twitchcraft galore

Let’s talk about dreams and recurrences. Some people have recurring dreams where the exact same dream gets repeated on multiple occasions. For people like me, however, it is more like recurring themes, places, and people in dreams. I think the strangest types of dreams I have are the kind of … serial ones. Dreams that continue over long periods of time (real time, not dream time). Almost like a TV show coming in episodes, only the episodes are my dreams, and I am IN the show. Sometimes the dreams feel so real that when I wake up, I have trouble differentiating my waking life from that of my dream life.

I’ve come to understand that some of my most vivid dreams are hypnopompic hallucinations, and some are night terrors induced by sleep paralysis. But we’ll talk about that another time. Right now we’re talking about recurring and serial dreams. In fact, I think I am just going to turn this into a new category of bloggery because this could get lengthy. Today I’ll talk about one specific recurring theme (with a few others interlaced throughout).

Kidnapping & Evil Twins
Creepy Uncle
When I was little, I often had dreams of someone trying to kidnap me. I suppose this could be called a recurring theme, because each time the scenery and circumstances were different, but the premise was that I had to hide from a kidnapper who was coming to get me. The one I remember most vividly was the one where I actually almost got kidnapped. He actually saw me and was coming after me, and almost touched me before I woke up. The creepiest part was that he looked a lot like my uncle, only this was a creepier version of my uncle.

This same creepy version of my uncle made another appearance in one of my kidnapper dreams. In the dream, I was at my school at night (I must have been about 5 years old at the time) and I was sneaking around the classrooms trying to hide from the kidnapper. I came into one classroom and he saw me and shot me right in the heart. I woke up kind of horrified (but not exactly scared), and my chest was stinging in the spot where he had shot me. That is the only time I have ever dreamed of being hurt or killed. I still remember every detail of that dream and the way it felt when he shot me.

The weird thing is that I was never remotely afraid of this uncle. I didn’t see him often and thus didn’t know him well, but he never frightened me in the least!

Creepy Dad
One of the most abundant themes in my dreams when I was little was a scene where my dad would be trying to keep me away from my mom. Each time, I was at home with my mom (I was really little, maybe 3 or 4?), and I would be sitting with her while she did some mundane task like folding laundry. Then my dad would come in the room and stare at me with these creepy eyes.

My dad is a short black man, and people used to say he looked like Sherman Helmsley (from The Jeffersons). But in my dream he looked like a cross between himself and Bill Cosby, only not even slightly comical. He was all serious and scary as hell. Nothing was ever spoken in those dreams. Just silence, my mom going about her business not noticing anything, and my dad coming in giving me the evil stare. I knew that he was going to try and take me away from my mom and I was scared and didn’t want him to take me from her. He would do everything just to get in my way while I tried to get closer to her, or to prevent her from coming to me.

I hated those dreams, and even thinking back on them now gives me the shivers. I can still see that face clearly and it was so scary. Again, I don’t know why I would have dreamed about this, let alone very frequently. My dad was always jolly and just doted on us kids. I was never scared of him in the least, and loved the little bit of time I got to spend with him (at that time he worked 2 jobs and when he was home he was usually sleeping). I told my folks about these dreams many years later and they found it weird, too.

Creepy Grandfather
This one happened maybe a few months ago. It is the only time I recall ever dreaming about my grandfather, he had died about two years before I had this dream. Most of the dream wasn’t memorable at all, until the end. I was standing there and he came up to me, only the closer he got, the more I began to realize that this wasn’t my grandfather but a scary version of him. I hesitated, but he just came up to me and put his arms around me, from the side.

I tried to get away, but he just began squeezing me tighter and tighter. I was half-awake at this point and realized I couldn’t move. I tried to cry out to my cat, who I could see sitting at the foot of my bed (yet I could still clearly see and feel creepy-grandpa squeezing me). I couldn’t even make a sound. I couldn’t even breathe. Obviously, this was sleep paralysis, and I realized it, but it still creeped me out and I just had to let it run its course (which, thankfully, didn’t last more than a minute or so).

Final Thoughts?
By now I’m sure you’re seeing a common theme throughout even these recurrences. These three are the only evil twins I’ve ever dreamed about. Sure I may dream of evil versions of people I know, but these people all happen to be older male relatives. Wtf’s up with that?