I keep a dream diary off and on because it was recommended by my therapist in high school and it has also been a great creative tool.
I only record dreams if they really affect me in some way, though it depends on how lazy I feel at the time.
Here is the past few days, including the dream I just awoke from.
3.27.11
Wow. What a horrible nightmare. I am quite positive this has been one of the worst and it is hard to describe exactly why. I did try to take control at the end and have some fun, but how it started was extremely disturbing… but why?
I believe I had just awoken from a nightmare. It’s fuzzy. I think I experienced sleep paralysis. My eyes locked on the doorway and sure enough the inconspicuous doorway morphed into something more sinister. It’s hard to talk about it now. I feel like if I think about it too much my imagination will conjure it up in my waking vision.
If someone else had told me about this, I would think it quite dull, but it was a figure. More importantly, it was my figure. It formed from the shadows and slumped cadaverously to one side. The eyes were glowing red, a common horror trope and one I would normally scoff at, but something was different.
I decided to walk past it. Now, one would assume, in order to make such a decision, I must not be that afraid of this figure. The truth is I was trapped in my room and that was the only exit. I wanted to get past it as quickly as possible. I was also aware that I was dreaming and I wanted to try something. I wanted to touch it.
This figure also seemed familiar outside of being my doppelganger and I believe I had seen this same figure in the previous dream I had just awoken from before falling into this one. But it’s too fuzzy to remember.
Anyway, I got up promptly and walked towards it. The visage was coherent and detailed. My mind did a great job engineering this. The body looked dead. It’s eyes glowed brightly, and was the only part hard to examine. I looked at the back of its head. It was gray. I could feel it was going to move. My mind always seems to go in a direction I don’t want it to when I dream lucidly.
I then grabbed its shoulder… and this was the horrifying part. I clutched it, and even though it was brief, the feedback I received was unexpected. It FELT real. I could feel, underneath the polyester of the coat it was clothed in, there was flesh and muscle and bone.
I ran to the nearest window to let myself out of the house. I was still aware it was a dream. Outside it was the dead of night during Christmas. The houses on my street were especially festive with Christmas lights. This didn’t change how I felt. Even though I had escaped that thing, I felt it was still in that house.
I walked through the snow for a while admiring at how well my mind recreated the streets and houses. How it decorated all the houses in a aesthetically pleasing manner even if I had never seen a single Christmas decoration on it in my life.
This was probably my longest lucid dream and finally I decided to start taking advantage of it. I tried to will in the existence of a female, but that never works. It’s always better if I try to have expectation that someone will be there when I open the door.
So I walked into a house, ‘knowing’ that [omitted] would be there. Of anytime a dream gets good I wake up.
Still that image and feeling of that thing is hard to shake. Even as the details of it fade from my mind, I don’t think it’s the last I have seen of it. Moreover it was the feeling I had when I woke up. Normally I’d be relieved it was all a dream, but instead I felt like I had been given bad news. Something that lingers with you and ruins your entire day.
3.28.11
The same dream. Well, this time it was at my bedside. I couldn’t move. Neither did it. I kept expecting it to. It was dead. It can’t move. Neither could I though. I really just don’t want to think about it anymore. Sleep paralysis is the worst.
It’s 2a.m. and I have to take my sister’s to school this morning. I guess I should go make coffee.
3.29.11
It’s staring at something.
3.30.11
I’ve never had a reoccurring dream last this long. If it keeps up, I might try to give up sleeping entirely. I think it’s because I’ve been thinking about it too much. I keep reading that journal entry.
This time I didn’t experience sleep paralysis thank God and it started out like a normal dream. It wasn’t a lucid experience either, but it was in my home. I was playing WoW… or was I in the game. Either way I was hearing noises outside. Strange growling noises. It was distracting. When I looked out I saw someone slouched over on my steps.
A feeling of ill came over me and then the noise overcame me. Thankfully I woke up after this.
I just realized how creepy the previous nights journal entry sounded. It does seem like it did seem like it was staring at something on the ground of my room
3.31.11
…
Please, someone help me get over this dream. I know it’s not the only dream I have, but I’ve been waking up from this same one every night and it’s the only one I really remember having. I have been suffering from nightmares like this on and off my entire life. Sometimes I have let it effect my real life and have experience sleep deprivation because of them. I know they are just dreams and don’t necessarily have any significance, but I really have trouble going back to sleep after this one.
I also suffer from sleep paralysis and it is a regular occurrence. This has occurred at least four times in the past few days.