I dream almost every night. I tend to enjoy it. Every time I lay down to go to sleep I am looking forward to the "feature presentation." Most of the time these dreams are not frightening and sometimes they involved stories that I think would make for great cinema. Other times I dream up songs that would be amazing if I could remember them. Of course just like most people I wake up with only fragments of the whole story and therefore can't really turn it into anything.
I do remember what happened the other night though, very clearly and it was terrifying.
For the most part, I struggle to achieve sleep unless I am drunk or take some sort of tablet. A lot of this is my own fault because since I have a variable schedule that is largely up to me, I tend to sleep in every day. I also have a TV in my bedroom and if I am watching something engaging I am very unlikely to be able to get to sleep with my brain so active.
I normally will lie down and focus on my breathing and wait for sleep to eventually come and I spend most of these nights very envious of the fact that my dog, who sleeps next to me on the bed, is normally sound asleep in a few minutes. What I would give to have that power!
Well the other night I was, I think, just entering sleep when all of a sudden I felt 4 pokes on my back like someone was trying to gently wake me up. This would be wonderful if I had a roommate or girlfriend but I live alone and therefore someone touching me is not something I want to experience in my night.
At first I was frozen with terror and just woke my dog up, but didn't turn around. She didn't react and of course has senses that I don't as far as detecting intruders are concerned and when she didn't react I still swung around in my bed swinging at something that might be behind me.
I do not believe in ghosts or the supernatural but this didn't prevent me from thinking that somehow someone had snuck into my apartment. I swung and hit nothing, because nothing was there. I turned on the lights and went into the kitchen to have some cheese and crackers and had my dog do a thorough search of the apartment. She wasn't helping very much but instead just wanted some cheese, which of course she received.
Now I know exactly what happened. I was in-between being awake and asleep and at that moment my mind decided to give me a dream but instead of whisking me away to some sort of fantasy-land or distant memory for me to relive, it decided to give me a rather horrifying experience that existed in my own bedroom.
I will admit that I approached going back to sleep with a bit of a feeling of dread: Was the visitor going to tap me again? Would they go in for the kill? Even though I had established that there was nothing in my apartment and am normally of sound mind these sorts of experiences are still scary to me.
Since then, Nadi has been on "high alert" as you can tell by the photo below
I know I have nothing to worry about with such a ferocious beast at my side. Any ghost would need to think twice before touching me again lest they wish to maybe get their ghost fingers bitten, it might even break the ghost skin.
I've had scary dreams before. Even dreams where I wake up screaming like you see in the movies. Somehow though, this was a lot more real, and is something that will likely at least cross my mind every time I go to sleep in this apartment in the near future. It'll be a week or something like that.
Ever had one of these nightmares the extend into your real life? I had them a lot as a child but it's been decades since this has happened to me. Now that it is past i find it really interesting and despite this, I still don't believe in ghosts and wonder if situations like this are part of the reason why people have determined their houses were haunted in the past. It's just an overactive imagination combined with near REM sleep, not a real specter.