EDIT: PARENTAL GUIDANCE IS ADVISED. 'MATURE' THEMES INVOLVED.

a woman on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. she calls for help, and a cruel-looking woman appears out of nowhere. she grabs that poor woman on the floor and locks her in a vise-like grip, then begins stabbing methodically and mechanically in her buttocks, her chest, her legs. that woman on the floor was screaming, but now she just emits a weak howl every time that weapon is pushed into her flesh. I wake up.

Every now and then, I get nightmares. The kind that jolt me awake, that leave my heart palpitating like crazy and incredibly afraid of the dark.

Well, I got nightmares the other day (sorry for the graphic content). This was unlike anything I'd experienced before, however.

I woke up with all the usual 'symptoms' of a nightmare, and the horrible screams and image of the bloody woman would not stop replaying in my head. I hummed a few songs in my head, trying to distract myself from those acquired memories and go to sleep. I think I did, because the next thing that happened was that I saw myself walking out of my room into the hallway to go to my sister's (for some comfort, I guess) before getting pulled by some strong, unseen force in the other direction where I would be pulled out of view from the 'me' lying on the bed. Again, these images kept playing over and over again. It was starting to get pretty eerie.

So, I started doing what I always did when I got a nightmare, which was to sing praises to God and pray about my dreams. Well, guess what. That didn't work. In fact, I started imagining that there was presence right there next to me on my bed, and that scared me so much.

I clasped my hands together and began singing this children's Christian song (in my head, of course).

God is so good
Hallellujah
God is so good
Hallelujah
God is so good
He's so good to me.

I was singing this over and over again, each time changing the words of "God is so good" to phrases like "He loves me so", "He died for me", "He rose again". By this time, I was slightly calmer, but that feeling of fear hadn't left me.

So, I started praying in earnest. I began by praising God and all that he had done.

Dear God, thank you so much for everything you have done, for creating us in your likeness and for loving us so much in spite of our sins. Thank you for sending your Son to die for me, for the blood that was shed for me on the cross, that we might be sanctified through you. Thank you for taking the cup of wrath away from us, dear Lord, for drawing us closer to you, that we are no longer slaves to sin and but we are now sons and daughters of righteousness. Thank you dear Lord, thank you...

I was feeling almost hysterical at this point. The prayer above is what I can sort-of remember. The actual one was much much longer and definitely went for about 5 mins since it was also interjected with "hallelujah" and "amen" throughout. I was basically pulling out everything I learnt about God over the course of my life, partly because it was distracting me from my dream, but mainly because it was comforting me. God's power and might comforted me when I was feeling attacked. His all-encompassing love and strength grounded me and gave me a foundation to rest upon.

I kept praying.

I was now praying for my family-long and lengthy prayers for my dad, my mum, my sister, and myself. While praying for them, I started drifting off. This was not the sweet respite of sleep though, but felt more like the beginning of the incessant replaying of those scenes I described at the start. I struggled to stay awake, struggled to finish those prayers, each time feeling I was getting coaxed and tempted into 'sleep'.

The time was 3AM, it had been approx half an hour or so since I had been jolted awake. Since then, I had been sweating, feeling incredibly warm and suffocated under my once-invitingly-snuggly blanket. As I finished the last of my prayers, I felt myself feeling cooler. This time, the sweetness of sleep was true, and I finally managed to fall asleep.

Labels: dreams, experiences, thoughts