in such things is forced to read it. I’m not sure it serves any purpose other than personal.
I had one of the worst dreams I can remember last night: I was in a meeting with a number of teenagers and another adult in a small room with red and orange furniture. The adult was counseling one of the teenagers (who was, maybe, 13 years old), and he said something like: “Look, if we’re going to be able to work with you, and you want to make progress, I need you to confess that you murdered [names of two very close friends of mine].”
I stood up and raced out of the room through a dark house. I ran into someone and said, “Has anything happened?” I was told that nothing had. Another person came into the dark hallway where we were standing. I asked again, “Has anything happened?” Silence. “Has anything happened to [names again expunged]?” The person blinked, and said slowly, “Yes, they’ve been murdered.”
I remember watching myself, as if from above, as wracking sobs shook my body. Each one seemed like a separate event, as if every nuanced aspect of the loss were striking me independently. I asked if their kids were okay: they were. Then I stumbled into a garage, where I saw my friends in the front seat of a car, dead and bloody. I kept thinking: “All this because they tried to help him.”
I woke up with a feeling of shock: of course it had been a dream, I realized, but I lay awake for some time trying to overcome my revulsion at myself for having created such a horror for myself.
The dream has stuck with me all morning, and I had to force myself not to call one of my friends for some kind of reassurance that they were, in fact, still alive. Not that I believe dreams are prophetic, but because I needed some way to shake off the last remnants of the feeling of grief and shock I had.
Comments
On June 16 at 8'59 PM
, Katherine wrote:
I’ve experienced that as well - where I’ve had to physically reassure myself that some horrible dream-fate has not in fact befallen those I dreamed it of. Not because of any actual doubt, but because mere intellectual certainty does nothing to assuage the horror and heartsickness. It’s a bit disturbing to think that our minds can mess with themselves like that; how little pressure it takes on the point where reality and perception intersect to skew things so significantly.
On June 17 at 12'19 AM
, Samuel wrote:
I also have had such dreams. Twice that I can recall, one where it was a close friend, and the other was the love of my life. I definitely understand what it’s like to wake up in shock and want nothing more than to banish the awful thoughts with the reassurance of that person’s voice. What I wonder is if it’s directly related to our worst fears? In both my dreams a horrible disease or cancer was responsible for the deaths: thus portraying my ultimate fear of not having control, of not being able to step in front of a bullet or grab her from a cliff, but to watch her die helplessly. Could yours be a fear of your personal decisions striking at the innocents in your life? The most painful indirect assault? Just a rhetorical muse.
~Sam
On June 19 at 8'30 PM
, Rachel Sullivan wrote:
I don’t know a whole lot about dreams, but what I do know is that soldiers coming back from the war who are given medications that don’t allow them to dream (sedatives, antipsychotics) do worse in the long run than those who dream when they come back from the front lines, all other things being equal between the two patients (injuries, exposure to harm, etc.). I take this to mean that dreams are necessary for our brain to “deal” with stuff. So who knows what you were dealing with, or why, but apparently it was necessary.
My last nightmare was that I developed type 2 diabetes. What I’m worrying about in that one was pretty clear…my dreams are so boring, even the nightmares!
On June 20 at 9'22 AM
, Nate wrote:
Rachel, you don’t know how much it delights me to hear that your theory on dreams accords entirely with Star Trek lore, where the episode of “Night Terrors” clearly indicates that REM sleep serves an essential function for the life of the mind.
On June 20 at 4'32 PM
, Martin G wrote:
That episode is the most poignant reason that I initially feared the anatomy lab.
On July 1 at 8'27 PM
, Nate wrote:
Sorry for the belated response on this, Martin, as I was on vacation: I may be the only one who understands so little about anatomy that I don’t understand your reference. What does your anatomy lab have to do with “Night Terrors”?
OH. Do you mean the scene with Dr. Crusher and the bodies? Yeah. That was terrifying.
On July 2 at 1'46 PM
, Martin G wrote:
You got it. At first I didn’t like being in the lab alone.