In Dreams
In the before times, I used to try to fall asleep on my back because for some reason I would have more vivid dreams in that position, unbeknownst to me, at the time, was that the dreams would play a large role in turning me into the phobia ridden, anxiety plagued person that I would become.
One of the dreams that was more of a nightmare and woke me up more times than I can count was the arms dream. I would be lying in bed and I would hear a noise in the other room. I would get up to investigate and as I turned from the hall I saw that the living room was full of floating arms, and they would turn toward me and extend as though they wanted to shake hands, and I would wake up screaming. This manifested in my life as a long-term fear of shaking hands which was later borne out by learning that more germs are passed by shaking hands than by kissing, not that I wanted to kiss anyone who offered to shake my hand.
Over the years, I developed a series of dream-based phobias that I carried with me into everyday life. I was uncomfortable and borderline antagonistic toward people who wanted to hold the door open for me. This was based on a Charlie Brown sort of situation where someone holds the door just long enough for me to start through and then slams it in my face.
I had an unnatural and completely unfounded fear of leaving pies in the oven, even though it had been years since I had a pie in the oven. I don’t remember the dream that inspired this but, because of my history with dream inspired phobias, I just assumed that it must have been something that happened while I slept.
The only “getting chased and can’t get away” dream I had involved being pursued by a midget wearing a wooden Viking hat and a grass hula skirt. Every time I turned to run, he was always right there in front of me, smiling.
This went on for months until I decided to put an end to it and shoved the little bastard off a dream cliff, he laughed all the way down.
I guess he didn’t die because he was back in my dreams, wearing the same Viking hat, but he had swapped the grass skirt for combat fatigues, heavy boots, with a large knife between his teeth like a pirate, two huge, black automatic pistols, and what looked like some sort of rocket launcher over his shoulder. He didn’t look like someone who could be dispensed with by something as innocuous as shoving him off a cliff.
In the dream I was sweating, breathing heavily, and afraid that at any moment I was going to die. This evil apparition stared at me with dark soulless eyes as though he was trying to decide if he knew me. Then the lips split apart, revealing blackened teeth in what I guess was some sort of smile. Then he stuffed one of the pistols into his waist band and reached out his hand, and I fainted. Having two dreams/nightmares come together like the Titanic and an iceberg was a match made in hell, and more than I could bear.
Then I woke up, and I was back in my old apartment and someone was knocking on the door. I dragged myself from bed and went to the door. When I opened it, there was Dolly standing in the hall.
“You going to let me in?” He asked.
“What are you doing at my house?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
I opened my eyes, rolled over and fell out of bed.
“What the fuck?”
This was one of those dreams. The worst of the worst because they leave you totally dis-oriented and unsure, for the rest of the day, whether you’re awake or not. Just one of these can fuck with you for days after. I really hated them.
Someone kicked me in the ribs and I yelped like a dog.
Tiki was standing over me smiling.
“What the hell, Tiki?”
“Dolly said we should take turns waking you up so that you don’t get too comfortable with the idea.”
“The idea of what, you little shit?”
“Now, now. No need to get all pissy about it. He’s just trying to help.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You see? There’s no talking to you when you get up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“I wouldn’t get up on the wrong side of the bed if you hadn’t kicked me.”
Dolly yelled across the room.
“If you girls, sorry Por, are done discussing the benefits and drawbacks of kicking the Priest to wake him up, we need to get going.”
“Why did you tell him to do that?” I asked.
“On the day you can answer that question, you’ll be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Only you can answer that.”
Stuffy and Por raised their hands.
“Yes?” Said Dolly.
In unison, they asked if they could be next to teach me a lesson.
“Fuck all of you.” I said.
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