Thursday, February 19, 2015

February 19: Writing Prompt #50-Nightmares

Describe the last nightmare you remember having. What do you think it meant?
The last nightmare and really the only one I remember having was a repeating one I experienced as a young child. It’s not that I don’t have weird or bad dreams. I sometimes wake up as an adult thinking, “Wow, that was a yucky dream.” But they don’t really make the status of nightmare in my mind because I can almost always connect it back to what I was worrying about earlier in the day or some person or situation I came into contact with that were not part of the usual fair of my life. 
Anyway, the nightmare I had as a child occurred in the house I grew up in between the ages of 1 and 13.  All our bedrooms were upstairs at the time with my 2 brothers sharing a large room next to mine.  My parent’s master bedroom was straight down the hall from mine. I could see their doorway from my bed.  At night, my mom would tuck me in and leave the hallway light on for me, and the door wide open. I thought the light stayed on all night, but apparently she turned it off when she went to bed (just as I would do with my own kiddos), but I didn’t know that, which is important to the explanation of my dream.
The dream was always the same, and it took place from my own bed looking down that long hallway to my parent’s bedroom.  I would dream that 3-4 men would come into my room and pick me up in my bed and carry me down the hallway, like a kidnapping.  They didn’t say or do anything, just picked me up and took me away to my cries and screams. I always woke up from this dream terrified, but I would immediately calm when I saw the hallway light on because in my dream, the hall was dark, so I knew that it was just a dream because the light was still on when I woke up.  Except for one night…I had the same dream and woke up to a dark hallway. I remember vividly staring down that hallway in fear of those men coming to take me away. It was so dark and scary.  I stayed awake to watch the doorway for what felt like hours, but I’m sure I probably fell back to sleep not long after. 

What do I think this dream meant? I think it was the not so unusual fears of a little girl who was getting older and realizing that the world was not always such a safe place where bad things do happen and bad people live.  I don’t think it was any more than that, but for a young elementary school girl, it was my worst nightmare ever, and it has never left my memory.  What about you? Do you have nightmares you’re willing to share?  Sometimes bringing them out into the open makes them seem less scary…

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