It’s been a long time since I’ve had a really pure nightmare.
I have had disturbing dreams in recent memory, but they were simply dreams about disturbing events, bothersome, but not frightening. Last night however, sleeping alone, in an otherwise empty house my dreams were more…frightening.
I may have been laying in bed awake, or simplydreaming that I was, I am unsure. My nightmare comprised of mostly a feeling. A feeling that just beyond my sight line, in the dark, there was something waiting. Something dark and deeply terrifying. It was the kind of feeling that made me want to revert to the childhood position of invulnerability of hiding under the covers, but this time I knew that it was just as dark under the covers, and whatever it was that stalked me would find me there too.
My heart was pounding much of the night. I would open my eyes and look out the door to the hallway, and there it was, waiting…just around the corner. I wanted to turn on the lamp beside the bed to chase away the dark, but just over the edge, I knew it had to be there too, waiting for an outstretched hand, or an errant toe. Paralyzing.
It’s the type of dream that hangs with you in your waking hours. The memory of it in the peripheral vision of your mind’s eye. Almost gone, but wisping by whenever you open the basement door, or pass by the dark unoccupied room in the hallway. Shivers.