The Power of the Mind: Nightmares

Nightmares - those terrifying dreams that cause bodily reactions of fear.

I recently had a nightmare that I woke from in a state of shivering fright. The thing about a nightmare is that it contains elements of something that you find scary in normal life, so think about how scary it is to then have a life-like experience of it.

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For the life of me I'm not sure why, but I am afraid of ghosts.

Grave art in Bath Abbey

No other version of the undead terrifies me the same way. So, of course, this nightmare had a ghost. What probably made it even more terrifying was the fact that it took place where I am currently living. If it had been in a graveyard or my mind had taken me to a supermarket, I probably wouldn't have experienced the same level of fear.

There I was walking down the hallway with some of the other residents and then one of the housekeepers tells us to come with her. We see a strange wall that she can put her hand through. Everyone else starts touching the wall and shadows play upon it. Not random shadows either, gruesome and evil looking shadows. Everyone hurries away, but as I go, I notice that a door at the end is open...a door that was not open before.

(Side tangent: The scarier or most iconic scenes are where all is not revealed. Back in the day, they were great at this, sex in particular was not allowed to be shown on the screen so movie producers would find other ways to send the message. For example, cutting to a window where the curtains are blowing in slowly in the breeze or to a piece of bread baking in the oven.)

Back to the nightmare.

I notice this door and my senses are on high alert. I make it about a third of the way down the hall and then tell the housekeeper. We stop and she says that if the door was open then the lady is out. She makes me wait and listen. We begin to hear doors close down the hall and the ghost is getting closer with each door slam.

Needless to say, I woke up at this point, shaking in fear.




I'm still not sure what made we dream that. I certainly hadn't watched a scary movie or thought about ghosts before I went to sleep. It was almost too difficult to fall back asleep, so I knew I had to do something. I had to change the dream.

Now the parts that I had already witnessed couldn't really be changed, because I remembered them so vividly, but I had woken up at a crucial point in the dream. I closed my eyes and reimagined that moment, going back into the dream, and then let myself control what happened next.

The ghost is approaching and instead of cowering in fear, I stand and wait for it. It blows past me like an errant wind. However, I tell it to show itself, because it is one thing to terrify others while invisible, but it needed to show me what it was.

The thing stops and the pearly visage of a monster appears, but it is not completely a monster. The face and body look strange, but also human-like and so I ask, "Who are you?" and I keep asking until a woman shudders through the ghastly monster visage and begins speaking.

I'll cut it short, basically, I find out that she was trapped and needed someone to release her. I tell her to move on and she disappears. Then I find out the housekeeper was also a ghost and then I tell her that she may move on as well because she has fulfilled what she stayed behind to do: protect the residents and her lady trapped in the apartment. A happy ending after all!

Shakespeare's resting place has these words for those that visit.