I found the common theme to my nightmares.
I had three of them in my adult life. They're the kind that your brain interprets as so threatening that it seeks escape by waking you up. And the waking part sears the memory in your mind because your heart is pounding from the adrenaline.
Anyway. I had the last one a week ago. But it wasn't as bad as the others, because of a funny thing that happened in the nightmare. Instead, I woke up alert enough to piece it all together. I compared it to the other two I had and that's when I connected what drives my nightmares. The biggest fear a wife and mother can have. It's when you see the danger coming, and as difficult as it is to fight it to save yourself, your biggest fear is that your family members are also in danger and you can't warn them because you know that they won't listen to you, or because there's just no time to even try. So it's that moment where you know that you have seconds before everything changes, and my brain does not accept the outcome so it rips me away.
So, here's the details of the nightmare:
I was with a group of about twenty to thirty people. We were scattered randomly around a large room with a high ceiling. There were benches in the room, which I later identified as church pews. There was an older, white haired woman who seemed to stand out in the group. She looked pretty wretched and mean. Maybe even freakishly erect in stature. She told us that she would call us up one by one and she would give us a test. She would give us a number and we had to respond with a word that had the same number of letters as the number she called out. If the person failed the test, we just knew without anyone saying it, that there would be fatal consequences.
Then, there was a lull before the test began. It was like she was watching us for our reaction. There might have even been some light banter going on around me. It convinced me that other people were more confident about the situation we were in than I was. While they were engaged in conversation, as if they thought nothing about the test, I was going over words in my head, counting the letters in each word to make sure I had an inventory ready to answer when my turn came up.
Suddenly, another group walked past us. They looked like any crowd you would see on a sidewalk, but all of them heading in the same direction. I watched as people in the back of our group began to peel off and tried to hide themselves in this second group, thinking they were going to escape the crazy old lady. Before this group moved out of sight, we learned that it was composed of people who had volunteered to be part of a mass suicide. So, the prognosis for escape was non-existent.
I just furiously continued to think about more words, counting the letters, determined to be ready. But I stopped when I realized that someone was monitoring what I was thinking. I glanced at the wretched old woman. In a flash, images were exchanged between us. All in our heads. I said, "You're reading my mind. You're an alien." She did not deny it. But I wasn't sure if she fully accepted that I had gotten in her head. There were probably lots of voices she was listening to.
I had seen enough to realize that we were all in an apocalyptic situation. And the situation was going to be worse for some, more than others. Specifically, it occurred to me that if she can read our minds, she can use it to her advantage to confound those that she wanted to dispense with quickly, and for those she wanted to keep alive, she could provide the answers through telepathy.
I realized as soon as the thought came into my head that it was important to keep her from realizing that I had put it all together. So I came up with an ear worm song that I hoped would push her out of my mind. I began to sing the words to the Paranda, a very cultural album from Panama. It is meant to be sung viscerally, with an every day man or woman voice. You can sing it in a rough voice, and still hit the right tone. So, that's what I did in my mind, singing the words I knew, "JULIA, que te as creido, JULIA deja mi marido."
And at some point, I convinced myself that I was succeeding. But that's when the other thought came into my mind, the one that finally woke me up. My husband's strength does not include spelling and he was somewhere in the crowd. I was sure that he would fail her test, and there was nothing I could do to help him.
The End.
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