Dreamscape

I’ve been having some very disturbing dreams lately. Well, actually I generally don’t have good dreams but these recent ones are making me want to swear off sleep forever.

Earlier last week, I had a dream where, for some reason, I had to have surgery. In this surgery, my feet would be cut off (for some unknown reason) and then reattached. I woke up after my surgery and was sitting in a chair under the afghan my mother made for me. All of this sudden, I looked down because my feet felt strange. To my horror, they came loose! Then they ran away! My very own feet abandoned me, and of course I couldn’t chase after them– because I had no feet.

During the middle of the week, I had a nightmare concerning, I suppose one could say, one of my great phobias. Water. In this one, there was a giant wave, a tsunami headed for my house. No one believed me when I told them it was coming, even though I could see the wave in the distance. A wave so big it took up the entire sky. I grabbed my dog and was trying to run away. But every time I turned around, it was getting closer. Finally, the wave crested. We tumbled around under water, and just as I was about to drown, I woke up.

Today, I had my most disturbing dreams in ages. But for it to make sense, I think, I have to go back in time.

When I was in the 5th grade, I think I was about 10, my grandma called with bad news. She had gone out earlier in the day with her friend Helen. In the afternoon, they (my great aunts and uncles, and grandparents) were going to go to the Senior Club. When my grandma, who doesn’t drive, got home from her shopping trip with Helen, she entered the house alone. Helen backed out of the driveway.

She looked around for my grandpa, asking if he was ready to go to the Club. She found him on the bathroom floor, having a seizure. It was Valentine’s Day.

After she called for an ambulance, she called for her sister and brother- in- law. The doctor determined that my grandfather had suffered an aneurism. It was at the base of his brain, and whatever they were doing for him wasn’t helping. He was awake at this point and just wanted to leave the hospital. So they transferred him to UCLA for a fancy schmancy brain surgery. He never woke up.

He contracted pneumonia from an improperly cleaned respirator. Then he slipped into a coma. Three months later he was dead.

Ever since that happened, every time I get a headache, I have this secret fear that my brain is going to explode.

In this dream, my mom was visiting me. I went in to the bathroom to throw some water on my face because I felt really bad. But I didn’t want her to know that I felt sick. Then there was a white hot flash and I couldn't see. I put my hands up to my temples because it hurt so bad and fell to the floor. I couldn't move. And I started to scream a blood curdling scream. Then my mother was standing in front of me, shaking her finger at me like I'd been bad. She wouldn’t help me. I kept screaming because I needed help. Then it dawned on me that she probably wasn't real, just a hallucination brought on by a brain bleed or something. I felt hot tears running down my face because I began to think that maybe I wasn't even screaming. Maybe no one could hear me because the sound was in my head. Then my whole body started to shake uncontrollably. No one was coming to help me, and I was going to die in my own bathroom.

I’ve never in my life had such a disturbing dream. It felt so real! I actually thought that it was happening. The screaming was ear- piercing. The fear, the pain, it was all so vivid. When I woke up I was almost afraid to move. Where was I? Had it actually happened? Since my ears weren’t bleeding, I figured it had been a nightmare.

But knowing that won’t make it any easier to sleep tonight.

~ Tragic Tuyen