They're Back

For most of the summer I've been blessed with sweet, deep, restful slumber with dreams of sunshine and rainbows. At least that is what I have imagined as my dreams went unremembered and I had been waking with no angst or fear. This all changed a few weeks back and has been steadily getting worse. My sick freaking nightmares are back. It's getting so bad that once again I am afraid to go to sleep. So here I sit telling my story of woe.

I know it's just a dream. This is not real. But every night in my dreams one of my daughters comes running up to me, hysterical, say someone has had something terrible happen to them and they need my help. Last night it was Mary and she was screaming, "daddy daddy a man fell off the balcony and he needs your help!" I struggle to reach this victim of horror and when I get there he's a mess all bloody with mangled limbs and torn face and when I touch him he comes to life and starts to attack. He claws and scratches and bites and I fight for my life and when I finally get away he goes after my daughters. They scream as it grabs them and I struggle again to get back to them. I tear it's head off and rip it limb from limb to unwrap my screaming daughters from it's evil grasp.

Daddy daddy there has been a fire. A man was on fire and he needs your help.

Daddy daddy there was a car accident. A man went through his windshield he needs your help.

Daddy daddy a man fell in the river.

Daddy daddy a man crashed his plane. Daddy daddy I think he's dead.

Dreaming My Life Away

Not sure if this is really possible, but every night I dream a lifetime. A while ago I realized if I can see my nightmares through to the end they resolve and I  can barely remember them. I see myself standing in this resolution and I decide not to wake up, but to move forward and see where this dream-life will take me. Last night I grew to be a very old man. A happy old man. I remember lying back in my bed and looking forward to what dreams may come. I  dreamed about the wonderful life I had lived and then I woke up.

Life is too Short to be this Miserable

She saved my life. Again. She said this morning, "Life is too short to be this miserable." So simple. So true. No judgement. Just a fact. Death will come soon enough. Too soon.

The Worst One

So I've done it. No recollection of how I did it, but I'm dead. I'm not buried or crushed or struggling. I'm just dead. I'm lying there motionless in the dark. At least I think I'm lying down. I don't feel anything. I can't see anything. Total darkness. I can't hear anything. Nothing. No ringing in my ears and I think for a moment that even that would be nice. Total silence. No breathing. No heartbeat. No voice. I panic and shout out for help. No voice. No breathe to push the words. I reach for my face. No hands. No feeling. I start to cry. No tears. Nothing.

I think something terrible has happened. What has happened to me? Then I realize I'm dreaming. I must be dreaming. But nothing is happening. What am I dreaming? Is it possible to dream nothing ? I think it's time to wake up now! But nothing. I think WAKE Up! Nothing. I think. I think. It's all I can do. The thought condenses. I am. 

What am I? What have I become? I am me. But what does that mean? And the nightmare truly begins with the thought, "Who was I?" And I remember my last day. I was miserable. It was Mothers Day. And I was miserable. So upset with myself. Such a failure. Such a loser. Such a burden to those who loved me most. The regret. The sorrow. The pain. In my body. In my soul. I couldn't let it go. And then I remember like the breaking of silent thunder. I asked God for this. I wanted to be dead. I actually prayed to be dead. But I am. Everything is gone. But I am. No more pain in my back. No more ringing in my ears. No more asthma. No more headaches. No more anything. But I am. I try not to think. I try not to remember all that was. But I am.

And then the most terrifying thought of all. What's next? Nothing. Silence. 

Lost

Been having a recurring dream lately. I'm wandering. Lost. In hotel hallways. In the woods. In the desert. On the street. It's weird because I'm not trying to get anywhere. I just don't know where I am trying to go. But I know I need to be there. 

Reboot

Been thinking a lot about those brilliant flashes of white light I had experienced so frequently in the first half of my life. Maybe it's the brilliant light people have been drawn to in near death experiences. That light at the end of the tunnel. I think maybe it was God. He was hitting my reset button. Waking me up. Sending me back. Rebooting. Giving me a replay.

I'm OK i'm ok.

 In 1988 I was 22 years old. I had recently graduated from college where I had played football for four years and had returned for the next semester's graduation of my best friend. The night before at a local bar my friend's father fell down the stairs and broke his neck. I was the first to him and I knew that it was bad. I repositioned his head and helped him breathe again and I held his head and stabilized his neck the best I could as chaos rain around me. In the time it took to empty out the bar and gather six police officers to the scene I held his head. I could feel him breathing and assured his sons he was still alive. The paramedics arrived and I passed over his head and stepped over his body I walked into the scene that would change my life forever. My best friend's older brother and the oldest son of the man on the ground was being pushed by a police officer who was saying if you do not leave I will arrest you. I'll never forget the eloquent words spoken that started the nightmare, "fuck you go ahead and arrest me." He was spun around and thrown against the wall. Another officer was crossing in front of me to assist and I made a terrible mistake of touching his shoulder. I meant to get his attention to say, "this is his son," but never got the chance to speak. In a clean spinning swinging motion he struck me across the face with a leather covered, lead weighted, Billy Jack fracturing my orbit and stunning me with a not so brilliant flash of white light. He too was stunned and surprised to find that I still stood and very calmly asked, "why did you hit me?" He took a step back so I took a step forward. The Billy Jack waggled in his hand and I saw the fear in his face. I tried to say again, "he is this man's son," but before I could finish I felt as though I had been stabbed. I felt a fire hot pain shooting up through my left kidney and in reflex and in rage I spun and threw the back of my elbow into the face of my assailant who'd attacked me. This is when things went into slow motion, everything and everyone around me, the cop's head snapping back spraying blood against the wall behind him and the sparking electro blue light crackling from the prongs of the stun gun he had just hit me with still in his hand as he slid down the wall smearing the blood as he crumpled to the floor. The crack to the back of my head was noticeably different sounding because it came from the wood of a baton the brilliant white flash of light. This officer being equally shocked and weary when I turned and shouted, "stop hitting me!" Two other officers from either side grabbing both my arms ending it, but the cop with the bloody mouth coming back at me again and jamming his stun gun directly into the middle of my chest and stunning the officers right off of my arms. Me dropping and lunging forward head-butting him in the face dropping him again. I came up pushing out with both hands sending the other officers over picnic tables on either side. The back doors wide-open and beckoning, me sprinting for them, but as I reached the opening I ran directly into the seventh officer responding to the scene. We met in a sickening crunch and crumpled to the ground in a tangled mess. I was hand cuffed and face down and a cop stomped on the cuff and in another sickening crunch broke my wrist. Then there were multiple kicks and hits and clubbings and finally the most brilliant white flash of the pain and light from being fried by four Nova Control stun guns used at once. I woke up face-down in a cell choking in a small pool of my own blood. My hands were still handcuffed behind my back and my face was glued to the concrete floor by coagulating blood. I could hear a constant flood of loudly shouted profanity that was so volgur and constant that it could not be real. Then I realized it was my best friend shouting for my very life. I rolled up on my side in fetal position and coughed out a glob of bloody puke and said, "Dennis, Dennis! I'm OK. I'm ok." Nothing could have been further from the truth. Sometimes you don't have to be asleep to have a nightmare.

A brilliant flash of white

I've been dreaming a lot. I believe these dreams to be working on a deep subconscious level attempting physical recovery of brain trauma suffered from multiple concussions throughout my life. The common underlying similarity among all these dreams and these injuries have always been a brilliant flash of white. You can call it blacking out and for me it always starts with a brilliant flash of white light with all physical senses maxing out and then the black out begins. Actually the black out doesn't exist until I consciously understand that there are gaps in my memory. Big gaps. It's hard to know what you do not remember. I can usually remember everything right up to the brilliant flash. Memory reboots right in the middle of a mess of pain and nausea and fear.  36 hours after a major brain impact when you can call it a headache from the concussion is where the memory returns. With over a dozen of these concussions in my past I know the brilliant flash of white light did not always mean unconsciousness and actually meant something far more scary. Functional physicality operating on a completely subconscious unconscious level. On automatic survival mode after facing significant trauma.  For me it was a direct tab to the most base of emotions, rage in particular. It always worked well for me on the football field, but in real life, not so much.

Cold

I woke with that nervous energy you have, like, when you are young and you just know you can make anything you want out of your life. I had been dreaming. A nightmare maybe. What was it? He was there. He was trying to tell me something.  Might as we'll forget it anyway. The morning is so bright, so fresh, so full of promise, so full of potential. This bright must mean it's late, wife already on her run, time to get my girls going. Time to rise a shine. Up the stairs. Their rooms empty.? No dogs on my heals. The house is empty. Quiet. Still. Alone. I open the front door. It's the middle of the night. The middle of winter. Freezing. I wake up. Cold. Old. Almost dead. Then I wake up again. Here. Now.

Second-dreaming

There are many levels to our dreams. If you dream that you wake-up, but are still asleep, you have achieved a second dream. Second-dreaming for me is a little scary. When you wake within a dream you become an active participant. Free to look around, free to participate. What you bring back from a second dream is said to be prophetic. For me, seeing the second dream through is what resolves the fear and nightmare and conflict between subconscious and supernatural.  The conflict of dreaming and seeing and waking and knowing.

So he sitting there

in his eyes he made it plain to see that he could not speak. The look Carol would give. The I want to be able to hear you, just can't look. He looks at me and I can't tell how old he is. He's the perfect age. He's six three and a little. Clean save. So high and tight looking almost bald. he was so handsome. For the first time I really saw why everyone looked when he came in a room. He was also naturally disarming. Always first to say hello. Always reaching out a hand of introduction or of telling another's story.

He looks me in the eye, reaches out and touches my forehead with his forefinger and smiles. I remember our battle-royal the dream before, the one when I caved my head in giving him a flying head-butt to his face. I reach for my face and it is fine and we laugh. He helps me off the ground. We're heading off the field. He beckons to follow. He turns and walks a brisk pace. I struggle to follow. Up the trail he goes, he wants to show me something. He walks so fast, the trail is so steep, but he slows at the the top so I can ketch up.

I'm at that at top of the mountain and winded at 14,000 feet, asthma attack kinda winded and I see he has made the last switchback, He's bent over hands on knees, sucking wind, blue lipped, hypoxic. he looks cold, but unconcerned. He waves me past. He's waving through the switchback. He wants me to keep going, just a little more to the top.

I stop. I will not leave him like this. I stop. He turns and walks back at stiff brisk descent walk. I look toward the peak. What was up there did not matter. He is what mattered. I struggle to follow. He was swift and the trail fell away steep and deep. We hiked to the very bottom of the mountain and through the foothills and into my little neighborhood onto Paradise Corner court and right up to my front door. Home. My dad standing right here on my front step. Ringing the doorbell. Dogs a barking. Kids a screaming. Hugs. Laughter. Smiles. He's at my front door. Been there the whole time. The doorbell rings. I wake up. In the dark. First to wake up. Again. Time to start the day.

Got in a fight with my dad last night

Not sure what to call it. Nightmare, dream, revelation, but last night my dad kicked my ass. He's been dead ten years and for maybe the last 35 years physically incapable of what he did to me. It was the guy I never met. Physically unbroken. Indomitable. In controlled rage. Angry with me. Coming at me.

It was like that scene from Fight Night. He was just some bad ass mo-fo I had to take down or he was going to kill me. Until I realized it was him. In his prime. Perfected. I threw everything I had at him.  And he kept bringing it. He pummeling me. I was bloodied. Torn apart. Fighting for my life. I threw a flying head-butt down into his face and my forehead caved in and went I down in a brilliant flash of white light.

Sick

Been some time since my last post. To say I have been struggling would be the understatement of my life. These last few months have confirmed in me the belief that my self-medicating since childhood was well-founded, but to continue would result in my death.

Unfortunately my most recent string of nightmares may also result in my demise. Some have been too terrifying to remember, however, I wake up sick, nauseous, puking acid, wheezing, struggling to hang on to what life awakening allows. I've seen Hell. It's full of guilt, neglect, anger and sorrow ever spiraling down deeper into the past regrets of my past. Who I could've been left so far behind. Who I should've been lost, forgotten, given to the things I wanted so bad, to the things I couldn't leave behind, to the choices I so carelessly made. Disappointments Such deep rage, such strong fear, so sharp, so alone, lost to all who at one time cared. Trembling alone, scared, hurting, dying with no death. Seeing utter darkness, hearing utter silence, feeling the cold nothingness of outer darkness.