Dreaming

"Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely  insane every night of our lives"  William Dement 1959

I am not so sure about the quietly part, but this little quotation says it pretty well for me.  I have been having scary dreams, night terrors really, starting when I was about 16 years old , or at least that is when I remember them. They are anything but quiet.  I have been known to scream as if someone is murdering me!  My poor mother used to jump out of bed and run into the room to see if someone had entered my room and was hurting me.  

Once she found me under the bed and I grabbed her arm and told her to get down they were going to get her.  Who they were is a mystery,  murderers, aliens, who knows.  Another time when I was in college, I was on a winter rock climbing, camping trip with a group of people.  I forgot to warn them that sometimes I scream in my sleep.  Well the leader of the group, a professor, who I just happened to have had a huge crush on, (don't worry he was single  and very cute) ended up sitting on me and when I woke , he told me he thought he was going to have to wrestle a bear, the way I had screamed.  Naturally, it scared the bejeebers out of all the campers.  You see I have no control over it and I can't even associate any time or behavior that brings them on.

Last night I had a very violent dream.  It was so frightening.  At first I was walking serenely on a beach with cool sand and water lapping at my feet.  Then  I was in a house,  I can picture the bedroom exactly,  and not a house I have ever dreamed of before.  I was being controlled by a very violent man and his gang.  It seems I had a husband who was disposed of in the bed  and then taken away.  I was made to do violent things and my children where used as bait to be sure I kept to the plan that this gang of men had  for me.  I was finally allowed to go to bed,  the same bed that the dead husband had been in and I laid down and accidently turned on the television by laying on the remote.  That was a mistake, as I wasn't allowed to watch television. Just before I woke up, I was laying there in terror waiting for the man who was apparently going to sleep in my bed with me, and he was just lurking in the hall and about to enter my room!   

Well I was so totally freaked out, it took some time for me to realize that it was only a dream, one I had no control over and that I was okay.  I don't know if I ever screamed, for if no one wakes me up, I don't always know that I screamed.  Sometimes I wake my self up and my throat is scratchy so I know that I let out a loud one!   My girl R would always come in and wake me up and see if I was okay.  What a lovely child, and I hope she doesn't have long lasting effects from having to come to the aid of her neurotic screaming mom.  The other daughter, J, who is living at home for the summer, doesn't always wake up when I scream and rarely comes to check on me, because she knows what it is when it does wake her up.  So if I screamed last night, only the night knows!

I have been having weird and frightening dreams for about a month now.  More vivid than usual.  It could be a hormonal thing I guess, as my monthly visitor has now come twice this month, which is hardly fair, as I should be done with all that really, but it seems that my body is taking it's sweet time about the whole menopause thing.

It is hard to work all day after a frightening dream.  Wondering what it all meant and hoping to get a good nights sleep the next night.  But I will carry on and get through the day,  at least it is Friday!