Nightmares

I had a nightmare last night. I don’t usually have nightmares, but lately I have been having them quite a bit. I have no idea the underlying cause or whatever, sometimes a nightmare is just a nightmare.

When I was around 10 or 11, prime slumber party age, I had a scary story that I told at ever slumber party. I told the story well and repeat performances were often requested. The story was about a doll that would come to life in the middle of the night and kill the family members. I would go into extreme detail about the coming to life, how the eyeballs would change from plastic to real and blink. Then the finger nails would grow not like a person but like a cat’s claws. Then the plastic doll, with real eyes and cat like claws would rip the still beating heart out of someone and eat it. Good stuff.

After a week or so of waking up with nightmares, last night I woke to the sound of Lily’s CareBear, saying “I’m Sunshine Bear”…. Lily has this Care Bear she takes everywhere. We have had it forever, but it still talks when you press the belly. It must have solar power or something, because you would think after a couple of years the damn batteries would expire. But, no. So I awoke to the damn bear’s freaky voice coming through our baby monitor. It kept going and going. So I went to Lily’s room thinking I would move the bear, thinking she must be laying on it or something. Something. The bear was on one side of the bed, Lily on the other. I have no idea what was making that bear talk and talk and talk. I did check the eyes, they appeared to still be plastic. Perhaps Lily rolled over while I was on my way to her room?

So I went back to bed. Still only half awake. Later I jumped out of bed and ran to the wall next to Jeff’s side of the bed. I was screaming, Jeff, Jeff. I was trying to grab something or stop something from falling. I really have no idea as I was asleep. Jeff said something like, what? Which caused me to realize that I was dreaming or something. At that moment I couldn’t articulate what I was doing. I knew what I was trying to catch or grab, I just didn’t know the words. Like I was dreaming vivid dreams without words to articulate the dream. It was weird. The more I woke up the less I understood why I was standing on the other side of the room screaming for Jeff to help me stop something from falling on our completely blank white wall. I went right back to sleep, it was about 2 AM, Jeff was never able to fall back to sleep. Sorry.