February 2009 – DailyNightmare

(Male, 40’s) Unbelievable dream, maybe not a nightmare but a dark dream. Really dark.

“…if I stopped I’d likely be hit by another car and end up like the bits of wreckage….”

I was driving down a gravel road, a familiar gravel road, one that’s kept in pretty good condition usually. I know this road. I was in my car, the familiar car that I drive every day. It was night and it was raining. Visibility was horrible but as I said this was all pretty familiar territory. But the road started to get extremely bad. Not icy or slippery but there was junk on the road. Bits of cars and things. Like something that looked like the entire undercarriage of a car that had just dropped off. I could swerve around them because they just kept popping up in my headlights. But every time I ran over one of these things, the alignment on my car would go just a little bit more skewed. By skewed, I mean that the car was pointing a good 20 degrees to the right different from where the car was actually heading. I couldn’t see where I was going very well because the windsheild wipers only cleared the glass in front and I was headed in a much different direction. I kept running over things, on one side then the other. By the end of the dream, the car was facing exactly perpendicular to the road, a full 90 degrees. I was still somehow able to control it by turning the steering wheel. Don’t ask how the wheels must have been moving. All I knew was that I had to keep going, that if I stopped I’d likely be hit by another car and end up like the bits of wreckage. And I knew that there were pretty steep ditches on both sides of the road so I had to be careful not to go into them. But I really couldn’t slow down either because I had to get somewhere. But I couldn’t see anything. I had to look out through my side window because that was the direction the car was heading. I finally decided to roll down the window but all that did was let in the stinging spray of icy rain. It bit into my face and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So I closed them. And I woke up.

(Female, 40’s) This dream was so weird– so strange and violent– that I really don’t know what to make of it.

“…I saw nothing that I could use to kill the man…”

It started out that I was hiding with another woman in a closet-like space. There was a panel near the floor that opened into a hallway. We were being very quiet, cowering in the corner, as far as possible away from the opening. We could hear running in the hallway, men in boots, like soldiers maybe, the clank of guns. When it quieted down, we tried to peek out, but we were seen. We scrambled back into the dark corners of the little room while men hustled to the opening and started reaching in with their arms, trying to grab at us. There was cart coming down the hall so they had to move back. Then they were called away, so they left us.

We looked out again and saw two of our friends, sneaking down the now-empty hallway. We scurried out and joined them, sliding along the walls, eyes darting around. We came to a room, with two glass doors, so we went in, locking the doors behind us. This area appeared to be a sound studio or something like that. We thought we were safe because the doors were locked, but we were wrong.

We went down the hallway and found that the room opened up into a large warehouse. A line of soldiers were pointing guns at me, as a large man advanced toward me. I knew that in order to escape, I had to kill him. He grabbed at me and I ran behind him, jumping up on his back and trying to strangle him. I needed a knife. I looked over at a table top, which was covered with the contents of someone’s junk drawer (which looked much like my junk drawer in the kitchen)– rubber bands, twistie ties, batteries, a bent spoon, shoe laces, an odd cheese knife– and saw nothing that I could use to kill the man.

Then I saw a pair of sheers with an orange plastic handle, much like the sheers we own. I could slit his throat with the sheers, I knew. I couldn’t watch what I was about to do– in fact, I think I closed my eyes in my dream! I opened the sheers and drew the edge of the blade across the man’s throat. I knew it would take several strokes to kill him. With my eyes shut tight, I could feel the blood leaking from his neck. My hands were covered with warm sticky blood. It was awful, but I knew it was my only way out.