13th Spell - The Nightmares

Ironic, this entry would be the 13th Spell.

A few nights ago, I was plagued with very awful dreams.

It first part was rather gruesome, but unrelated to the part that truly horrified me. In the dream, I had been feeling unwell, so I went upstairs into Lore and I's bedroom to go to sleep. Normally when I fall asleep in my dream, I wake up in real life.

Lore was in the bed in my dream, and told me to come to bed. I lay down beside her, but before I could drift off...

I was ripped off the bed.

Thrown against the wall.

Ans dragged up to the ceiling, where I proceeded to catch on fire...and burn to death. In my dream, I started screaming an screaming, feeling the intense pain of my flesh burning off--

And then I woke up.

I immediately turned to Lore for comfort, who was laying down sleeping beside me. However, as I touched her arm, I was ripped off the bed, thrown up against the wall, and then dragged to the ceiling by the same force as before, and caught on fire.

And then I woke up. Or, so I thought.

When I turned to Lore this time, she threw me against the bed and proceeded to choke me to death. When I “woke again”, I realized I was dreaming, and still caught in the dream. I started shouting at myself to wake up, and that I needed to really wake up this time.

I died numerous other times, in many different ways, before I did, in fact, wake up.

The colors in the waking world were far more clear when my eyes opened. However, I was already filled with so much terror that I was still dreaming, and Lore woke up and tried to comfort me several times.I felt horrible after the ordeal, mainly because I had jolted Lore awake when she had important things to do that day and needed to be at her full capacity, even though the whole time I was crying, “Please, tell me this is not a dream,”.

Above: My (Sleepy) Hero. ♥

However, despite that, Lore very gently told me to calm down, that everything was alright, and this was, in fact, the real world. Throughout the rest of the time we slept. I woke up about two or three more times in a few increments of time, for every time I closed my eyes, I would die again.

Two nights following, I couldn't seem to sleep. And when I did sleep, it was only for about three to four hours, before I woke up again. My dreams were not terrifying, but they were strange enough to have me wake up, feeling tired, wired, and stressed. I had many theories on my dreams—maybe I was nervous because Lore and I were moving to a new place, I was starting a new job, and a whole lot of other things. Everything was suddenly new. Surely, that was the reason for my lack of sleep.

Earlier on when I started this blog, I wrote a short segment on Lucid Dreaming when Lore and I went to see the movie Sucker Punch. The nightmare I had prompted me to elaborate a bit on it.

If you have ever seen the movie Inception, the main characters have an object called a totem, which by looking at the properties of the object, they would be able to determine if they were still in the dream world. As they alone knew the physical, conditional, or other properties of the totem, if there was anything off about it, they would know they were still in a dream.

The concept is not something the movie created; in fact, it is used by many lucid dreamers today. Many will place an object or something familiar in their everyday life to memorize in their waking world. Something inconspicuous is most common, such as dotting the back of your wrists with a red sharpie.

After following many steps, such as writing about the dreams, and thinking about what you would like to dream about before going to bed, the ability to navigate your own dreams becomes very possible. The stages of sleep a person can go through also effect the dreams, and what the user dreams about. The surroundings of a person's dream are also something interesting to note. Many times, I'm in a place my mind has created myself. Very rarely do I dream about a place that's in my day-to-day life. Most often, in my dream I will be “in my house”, but the house portrayed in my dreams looks nothing like where I live in real life.

For others, they can only picture places they have been. Who knows why that is?

You can do the same; in fact, one of my close friends suggested I have a “totem” as they called it in Inception. I am usually plagued by very realistic dreams (quoted as “extreme”, which is a nice way to say “nightmares that would make Chuck Norris sh*t himself”), so really, its not a bad idea.

There are plenty of books on dreams and dream interpretations, as well as internet resources easily found by using search engines. So, when you dream tonight, or any night, make sure you have good ones.