For the past few weeks, I’ve been having the most terrible nightmares – zombies, rage virus, apocalypse, murder, destruction, mayhem, abandonment – and some nights, I feel I’m not going to wake up from it. Don’t get me wrong, The Boyfriend (aka The Spaniard) and I haven’t had a major argument in a while so it’s fair to say that this does not stem from an unresolved scream fest with him. I am somewhat happy with my job, my home life is just peachy, I’m perfectly healthy (save for a sneeze here and there), and I still have friends who wig out on me from time to time. Life has been pretty much alright.
Yet my subconscious has been churning out the most horrific things. Sometimes it’s not an outright nightmare, but just before you wake up, it leaves you with a sense of despair, like NOTHING in your world is right, that no one loves you. Usually, I’d be so delusional that I can just shrug these emotions off. But when it comes to dreaming, everyone becomes more vulnerable to these things. There’s always a running theme – survival, making all sorts of extreme efforts, loneliness, rage – all the things that make me wake up crying that The Boyfriend has been unfortunate enough to be a recipient of. He’s prolly thinking I come multiple side orders of the crazies. Great.
What compelled me to write about it though was the dream I just had (and the fact that The Boyfriend finally has internet at home and I can publish WHENEVER the mood strikes me). I’m ashamed to admit it but I’ve been dreaming of boyfriends past – The Viking, The Douchebag – but one laced with more hatred than the other.
I dreamt I was rummaging through old things of mine and The Douchebag’s. There were a few notebooks and a couple of bric-a-bracs that were all over a room. The notebook had a few scribblings in The Douchebag’s handwriting saying how much he’s fed up with me or how he can’t take it anymore, doodles of me in an unflattering light, those sort of things. I also found the engagement ring he gave me, carelessly tossed in a pile of random crap. After a while of rummaging through it, him and his girlfriend came into the room. I had the feeling that it was their house and I’ve somehow gotten into their property but not as an intruder but perhaps as a awkward guest. I’ve known for a while that they’re planning on getting married and it was the same in the dream.
At some point, things got confrontational and I lashed out angrily at him and his girlfriend. I had forgotten how betrayed I’ve felt. I felt sick. Wasn’t I over this? Wasn’t this three years ago? Hadn’t I moved on? Apparently, none of the above. Or so my dream told me.
Not only did I get confrontational, I got violent. Sure, I’ve killed a few imaginary people in my dreams but they were stereotypical bad guys, people who killed other people, people who had no respect of human life, people who would harm the ones that I love. All the hatred from years ago came rushing back in a nostalgic frenzy that just flowed into my knife-wielding hand. I tortured them, I slapped them around, I cut them, I made them tell me about three years ago.
I’ve never been happier in my entire life and here I am, dreaming about past hurts. It’s fucking scary inside my head.
