A Dream

A Dream

Normally, I don’t remember my dreams in detail. Occasionally, upon waking, if the dream I was having evoked some strong emotion within me, I can recall bits and pieces of it. Even then, as if we were playing a game of Hide and Seek, the more I try to recall those bits and pieces, the better and quicker they hide themselves from me. This, however, is the story of one that didn't get away. It was an especially troubling dream in that it left me with such strong impressions and no clear interpretations. Instead of just trying to keep it in memory, this time I actually wrote it down right away upon waking.

I dreamt that I had two boxes of young girls down in the basement. The boxes weren't large, so the girls were small in stature. Although they seemed to vary in age, none of them were babies. They were pretty girls, neatly stacked and wrapped individually in soft, pastel colored sheets. I don’t know who they were or from where I had gotten them. I don’t know why I had them so carefully packaged and hidden away, but they were down there, and I would go and look at them from time to time. I wouldn’t take them out of the box, I would only look them over and then close them back up inside.

Even though I was asleep and dreaming, I experienced an intense, crippling fear about those girls. They were all strangely quiet. I thought that one or two of them might be dead, and that the others were dying. Some were alive because I could see them moving. The overwhelmingly nauseating sense that I was going to be found out was what I most recall about that nocturnal event.

As I was going through it, it seemed I had done it before- had stored girls in boxes- but that first time, the Police, Emergency Medical, or someone in an official capacity to rescue, had come and gotten them out all right. I somehow got away with having them down there that first time, but the second time, the time that woke me, I was worried that I had gone too far and that this time I wouldn’t be let off so easily. I didn’t know what to do about them, and I was angry with myself for having done it again. The confusion and panic were what got me up.

My sense of relief upon waking and finding out that it was just a dream was indescribable. Immediately, I picked up my journal from the night table, and snatched out the pencil to put the details to paper before they could run away.

I don’t quite know what the dream was supposed to mean, or how I was supposed to interpret it. I have my suspicions about it; it occurred just as I took up writing and journaling again, but that’s all they are, only theories and guesses. One thing I do know that came out of that dream was that this girl was strongly compelled to write about it, and thus, I still clearly remember it.