So, recently I've been having bad dreams again. Not really bad and not as frequently or as intensely as in the past, and I only really notice because I'd barely remembered a dream in so long that to have two that lingered so long within the last week has struck me.
The first, a few days ago: I was maintaining some kind of secret from... T (in true secretive style, let T stand for that person I'm unendingly in love with), and T and I were talking on the phone a lot and our relationship was really close. It wasn't really a secret, I just get the impression it was something I was being careful not to mention, or something I knew T would misinterpret. (Oh the history here, I know exactly what this dream is about... but why now??) Anyway, it comes out that my mother (who adores T and actually took T's side the one major time we fought, despite having no idea why we were fighting, making me feel like an utter worm) somehow lets slip to T whatever I was concealing, and as I had feared T flies off the handle and I'm left struggling to explain as T spits in my face, calls me a liar and a fake, and I watch our relationship shatter like glass. Hey, subconscious, I know what you're on about, but what do you want me to do about it now? Four years later? Why NOW?
The second, last night: I was on a journey with my brother-in-law, quite ordinarily, I think we were heading home after doing some shopping, because I was in a supermarket carpark and he'd gone somewhere, I think to check bus times or train times or something. Anyway, I'm alone, and there's a man who I don't like the look of coming near to me. I try to smile and turn away, but his face changes and he lunges for me. I run, trying to get away. I call my brother-in-law, shout his name into the phone until he answers. I jabber that I'm scared, I'm scared, help me, help me. It's all dark suddenly, and the man is coming for me. I dart and dodge out of his way, but he grabs me and I scream and fight, and claw at him like a cat. I trip him and he falls against I wall, hits his head. I slam his head against the wall over and over again, terrified that I'm powerless, that he will any moment shake me off and overpower me. He's bleeding now, but he doesn't look defeated, he looks furious and powerful and contemptuous and I'm fucking terrified. I drag him across the carpark, and that's when my brother-in-law and some other 'good people' arrive. They don't look at me. I limply let go of the man. They take him and carry him away, as if to take care of him. None of them look at me. They leave. And I can't breathe, I have to get away. So I turn and run through the hallway (we're now at my childhood home, and the scene of a recurring nightmare about a crocodile from when I was very young), out into the back garden. I run and run as fast as I can. There are lots of trees, and amongst them I see my best friend from school, but instead of running to her, I shrink back, desperate for her not to see me. I slip past, run to the bottom of the garden, scramble over the gate and into the next field, through the long grass, as fast as fast as fast as I can. But I have the sickening certain feeling that I'll never be able to get away from them. They're coming after me. They'll catch me... and then I wake up.
Now what in the flying fuck does that mean?
I don't believe that dreams have divinatory power or contain messages from the supernatural, nothing of that sort. But I do believe they represent the most pressing anxieties of our subconsciouses, processing our experiences, filtering our memories, addressing the problems we may not even know or admit that we have. I believe they are worth paying attention to.
But I'm sort of scared to try to unravel that one...
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