Carol was an older woman, probably
younger than I am now, at work. After Lynn and I had our acrimonious
break up, complete with infidelity, she became my rebound
relationship.
I was a monster to her. Part of a
pattern. The only good thing I did was repay the money I made her
borrow so I could buy drugs. Carol's problem was she was extremely
vulnerable. Being open and trusting isn't actually a problem, but it
does make it easy to manipulate someone who trusts you. Her life was
populated by bad men who treated her horribly.
I never made any attempt to gloss over
my selfishness. I didn't want to rescue her or be in anything that
resembled a stable relationship. She used to dream about me often,
or at least she would say she had a dream about me; suspecting that
it was a ploy to manipulate me, I made a rule that I didn't listen to
other people's dreams. There was definitely an arc that reflected
how she felt about me, at first I was the guy that chased away her
monsters, reassured her and gave her security. Then her dreams
become obsessed with me, was I sad? Was I angry? Was there some
role she could play in my life?
Tonight I had a nightmare. It was a
pretty confusing dream. I used to look forward to my dreams, they
were fun, sometimes exciting. One time I dreamed I was riding my
bike down a hill and lost control; my choices were to brave the busy
street at the bottom or crash into a wall. I choose the wall and as
it loomed closer, I saw my shadow cast on it, growing larger as I
rushed forward. Eventually I realized it was the shadow of my head
on the wall at the head of my bed, made by the morning sunlight. It
was pretty neat that I could bring my dreams into waking life,
however small.
There are plenty of times when I have
used that in reverse to save myself something frightening. Once I
was being attacked by London After Midnight's Lon Chaney and as I was
falling, I yelled “Time to wake up!”
A lot of thought has been given to what
dreams are. Interpretations span a vast spectrum of possibilities:
portents of the future, expression of our deepest emotions, a glimpse
into our deepest, most hidden aspects of ourselves, a fresh
perspective on the indecipherable puzzles of everyday life, random,
neural light shows, which out brains try to turn into recognizable
shapes and behaviors. because that is what brains do.
And then there are the monsters,
reanimated corpses that for years have pursued me from places to
place, forcing me to fight for my survival.
One night I had a dream that I'd had
sex with a woman that wasn't my wife. The over powering guilt that I
felt woke me up and for quite a while I was tormented because I had
to confess my infidelity to my wife. Eventually I realized that my
only infidelity happened in my dream, there was no horrible secret to
reveal. I went back to sleep a happy guy.
Tonight's dream was confusing, it made
no sense, even for a dream. Eventually I went to bed, which began to
move, slowly at first, but it rapidly began to increase, moving
about the scenery of my dream. I woke up screaming.
Adrienne held my hand, reassuring me
that I was alright. With her other hand, she fumbled with her
computer. I expected she was trying to pause her Netflix so she
could ask me what happened; she was actually trying to find the place
where she fell asleep so she could resume her show.
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