A Nightmare

Please note: this nightmare deals with some pretty disturbing imagery. It's one of the limited times I also remember the dialogue, which is probably the most disturbing part. I debated putting it up at all, except it's been eating at me all morning I feel the need to put it down into writing to help expel it from my mind.  If you are sensitive, you might be better off skipping this entry and reading some of my less violent dreams.

From what I remember:

The dream started in a sort of modern restaurant or club - glass bars, soft purple lighting, long stemmed narrow flutes. I was at dinner - but I didn't want to be - with a group of people. In the group was the leader, who looked and acted like Hans Magnussen (from the Sherlock Holmes series on BBC). He was waiting for me to drop something off - a grocery cart? - and I realized that I wanted to kill him.

I slipped away from the table and left the restaurant, which was in a strange sort of mall. Across the way was a beauty store, and running alongside the restaurant was a stage door to a French theater. I went inside to steal a knife. Once I was inside and I had to find my way though this massive backstage area. There was a housekeeper who did not pay attention to me, and a man giving a wolfhound a bath in a large glass shower. The man was beautiful but odd looking - he was too tall and thin, and his hair was deep purple and swept back from his head like a wave. The wolfhound was thin too, and it was colored like a peacock. The man looked at me and smiled. I wanted to go to him, but I could not. I kept searching for a weapon.

Time was pressing on me - I had to find a weapon soon, or go back. In my mind, I planned what I would do. It had to be a knife, or an awl. I would stab the evil man in the neck, once on each side of the throat, and run. He wouldn't be able to catch me. The scene replayed several times - I would cut his throat, or stab him. Always in the arteries - I knew that was the only way to be sure he would not live.

I wasn't able to find what I needed, so I went back to the table. I laughed and smiled and acted like things were fine, even though I was terrified and nervous. I moved to the next table over, which only had women at it. From out of nowhere, my Great Grandmother was there. She grabbed my hand in hers - it was warm and solid and dry.

"****, don't go with that man." She said. She said it so powerfully I felt the words in my bones.
"Don't worry, I won't," I said gently. I was going to kill him before we left the restaurant.

I left again, back to the theater. This time I found a wall of tools, but none of them were sharp enough. All the awls had rounded tops, and all the screwdrivers were too big. I dug around - it had to be sharp, and small enough to hide. I couldn't take a hammer or anything big. He'd see me and kill me. He'd know my intentions. I wanted to go back up the stairs, but the theater was closing and they had put up the alarm system - a series of delicate red threads all over the place. It would take too long for me to climb through them. The man would get suspicious.

I went back to the table, and kept talking. The man was trying to talk to me, but everything he said meant something else and I was getting so afraid. I had nothing with which to kill him. He didn't know that's what I was planning, however. I knew it for certain - he believed I was stupid, and weak, and simple-minded. I took the grocery cart and pushed it to the theater one last time, and searched in vain for a pocket knife. I had nothing when the man called my name. He was waiting at the junction of the restaurant, theater, and Sephora.

It was late. He was angry that I was stalling. I said I was only doing what he asked. Another man joined us, in tears. The crying man was broken because the evil man had done something to his family. I felt my heart beating.

"Look what your grandmother gave me, to keep me from hurting you," the evil man said with a sneer. He held up a rumpled paper bag. "Money in a flour bag - how very 'Old Country' of her."
"She's a good woman," I choked out. Every step felt slow, like I was being dragged out of the restaurant to the car waiting for me. It was shiny and beautiful, and a valet had the door open. I had no idea how I was going to kill this man now, since I had not found a weapon. I thought about breaking his nose.

We started to drive. The man in the back seat was still crying gently. We were driving through a sort of mountain range - trees and hills. It was night, but I could see things in the headlights.

The evil man was talking again, slowly and methodically - talking about rape. "There is a great deal of study on the psychological damage suffered by victims. For example you, ***, "and here he ran a finger down my cheek, which made me want to shudder. "I doubt you'll do very well when we're done. But my thinking is different, for it is not enough to simply hurt a person's mind. No, if violence is to be committed it must be committed with a greater intent. My theory is that if broken in a particular place, the mind can no longer look on beauty without revulsion. Look at that beautiful scenery, ****. Think of what it will be like to never look at it again, without thinking of me. Perhaps I'll break your knees as well, for good measure."

I stared out the window - I felt so cold. I looked at the majestic mountains, and to me it seemed that they faded away, until they were only outlines. Like the guidelines in a sticker book, I thought. And I knew all of a sudden where we were driving - the mountain with the staircase all the way to the top. He would rape me on the mountain, and I would never be able to look at them again.

I must kill him, I thought. He does not know I'm strong. Without a weapon, I could only picture as we drove how I would snap his neck by surprise. And then I panicked - what if he broke my knees before hand? What if the crying man in the back seat were to help him?

***

And my alarm clock went off. I woke up suddenly and completely, like I clicked awake.

I wish I knew what this one meant - I wish I understood completely who wishes me harm, who my brain is telling me to avoid.

Unless this is like that dream where I hit the Devil with my car - in which case the dream is about good and evil. I don't know, but it makes me grossly uncomfortable to remember with such clarity the dialogue of this dream. That horrible, calm, monologue. My consolation is that Sherlock Holmes permanently beat Hans Magnussen on the tv show. Maybe I'm terrified of such calculating people - people who are emotionless.

But if there is a silver lining, it would be this: The dream me was intent on defending herself. Finding weapons, fighting, lying - there was a dual-sense of fear and resolve. That I was in a bad situation but I was going to find a way out. And there was no conclusion to the dream. Perhaps that's why I'm bothered - my alarm went off before I had resolution as to whether I succeeded or not.


Wish I knew who the man with the dog was - he exuded welcome and promise.

Nightmares are strange things - I had that bad dream about the scorpion lady and woke up in the middle of the night, whimpering. But I fell back asleep and recognized it was just a bad moment. This dream I woke up, and it didn't go away. It might have been because it was so close to when I wake up normally that I had no time to re-dream, to cover it up with the darkness of sleep.

*shudder* I need a hug.