In yet another installment of crazy dreams and demonic behavior, I give you the latest in screwed-up nightmares. The eye of the storm is, not actually the most tumultuous part of a storm, the eye is a region of mostly calm weather at the center of a tropical cyclone, and the eyewall is actually the most dangerous part.
In my sober dreams, my trauma runs free; for weeks I’ll temp my grandfather’s DNA by abstaining and oh the terrors that chase me at night. Always in the middle of a stressful situation, last night I landed in the middle of a storm, I woke knowing I would write this, wrongfully seeing after nerding out on Wiki that what I was in was possibly not the eye, it was oddly chaotically calm. A 6-lane freeway, taken over by a tornado – cars, trees, and wildlife litter the scene I appear in, I go from 0-60 mentally strategically seeing how I will swim, yes swim, or swim fly? Around a truck and a car, grab the kitties, always the kitties, from the truck and I will then float through the storm. It is a stressful situation, divide and conquer, saving someone, and floating out of the storm; if this is a metaphor for how I roll through life, it is not lost on me.
Like most dreams, there is so much lost upon waking but I seemingly coast, not easily because I am flying through a tornado but drift on a mission; I have the kitties with me, I think I put them in my jacket, I remember almost being hit by a flying truck, a tree, and just debris, ‘fire and brimstone’ all around me. Then I see him, I don’t know who he is but he is caught in a storm within the storm of metal, he sees me and is screaming and reaching for me, I feel paralyzed and unable to move but I am emotionally stretching as far as I can to get to him. Then in slow motion, his face turns from panic to anguish as some metal pierces his skin, going right through his abdomen, and the blood is congealed all of this in slow motion! I hold my chest and am no longer unable to move; I scream, and reach for him, floating faster now. I think he is dying but I can almost reach him, he seems to see me crying, it’s so windy I feel them but they quickly blend into the storm. His facial expression again morphs, from anguish to a sort of calmness in his eyes. Perhaps dying and having a last piece knowing that someone was crying for him and trying to hold him, then I wake.
My dog is sleeping soundly at the foot of the bed, my sound app is playing, the Christmas tree lights up my living room and I cannot move my legs, it takes me what feels like minutes because it feels like someone is holding down my legs, also pressure on my chest. Eventually I ‘break free’, over the bathroom sink I stand confused, then I search blindly for my Mary necklace, which now has another addition, a small ‘be calm’ circular reminder. I feel and realize the chain is broken, when this happened I do not know. I do not cry, I simply hold them in my palm and wrap the broken chain like a rosary around my right hand, laying back down where I fell back asleep, waking later still clutching my precious necklace.
This is one of many times I have felt such a sensation – in Nashville, I broke free and ran to my bathroom at the hotel grabbed my Mary necklace that my mother gave me, and sobbed uncontrollably and prayed, asking God to make it go away, it did, that time but also last night was much much less scary – in Nashville I felt like I was under attack, I heard whispering and I saw someone being murdered so viciously in that dream, again sober, more questions about messages I am being sent. What part of myself am I saving or murdering in these dreams in these times of my life. No sweet dreams assuring me that I am on the right track with my sobriety, it does feel like the trauma is bubbling up at times. Unlike before I speak openly about it, I cry and try to soothe myself holistically, allowing myself to question and mourn whomever I lost in that nightmare. I no longer have to hide from people who are seeking to harm me on a deep emotional level, he’s moved on to seemingly destroy most of the Seattle women, and girls, those poor girls. I hope someday you are successfully committed, and the females of the world will all be safer, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Now as I write this I cry for that boy in the storm, another make-believe casualty, another I could not save, perhaps he represents a past version of me. One meant to die because when you are being ripped apart who would not wish for death.
-B
