“Of all the things you choose in life, you don’t get to choose what your nightmares are. You don’t pick them; they pick you.” – John Irving
For as long as I can remember dreaming, I have had nightmares. Everything from monsters to disease, to abuse, to death… I cannot even imagine a number to describe how many times I’ve suddenly come awake at the apex of terror, screaming as though I’m trapped underwater, only to awaken without a sound.
When I was four years old (or thereabouts), I often awoke crying, calling for my mother. My nightmares became so frequent, she enlisted the help of her friend, a native shaman. This kind woman instructed us to leave her alone in my bedroom for an hour as she cleansed it. I remember it feeling peaceful in there after, for a while. She gifted me my very first dreamcatcher, which I still have, over three decades later. I will always appreciate what she did for me that day.
I don’t know how long the nightmares were abated, or if they began again because of a change in circumstance, energy or location (we moved a few times in my childhood). But eventually, like they always do, they came back.
I grew up surrounded by a lot of negative energy. And I believe wholeheartedly that children are very susceptible to the energies around them. I believe it’s because their hearts are still so open.
Perhaps that was what planted the seeds in my subconscious that would grow into a lifetime of night terrors. Nightmares so vivid, my vibrant imagination twisted to no longer be a gift, but a tangible curse.
Sounds, scents, textures. The dampness of a dark room. The deep-throated growling, getting closer, louder. The velvet softness against my palm, pushing back against a snarling animal’s face, the entire encounter feeling like slow motion.
All my life I’ve been a night owl, but I believe my nightmares encouraged that into near insomnia. There were many, many nights when I would stay awake as long as possible, sometimes staying awake two days at a time, until biology kicked in and knocked me out, hoping it would be enough to not dream at all. But it never was. And waking up and going back to sleep was often even worse.
The Second Sleep
What I consider the Second Sleep is different than what it meant historically.
As you can imagine, prior to the Industrial Era and the extended use of artificial light, humans had very different sleeping patterns. It was common for the night to be broken into three parts: The First Sleep, The Watch, and The Second Sleep. The First Sleep consisted of going to bed in the evening and sleeping for a few hours or so. The Watch, was a period of natural wakefulness that occurred around midnight for a few hours, and was traditionally spent praying, socializing, doing chores, tending the fire, that sort of thing. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, it was time for The Second Sleep, a block that lasted til dawn or so, before waking for the day.
In this modern, busy world, what I consider The Second Sleep is when I awake in the morning, don’t need to be up yet, and fall back to sleep for another hour or so. For some reason, within that second block of sleep, my dreams come on very quickly, and extremely vividly. The subject matter is often much darker, or dangerous, or anxious, than the previous sleep of the night.
There are many mornings where I try to stay awake, force myself to get up, so the second round of sleep just doesn’t happen. Because I anticipate it being just awful, and throwing off my entire day.
I don’t know why this second sleep is such a negative experience, but it nearly always is.
The Subconscious
One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve matured, is that the intensity of the dreams in that second sleep can often be connected to things I’m likely holding in my subconscious. Relationships, or lack thereof, fears, anxieties, traumas… The things that hold on the tightest, the loudest, with the sharpest claws. The things that hold fast in the deepest parts of us, forever a presence in the dark.
These unhealed wounds, as many of them are, tend to resurface in the waters of sleep, presenting to us with the intensity which we fear them becoming. Or perhaps, showing the true depth of which we allow them to affect us. I have had many dreams in this second sleep of my fiancé betraying me, which he would never do, and reassures me of whenever I awake from it. But it comes from my deep-seated fear of being rejected by that which I love most. I won’t get into my long history that makes this fear not only plausible, but entirely expected. But I do notice that this fear presents in my dreams during times of uncertainty. When my confidence in myself and him and our relationship is strong, he is not the subject of my nightmares.
I sometimes dream of people from my past that I ended on bad terms with, fighting with them or being attacked by them. I’ve learned this means I’m still holding on to what they did, and it’s time to let it go.
As much as these bad dreams plague me, I’m not sure when I got to a point of acceptance, sighing at another night of “wasted” sleep, waking still tired because it feels as though my adrenaline has been pumping for hours. But I lay awake and consider what I’ve seen, what it means, what it’s tied to, and how to let it go.
Perhaps if I heal enough wounds, my subconscious will run out of scars to reopen.
The Imagination
My imagination has always been so vivid, there were many times I saw what frightened me most when I was awake in the dark, my eyes wide open. I wasn’t allowed to have a nightlight, because I never fell asleep right away. And apparently that was more important than my rigid fear of the dark.
At this moment, I’m sending all the love in the world to children left to scream and cry themselves to sleep in the dark. Your fear should never have been used against you. And I hope you find a love and a light to heal that betrayal.
I’ll never forget one reoccurring vision when I was small, from the darkness at the foot of my bed: the tips of two pointed black ears, slowly rising from behind the footboard. I was frightened of monsters that lurked in the shadows of my room. I taught myself how to breathe shallowly beneath my blankets, in hopes they wouldn’t find me. (I’ll revisit this vision in another post, someday.)
Another time, around the age of eight or nine, I’d awoken from facing off with a terrifying black panther in a dark basement. I could still feel the soft velvet of each snarling ridge of its brow against my palm. Staring wide-eyed in the dark, I sat up and tried to stay awake, to keep myself from slipping back into the nightmare. At the time, I slept on the top of a heavy set of wooden bunkbeds. At the end of the bed were the full-length mirrored doors of the closet. I looked across at my reflection, barely a shadow in the dark room, the lower bunk completely black. And I listened. A part of me warned myself not to, but I did, straining past the ringing in my ears. And I heard it: the low growl, coming from the lower bunk. I panicked and called for my mother.
There was nothing at the end of the bed, there was nothing on the lower bunk. But I could see them, hear them. And I believed they were real. Real enough to call for help. My powerful imagination accelerating the growth of those seeds fear had planted in my mind. The gift I had been given to envision, to imagine beautiful, magical things were real, was just as adept at conjuring that which frightened me, with the same efficiency of detail. Turning one of my greatest blessings into a curse.
The Dream Continues…
I’ve chosen to split this post into two parts. As I came into the later subjects of this topic, I realized my experiences were quite extensive, and the dark rabbit hole which they opened could not be contained to a few more paragraphs. It wouldn’t do them justice. Their darkness and presence are complicated, provoking, and – dare I say – fascinating. The possibilities they suggest are at once impossible, and frighteningly believable.
The next post will leave the shadows and monsters of my bedrooms, and venture into the dark and twisted mirrors of the other worlds that dwell within us. Where the rooms look familiar, and the monsters speak in haunting whispers, sometimes wearing the faces of love, sometimes wearing nothing but shadow, sometimes overwhelming the senses to the point of paralysis, helplessness, weakness…and sometimes revealing…they are not part of the dream.
Sleep well,
