What’s the difference between a dream and a nightmare? Does it really just come down to whether it scares you or not? If so, what happens if you are to embrace the scary dreams? Instead of nightmares, you now have sweet dreams of horror, right?
I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams recently. Last week, one of my freewrite’s was about nightmares and how I would try to take advantage of them instead of hiding from them. Last night, I made my first contribution to my dream journal. Since it was made in the dark and I couldn’t remember the full dream, I only have a few scribbles to draw from as I try to remember the story contained within my dream.
What I do remember is something that I’ve never experienced in a dream before.
In a house surrounded by large glass windows, I was being attacked by random items. A bird would fly into the window, smash into it, and slide down the glass. Next, a big red ball slammed into the glass, creating a hairline crack in the middle of the back window. The next time the ball came, my reaction was to try and punch through it.
I had no idea whether the ball was soft or hard. As I remember it, I considered the ball to be more of an illusion — like something my mind simply conjured up. I don’t have a fear of red rubber balls or toys, but I think this dream represented my recent decision to no longer allow dreams to scare me.
The dream reminds of an episode of Black Mirror I watched a little over a month ago. I have no idea if that episode influenced this dream, but it’s quite possible.
In the episode, a video game developer creates a virtual reality horror game. The mind of the player is used to create scary situations and creatures that come at them during the game. So while the player is terrified, to some extent, they know that everything within the game is fake. Despite how scared they are, they try to fight back and shrug off each situation.
The difference between my dream and this episode is that I won. Well, I woke up without being killed or crippled by fear. For a nightmare, or a sweet dream of horror, I consider that a success.
I’m continually more interested in my dreams and I don’t see this interest stopping anytime soon. Over the past few decades of my life, I think I’ve been too scared to focus on the dreams, fearing that thinking about them will give them power. I’m now taking a leap of faith that I’ll have enough control and approach my dreams with the right mindset to embrace the good that can come from the creativity and ideas that are brought to my attention through my dreams.
Stay tuned.