A Trade-off
For a first legitimate attempt at writing on a blog, it seemed fitting to write about a topic that is both universally familiar and frequently scrutinized. As a child, I frequently dreamt. Who can honestly say they didn’t? You would dream of what you did throughout the day, and how and with whom you would spend the next. Your dreams were vastly imaginative, like a kind of drug-induced trip that had lost its color. It would all seem so vivid, yet somehow distant and static. You would lose your peripheral vision, placed in a world that you had created, but could in no way control.
My dreams were not typical of those my age. I did not dream with imagination. I did not dream dreams that I woke up feeling content with. More times than not, I had nightmares. Nightmares so vivid I would wake up sweating and shaking, as if I had leapt from my dark dream cloud and back into my bed. My nightmares kept me from sleeping. Imagine it: an 8-year-old with insomnia, a dwindling fortitude, and nerves of glass. Nervous twitches eventually set in; abrupt noises or movements around me sent chills down my back as I would talk myself back down. Normalcy for me was outright anxious tension for anyone else. But what was I to do? Tell my disappointed parents and spiral into a hell of psychological testing and medical bills? I immediately ruled that out as an option.
But what did my nightmares consist of that were so awful? Looking back now, the more frightening aspects seem to have lost their power. But I was young, vulnerable in too many ways, and the elements of my dreams struck me deeply. My dreams, oddly enough, normally began with me in my bed (as I have mentioned, I was far from imaginative). I would wake with the intention of beginning my morning routine. As soon as I take a step out of bed, I tumble down a trap door / chute in the floor. Fear swirls in the air around me, my realm of safety is taken away, and I find myself falling further into the darkness of the unknown. Eventually, I land, painlessly of course, but my fright has not subsided in the slightest. As i evaluate my situation and try to find a way out, I hear deep, dreadful growls in the desolate darkness. My mouth is dry, and my heart grows cold. A labyrinth is where I find myself, every time, with halls and corridors unlit and a terrible beast unrelenting. No way out, and the sounds are moving nearer. Disorientation, confusion, and foreboding mix with the chill in the air. Do i take my chances and run? Or stay put and wait for my swiftly approaching death? The remaining essence of light disappears as I move, and then.
Safe.
Awake.
Alive.
For now.
As I wait for the sunrise to save me, I wonder if it is true that dying in a dream causes death in real life. I try and block it from my mind. I feel as though I may soon find out the answer. How helpless, how sad, for the majority of nights during my late childhood.
Today, I don’t dream. Every night I lay my head down, close my eyes, and I wake up hours later to the daylight. Nothing in between, nothing at all. Do i consider this detrimental? No, I consider it lucky. I am glad I no longer dream, glad that they no longer have so tight a hold on me. Now, the labyrinth is my life, full of choices, decisions, twists, and turns. I tread carefully, knowing that the wrong path will lead to the monster. Waiting in the distance, it makes itself known with its howling cries. I can’t lose sight of it, pervading my consciousness. Waiting for the day I cross its path. It is death, that heartless, fierce, ubiquitous inevitability. The choices I make, the route I take, either send me closer or further from it. I have come to terms with all of this, the true meaning behind my dreams. No wonder it doesn’t happen anymore. No wonder everything has become so real.
How helpless. How sad.
