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Saturday 11 December 2010

Nightmares

Check them out.



Beautiful creatures aren't they?

I never used to think so, mind you. When I was very young I went through a phase, which seemed to last forever but which in reality was probably only a couple of weeks, where I dreamed every night about snakes coming out of the wall above my bed and dropping on to me. It got to the point where I didn't even have to be asleep; as soon as I closed my eyes I'd see them. I was, not to be coarse, absolutely fucking terrified. The trek up to my room at night was torture and there wasn't a lot in the way of sympathy from my parents.

Then the snakes went away. It's not like I confronted my fears and drove away my subconscious demons or anything. I just went to bed one night and didn't dream about snakes. A few months later, I would have given anything to have those snakes back.

You see, they were replaced by the Big Woman. Essentially, a woman. A tall woman, but still, just a woman. Now, I know that you can't dream about something or someone whom you have never seen, so presumably I must have encountered her at some point but I have no idea where and I have no idea who she was. She just showed up in my dreams one night and wouldn't leave again.

It's not as if she did anything particularly nasty or anything, when I dreamed about her. In fact, she never did anything at all. A typical scenario would be me walking along the street with my mother, I'd see the Big Woman and start to panic. I'd be gripped with a paralysing fear and wouldn't be able to go any further. I'd beg with my mother to turn around and go back the way we'd come but she would laugh and say I was being silly and start to drag me closer to the Big Woman. The nearer we'd get I'd start to cry and scream and it would usually end with me peeing myself (literally, the sheets were always wet when I woke up) and collapsing to the floor, limp. Then I would watch as the Big Woman came closer and closer and when she got right up close to us she would... say Hello to my mother. And then I'd wake up.

What the hell was that about eh?

These dreams, unlike the snakes, which only seemed to go on for ages, actually did. 3 years or so in fact. Maybe the only reason they eventually stopped was because I got so used to them that the novelty wore off and I wasn't afraid any more. Whatever the reason they stopped, they did, without me ever discovering who the Big Woman was or why I was so scared of her.

Sadly, the bedwetting didn't stop with the nightmares. Apparently there was a physical reason for that; my bladder wasn't developing properly and I had the bladder strength of a 3yr old until well into my teens, which meant wet sheets and school accidents for almost as long. But that's another, even more embarrassing than being scared of a random woman, story. And one that will no doubt crop up again at some point.

So there's something for you to look forwards to eh?

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