Nightmares!

I used to have a lot of nightmares, sometimes night after night, but lately my dream state has been rather boring and calm.

Nightmares used to pledge me, to the point where I would be up more during the night than sleep.  I would fall asleep easily, but be awakened by a nightmare at some point in the early morning hours and not be able to return to sleep.

When I was a kid, nightmares happened pretty frequently, especially after watching movies that would stay with me and attack me in the night.  I remember after watching Jaws at the drive in with my family and having a difficult time sleeping for weeks not to mention, if I did have a nightmare I couldn't bring myself to put my feet on my floor because I truly believed Jaws was just waiting to get them as soon as they dangled over the bed.  It was 1975, I was 8 what do you expect.  The next summer my parents took us to the french river for a two week vacation in a cabin.  One afternoon I went to jump off the end of a dock, just as I hit the water I felt something brush past my leg and I started screaming!! The whole area was filled with swimmers and boaters and every single one of them came running down the dock to my aid.  There were not exactly happy when they discovered that I was screaming over a rope that was being pulled by a boat that just passed the end of the dock.  I can tell you this, I don't know what was scarier, the thing in the water, or all the people running down to help me. 

I remember, after my parents taking us to see Amityville Horror, I had to sleep on the floor of their bedroom for two weeks.  To this day if I wake up in the night anywhere near the time of 3:15 I can't bring myself to get out of bed, even if I am awake because I need to use the bathroom so bad I can taste it.  I have to wake Damie up to stay awake until I return.  Crazy eh!

One night, a few years ago, Damie and I were sound asleep.  It was an early summer night, one of those nights that you don't need air conditioning just yet because the cool breeze that comes through the window is just perfect for a cozy sleep.  On this particular night I was awoken to the sound of a police car passing the house announcing over the loud speakers that "This is an emergency, please lock all doors and windows immediately".  Well this scared the crap out of me, so I woke up Damie, told her what I had just heard, and begged her to go around the house alone and close all the windows and doors alone.  I know she was scared but she knew full well I wasn't going to do it and it had to be done, the police had said it was an emergency after all!!  After she returned from locking everything we both sat on the bed wondering what on earth we were going to do next, there must have been some escaped killer on the streets and we were in grave danger!  I can tell you, I have never been as scared as I was a that moment, and Damie was freaking right out.  At some point Damie decided she needed more information so she called the police department.  She talked to the dispatcher and then got off the phone.  It seems that this was not real, that I had dreamt it.  That was crazy, how could I have dreamt it??  Well, as it turns out, nothing happened that night and it was all a dream.  I can't tell you how mad Damie was, to this day she will tell you how much that scared her.


I really haven't been affected by a movie in years, well not until I saw "The Strangers" a couple of years ago.  Now that movie did me in.  I love a good scary movie from time to time but this one was beyond regular scary to me.  This movie scared me to my core.  I can't tell you how many times I couldn't get out of bed to use the bathroom or check on my kid because that movie was too much for me.  To think about it right now scares me. 

Nightmares happen to everyone, and for any reason, but with Damie she doesn't just have nightmare she has night terrors.  When she is dreaming about spiders that girl will jump straight out of bed and point at all the spiders in the room.  When this happens I am usually abruptly startled our of a nice dream state and immediately in the scared mode within seconds.  I jump most of the time right along with her.  I hate it.  It takes me hours to get past it and get back to sleep, for her who has caused all this, just lays back down and is in sleep mode instantly.  I hate night terrors more than I hate nightmares.