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| "Night Friends" black color pencil on sketchbook paper |
IN THE DREAMHOUSE : Wake Up Screaming
Last night around 3:30 I was having a nightmare so bad I started screaming FULL-VOLUME, while still sound asleep, and my husband had to shake me awake. As you would expect, he was pretty freaked out, and said of all the times I've started screaming in my sleep, this was definitely the worst and loudest. He was very concerned, and I had to reassure him that I was totally fine.
It was weird, because usually I wake MYSELF up with the dream-screaming, and it's usually sort of "sub-volume," which is still disturbing enough. But this time I could tell I was full-out screaming, and yet I wasn't waking up. It was like I was stuck in the nightmare.
It was disorienting and freaky. The emotion in the nightmare was total anguish, not fear, which made it even worse. It's harder to come down from anguish, than from fear. Don't you think?
When I was coherent enough to glance at the clock, it was exactly 3:33, and if you follow Satan on Twitter, you'll know 3:33 a.m. is considered the "Devil's Hour," by various different creepy interpretations. So I was like, "Shit!" (Because I saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and I know how that all played out.)
As I lay there panting and waiting for my pulse to stop racing, I looked over at Anthony, who was lying next to me, wide-eyed, with one hand on my shoulder, and thought, "Wow, I am SUCH a catch!"
Then I got a case of the giggles, and had to explain myself. What a freak. I kept picturing myself lying there in bed SCREAMING, and poor Anthony panicking and thinking WTF, and I couldn't stop laughing. So I had to get up and get a drink of water and read some comics for a while.
I'm a very happy person by day! I don't know why I'm such a freak in Dreamland.
(P.S.- I'm kidding about Satan on Twitter. I mean, maybe he does have an account, but I don't follow him, and I have no idea if he's divulged anything about 3:33 a.m.)
It was weird, because usually I wake MYSELF up with the dream-screaming, and it's usually sort of "sub-volume," which is still disturbing enough. But this time I could tell I was full-out screaming, and yet I wasn't waking up. It was like I was stuck in the nightmare.
It was disorienting and freaky. The emotion in the nightmare was total anguish, not fear, which made it even worse. It's harder to come down from anguish, than from fear. Don't you think?
When I was coherent enough to glance at the clock, it was exactly 3:33, and if you follow Satan on Twitter, you'll know 3:33 a.m. is considered the "Devil's Hour," by various different creepy interpretations. So I was like, "Shit!" (Because I saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and I know how that all played out.)
As I lay there panting and waiting for my pulse to stop racing, I looked over at Anthony, who was lying next to me, wide-eyed, with one hand on my shoulder, and thought, "Wow, I am SUCH a catch!"
Then I got a case of the giggles, and had to explain myself. What a freak. I kept picturing myself lying there in bed SCREAMING, and poor Anthony panicking and thinking WTF, and I couldn't stop laughing. So I had to get up and get a drink of water and read some comics for a while.
I'm a very happy person by day! I don't know why I'm such a freak in Dreamland.
(P.S.- I'm kidding about Satan on Twitter. I mean, maybe he does have an account, but I don't follow him, and I have no idea if he's divulged anything about 3:33 a.m.)
IN THE DREAMHOUSE : arterial spray
Usually I can watch horror movies right before bed without any problem, but last night I watched the last 20 minutes of the Amityville remake. It's not even a good remake, but there's a scene where Ryan Reynolds is seeing visions of the previous occupant's suicide by throat-slitting, and you see Ryan's face covered in showers of arterial blood spray. As I watched it I was like, "Eh... Whatever. Time for bed."
But I had this nightmare that I was in a multi-level hotel, going up and down elevators trying to escape a serial killer. I ended up in a lounge just as the killer entered the room. Just by chance, I was behind some other people at the bar, mostly obscured from the killer's view. He had a switchblade, and cut down a few people around me, so I dropped to the ground with them and played possum.
He slit the throat of a man right next to me, and as I lay there on the ground praying I wouldn't be discovered I could feel the man's blood spattering across me.
Luckily the nightmare either ended there, or shifted scenes, so I wasn't discovered. But it was bad enough, man!
I woke up, and my mind quickly shifted from serial killers and blood spray to diarrhea. The word itself. It's a nuanced word, with the double-R and the silent H. The double-R gives it an appropriate growl/grunt, and the silent H reflects a miserable silent breath of discomfort. I started getting ideas for poop-related pop art, and that's when I realized it was time to just accept that I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep.
I got out of bed, fed the dog, got a cup of coffee, and here I am...
But I had this nightmare that I was in a multi-level hotel, going up and down elevators trying to escape a serial killer. I ended up in a lounge just as the killer entered the room. Just by chance, I was behind some other people at the bar, mostly obscured from the killer's view. He had a switchblade, and cut down a few people around me, so I dropped to the ground with them and played possum.
He slit the throat of a man right next to me, and as I lay there on the ground praying I wouldn't be discovered I could feel the man's blood spattering across me.
Luckily the nightmare either ended there, or shifted scenes, so I wasn't discovered. But it was bad enough, man!
I woke up, and my mind quickly shifted from serial killers and blood spray to diarrhea. The word itself. It's a nuanced word, with the double-R and the silent H. The double-R gives it an appropriate growl/grunt, and the silent H reflects a miserable silent breath of discomfort. I started getting ideas for poop-related pop art, and that's when I realized it was time to just accept that I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep.
I got out of bed, fed the dog, got a cup of coffee, and here I am...
IN THE DREAMHOUSE: the Winchester Mystery House
Last night I dreamed about the Winchester Mystery House YET AGAIN. I dream about it probably once a month, and have done so fairly regularly since I first visited there with my parents when I was about 7.
I had been staying there, like it was a hotel, and was actually crying about having to leave it. There was wallpaper with a pattern of weeping cherub's faces in relief, and I kept running my fingers across their faces.
In the dream, Anthony and I were staying there with my stepsister and her husband and sons. Our beds were on this broad second-floor gallery, and our last morning there a sinister man with a black mustache served us brunch. He obviously hated us, and I was afraid he might be slipping poison into the food and drink. I glanced up and noticed a procession of ghosts serving themselves from a sideboard along the wall. I eavesdropped on their conversations, and discovered many of them saying perverse and obscene things.
Somewhere along the way my stepsister and her family turned into the cast of I Love Lucy. Anthony and I were moving furniture with them, and of course hijinks ensued. But the hijinks element was incongruous with the spooky setting and huge unwieldy gothic Victorian furniture.
Part of my dream was also the story of two children, a brother and sister, who were trapped in the Winchester House, and only the girl survived. She had to fight an evil ghost woman who wanted to trap her soul there forever. The ghost lured the girl up into the highest reaches of the house, even a vaulted attic. But the girl managed to trick the woman and cast HER into the heart of the house forever.
When the girl finally escaped the house and walked along the seashore, she came across a crab that had her dead brother's face, and realized he had been reincarnated. This was like a happy ending to their story, though, because she was glad his soul wasn't trapped forever in the Winchester House.
In the dream, Anthony and I were staying there with my stepsister and her husband and sons. Our beds were on this broad second-floor gallery, and our last morning there a sinister man with a black mustache served us brunch. He obviously hated us, and I was afraid he might be slipping poison into the food and drink. I glanced up and noticed a procession of ghosts serving themselves from a sideboard along the wall. I eavesdropped on their conversations, and discovered many of them saying perverse and obscene things.
Somewhere along the way my stepsister and her family turned into the cast of I Love Lucy. Anthony and I were moving furniture with them, and of course hijinks ensued. But the hijinks element was incongruous with the spooky setting and huge unwieldy gothic Victorian furniture.
Part of my dream was also the story of two children, a brother and sister, who were trapped in the Winchester House, and only the girl survived. She had to fight an evil ghost woman who wanted to trap her soul there forever. The ghost lured the girl up into the highest reaches of the house, even a vaulted attic. But the girl managed to trick the woman and cast HER into the heart of the house forever.
When the girl finally escaped the house and walked along the seashore, she came across a crab that had her dead brother's face, and realized he had been reincarnated. This was like a happy ending to their story, though, because she was glad his soul wasn't trapped forever in the Winchester House.