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What Nightmares Are Made Of

Does your relationship with fear come out at night?

By BA QueenPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Photo by Dan Otis on Unsplash

Let me start by stating that none of what I am about tell you is facts or science.

I've always been an avid dreamer. Dreams have filled my sleep consistently almost every day for as long as I can remember. Most of the time they're happy dreams where I'm having fun with my friends or going on an adventure. If they aren't happy, then they're most likely normal everyday-like dreams where I'm going to college or having a familiar conversation with someone I know relatively well. They're usually something enjoyable, or at least unoffensive. Usually.

Last night, I dreamt that I was doing some shopping in Asda (which I don't usually do because I don't like how small the aisles are and how many people try and fit through them) and I saw a man with a particularly memorable face. Large nose, crooked, yellowing teeth, and very frowny eyebrows. We did not speak to one another, but he saw me and I saw him, and then I went about my shopping.

I go to leave the store and drive home safely. I put my shopping away and begin to walk towards the stairs so that I can go upstairs and do something. I can't remember that part. But as I'm walking through my house, I walk past a window and I see an unfamiliar car parked in my driveway. It's a black car, something sporty and expensive, like a new BMW with tinted windows. The wipers are on. That's how I knew it was a dream; it wasn't raining. The driver's side door was ajar and, due to the tinted windows, I could not see whether the driver was still seated inside or not. I did the only thing I could think of—squat below the window and stare until I knew what was happening. A change of lighting meant that suddenly I could see the face of the man in the car, and of course, it was the man I'd seen earlier in Asda.

I freaked out.

I was being followed.

Absolutely terrified, frozen, there wasn't much I could do. I knew that this man at my house meant bad news for me. I watched him as he got out of his car and stood. He'd seen me squatting behind my window. Another man walked up my street towards my door and, as he does so, the first man sprints away. I mean faster than a human man could ever run. So the second man is at my door and he's holding a black bag in one arm and obviously my mind tells me IT'S A KNIFE—A BOMB—A GUN—I AM ABOUT TO DIE—WAKE UP. So I do.

Retelling this nightmare makes it sound childish to me. Never has a horror story started in Asda; that would make for an awful story. It just isn't scary, and ultimately, nothing bad actually happened to me or to anyone else in the dream. For all I know, the man at my door could have been coming to give me a puppy and BOY, would I have been happy! But I was still scared, and that makes it a nightmare.

Now, I know why I had this dream. I'd been watching videos and reading stories about stalkers the night before; the sort of stalkers that carry weapons and break into your house and murder you in your sleep. So the fact that I had this dream wasn't surprising and I'm not surprised that I was terrified, either, but it made me think about the way we perceive certain events and how we have a relationship with fear. For somebody else, the idea of a stalker wouldn't be scary at all. Probably not a pleasurable thought, but not stomach-curdlingly scary, and seeing a face twice in the same dream—also not inherently a bad thing. So what makes me so afraid of these things? What's happening in my head that makes fear come forward and any common sense or rational thinking abandon me?

Again, I am not an expert in any of this stuff, but my guess would be my foundation fears. What I mean by this is that you may have claustrophobia—a fear of small or confined spaces—but actually, it's most likely not the small space that scares you, it's the idea of suffocating or becoming stuck and not being able to get free. Rationally, you know that a confined space doesn't mean those things will definitely happen, but that doesn't matter. You're still scared. So I'm afraid of stalkers. What does that mean for me? Perhaps I'm afraid of being on my own because I think that maybe something horrific will happen to me. Or, I'm afraid of death, and the stalker is going to make me face death. I don't know. I haven't fully figured it out yet.

The point of what I'm saying is that maybe nightmares are made up of these foundation fears, however small they may be, and they might sound ridiculous to somebody else, but everybody is afraid of something.

To finish off on a lighter note—I know somebody who's afraid of polystyrene, literally screams when she sees it, cannot touch it or even be in the same room as it. I wonder what her nightmares are like?

psychological
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About the Creator

BA Queen

Chronically trying to get better.

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