Night Terror

By Kelsey Livingston

She crept up beside me one night,

I said, “Not now,”

Darkness sheathed her body

Her fingers wrapped around my legs.

That’s when I fell

I fell into the pit

She held me down

Her weight was in tons.

One stitch after the other

She sewed my mouth closed.

My mouth was a sore

But the tension from my body was lifted

I was alone.

The pit was empty

But my mouth wasn’t

Something danced on the top of my trapped tongue

I chewed at the feeling

Biting my tongue and tasting blood

I continued to chew

Until the stitches disintegrated.

Like black oil

Spiders oozed out from my pursed lips.

She crept up behind me

A glow surrounded her body

Only a hazy silhouette remained.

I turned away.

The spiders created a pool of black at my feet.

She inched closer.

I scream,

My lungs exhaled a final breath

Yet I’m still not awake.

Years upon years have passed by of me going about my everyday life of what I believed was normalcy. At least the normalcy of my mind prior to being woken and unable to conjure a single memory of what I had dreamt. To me, this was just a routine. Go to sleep every night, wake up each morning with no recollection of thoughts that I had pondered the past several hours.

Slowly I became accustomed to the fact that if numerous years passed by, in which most of my memory of dreams were not present, then what would change? I came to terms that even though I could not recall memories of dreams, this did not conclude I was not dreaming. There was no correlation between the inability of recollecting a thought to it actually not happening.

A series of doubtful inquiry filled my head on why I could hardly ever remember my dreams. It came to the point friends of mine would bond over the discussion on what odd concepts drifted through their minds at night, leaving me speechless on input. Until recent events, this habit of rousing from bed, with a blank space consuming my thoughts, had switched gears.

For the past few months, I have been able to remember a striking difference in the number of days I woke up with swirling ideas on my mind, versus nothing at all. Some mornings I am struck with utter confusion of dreams that feel like reality. Dreams that I swore occurred in real life. Dreams I have discussed with others in interest if they truly happened or not. It came to the point I began to mix what was real and what was just a fathom of combined thoughts.

In addition to being able to recall my ideas of the night, months of my prior dream state have been disrupted by sleep paralysis. Unlike in the poem Night Terror, written by a close companion of mine, my unusual state of deception does not include seeing another being. During these episodes I have experienced every few months, my mind becomes awake, but my body still asleep. I feel as if I cannot move or speak, however, I can see and hear everything around me. Terrifying? Just a bit.

After seeing both sides of the spectacle of being able to recall dreams, as well as experiencing sleep paralysis, I have become intrigued if the ability to recollect our dreams is a curse or blessing. To be able to remember these mind altering states could lead to one overanalyzing ideas and trying to decipher the meaning in relation to events occurring in their real life. On the other hand, it could also be a place for one to unpuzzle parts of one’s day, hence a form of therapy.

Moreover, there is such concept as manifest versus latent content. Manifest content deals with the surface level of a dream, while latent content describes the unconscious meaning behind a dream. A dream may seem to point towards a specific analysis due to images and feelings that transpire within it, which then may elude to symbols in life. Through these symbols there is an abundance of manifest content, while a lack of latent content.

Although there could be meaning behind one’s dreams, there is also a chance that there could be no significance at all. The brain sorts through memories throughout the day and attempts to process them overnight. There is a possibility that either both of these ideas are true or neither, due to them just being theories.

There also is the possibility that right now, at this very moment, all one is experiencing is a dream. That life within itself is a dream. What if our whole life was just a extremely long dream, or coma like state, and at the very end we are woken? To this one may ponder night and day, but never know. To each one can determine their own… are dreams a curse or blessing and is life but just a dream?

“We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein