A few days ago I had two vivid dreams that I was able to recall parts of.
The first was a nightmare, but it was an unusual one – for me.
Throughout my life I have often had dreams where I’m partially aware that I’m dreaming or at least that what I’m experiencing is not fully real. At some point as a child, I started using this insight to force myself to wake up from nightmares. It didn’t always work, but more and more it did, as if I was training myself.
What made this dream especially terrifying was that I experienced it as if it was entirely real. I was lying, half sitting, in bed feeling sick. Even thinking back, I don’t when the dream started.
The room was completely dark. I suddenly became very afraid that there was an evil presence in the room, a ghost like in a Japanese horror movie – a person that would suddenly be sitting in the room staring at me, or a hand that I would suddenly notice on the side of the bed. I thought now that it could be under the bed. Sometimes in nightmares I get an urge to go towards the scariest place, to confront the evil head-on, even though this is scarier than avoiding it.
I jabbed my hand quickly under the bed – but felt nothing. So I reached further in, back towards the wall, and to my horror I felt some clammy skin. I grabbed hold of this body part. I was holding a hand, and I pulled it; somehow that was better than leaving it there, although I was also terrified of what would happen when I pulled this body out from under the bed. Having the light on seemed better, so at the same time I was desperately trying to reach the light switch with my other hand.
Then I woke up, in the same room, in the same bed, in the same position, very surprised that I had been dreaming.