Image source: Merlina McGovern
The next section of the short story book that I’m reading investigates the plumbing of dreams for story materials. Like the author, I too remember very few of my dreams. I usually only remember the nightmares that have jolted me out of a deep slumber.
One that I very vividly remember is when my family had just moved into a house in south Texas; Harlingen, to be precise. My father managed the food services department for a school for the delinquent rich there. I remember my father loving the move because it was taking us back to his hometown. This is where he and his family grew up. It is where his, and my, roots were. I remember the hot summers we used to spend there, getting to know my Texas family, going to the beach on South Padre Island, and spending evenings dancing the cumbia in local bars.
I also remember that feeling of being uprooted from my old home in California. I suppose that’s why I dreamt of sleeping in a darkened room. In my dream, I could sense that an intruder had entered the house. I was frozen still in my bed, and I couldn’t scream or move.
I could only hear someone slowly making their way from room to room. I could feel the temperature getting colder. I distinctly remember a raw, cold iciness creeping up my fingertips. I could hear doors slamming open, struggles, furniture crashing, and screams.
And I could not move, my body heavy in my bed.
I could feel myself hyperventilating as I heard footsteps approach my door. The door slowly opened, and I could see long dark fingers slip around the door, pushing it wider. There was a weight on my chest, and I could not breathe. My heart was pounding, rattling my rib cage.
Right before I felt that I couldn’t take the terror anymore, my eyes snapped open, and I could finally take in a deep breath. It was still dark in my room, but I could vividly remember breathing in so deeply and feeling a huge sense of relief.
It was then that a dark shadow leaned over me, grabbed my shoulders, and pushed me deep into the bed.
“You’re next,” the voice hissed.
It was the worst scare I’ve ever had in my life. It felt worse, because I thought for sure that I had woken up, but I had only woken up in my dream.
“The Nightmare,” a painting by Henry Fuseli, depicts an evil demon squatting on a woman sprawled on a bed. That terrible weighing down of evil on the woman’s flesh is exactly what I felt on my chest right before I really woke up.
Of course, having said I rarely dream, clearly that memory of that long-ago nightmare has stayed with me. Tonight, I had no idea what I was going to write for this blog post. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to mine my dreams for stories (and I once researched lucid dreaming to see if I could induce myself to have more dreams). But I sat down at my computer, put on some spooky ambient music, and just started typing. I’m finding that just sitting down to write and walking through memories is allowing me to find plenty of spooky material for a story!
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