On nightmares

So this was a new one.

I'm at my parents' old house, but all of us are our present age. I say something to my dad about maybe driving to Brasstown Bald for the weekend and he starts talking about how he and mom don't want me going anywhere near Atlanta. I point out that I went to college in Atlanta, and furthermore I'm an adult in my 30s with my own house. He starts accusing me of cheating on my wife. We wind up outside, he shoves me towards the wall and ...

And I wake up having just thrown a punch. In real life. Thank God I sleep facing away from my wife.

 

Think positive. At least you were sober enough to remember your dream.

 

I remember a fair few of mine, though it's impossible to say what percentage of my total dreams they comprise. A few of the greatest hits:

• Being trapped in a darkened K-Mart with only a squirt gun to protect me from all the tigers
• Zombies overrunning my middle school (sprinting zombies, too, not Romero-style)
• Getting sucked into a darker, scarier version of the tunnel from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

There are a couple that are industry-specific, too, but I'd rather not go into those.

 

When I was little my dad rescued an old tractor tire an filled it with sand for a "country sandbox".

The first nightmare I can ever remember is that thing coming to life like something out of Scooby Doo chasing myself and my mom into the hay barn. I was five and I can still remember it clear as day. Or night, as the case may be.

 

I have a friend who's tried to quit smoking several times. He's used the patch on some and says that one of the side effects is that you get these crazy, vivid dreams. He said that was the only good part of trying to quit.

 

If you ever take melatonin as a sleep aid, the same thing...very, very vivid dreams.

 

Since my Mom died, I dream about her regularly (was every night for the longest time). Most of the time, the dreams take place when she was sick, so even as I'm dreaming, I get that it's a dream. They aren't happy dreams by any stretch, but they're not nightmares. Just a reminder that I always replay her last few months in my mind, even just subconsciously.

But last week, I dreamt in the moment, and dreamt she showed up to a party that my wife and I were hosting. I saw Mom and we both began to cry. And it felt real...far more so than any of the other dreams I've had about her.

I woke up and was freaked the ever holy fuck out. I called my sister, who said to embrace the dream, b/c it was Mom speaking to me. Maybe so, but I spent the entire day in a funk.

Again, not a nightmare, but still, it's been a while since I've had a restful sleep.

 

I'm fortunate (or is it unfortunate?) that I have a strong recollection of a lot of my most unique dreams. There are plenty that I had from when I was younger to the present day that I can recite the sequence of events from beginning to end.

I'd tell a few of the better ones on here, but I've told a lot of them as stories to co-workers in the past, and we know how that goes.

That being said, the one nightmare that I do remember having as a kid was about the large green electrical box we had in front of my home growing up. My parents always warned me not to go near it and said that Mr. Electricity would get me if I did, and it had this label on it that made me believe it was real.

Well, I once had a nightmare that Mr. Electricity came through my bedroom window to get me because I played near the box.

The bedroom window was to the left of my bed. To this day, some 20-something years later, I still sleep with my body turned to the right, and cannot sleep any other way comfortably, because as a kid I was terrified of him coming through that window.

 

My mom passed away when I was 12, and once in a while, I still have dreams like that. Extremely vivid, to the point where you think she's still alive, even though you know even as you're having the dream that it doesn't make sense logically.

It would upset me when until my college years when I'd wake up from those dreams. Now, like your sister said, I just embrace them.

 

I don't ever remember dreaming about my father when he passed, but I very rarely remember my dreams. I just get those odd moments when I see somebody who looks like him. It still happens, and it will be 10 years next month that he has been gone.

Your sister is right. It is best to embrace those moments if you can. Maybe it really is your mother connecting with you in some way we cannot comprehend. Or maybe it is just your mind holding on to her. Either way, it is a good thing.

 

Thanks, Bubbler and OOP. I don't mind the usual dreams...I know I wished I'd said more to my Mom in the last few months (she knew what I thought about her, but still, it would have been nice to vocalize it), so I imagine those dreams are my subconscious working its way thru my guilt. But this one where she showed up...it shook me up so much. I know there were positives in it, but man, it jarred the hell out of me.

I prefer the sign I got a few months ago when I was doing the dishes, the night before we went to Baltimore for the outing. I was about to stick my hand into a pile of dishes when I saw a cracked glass. I picked it up carefully and disposed of it. When I was very young (6 or 7 or so) my Mom cut her hand on a broken glass she didn't see in the sink and needed stitches. It was the first time I'd ever seen her cry (could count such moments on one hand until last year) and it really scared me. I'm convinced Mom had something to do with me not cutting myself there.

In dealing with this, my Dad and sister are subscribing to all sorts of crap that I just don't believe in...namely religion and mediums. Nuh uh. Not with a gun to my head. But the dishes in the sink? That sign, I believed in.