Cassia, How Do You Sleep with Tornadoes and Killers?

Before I even start this one....I know, I know...I said a post a day for 7 days. See what had happened was...life as mentioned in this post...but I feel as though this post on dreams and sleep should make up for it. This is a small part of something larger that I have been working on. In no way shape or form is it ready to be seen in its totality since it happens to be a work in progress. And I may not post from it here again...cry or rejoice about that as you will. So without further ramble...

Short answer to any and all questions referencing sleep...
 
Don't ask.
 
Long answer to any and all questions referencing sleep...

If you must know...since I was a little girl, I've had vivid dreams. I've felt the breath of an attacker, the grip of a would be suitor, cobblestones laid by those long dead beneath my heels. Those are actual things I have felt while dreaming. In dreams I feel everything. I have felt them as real as you feel the place where you're sitting. As real as your chest expanding to take in that last breath, and just as real as your eyes blinking your way through these lines. My dreams are extremely vivid. To the point when,even to this day, sometimes I wake and for the first few seconds (or longer) I couldn't tell you if I am awake in my own bed, or flying, burying a body, shanking a man in a train station, or running in the streets of Germany. Those are also all scenes from actual dreams. 

This happened to me most recently...

5:47  AM...I jolt awake, I see the time, I think I drift back to sleep.

I'm awake. I'm asleep. I'm terrified. 

My conscious is sleeping, my unconscious thinks its awake.I'm doing a cerebral tango, dancing in the dark. I'm terrified. 

Motionless, I'm in bed. 

Hastily, I lock all of the doors and secure the house. A house that isn't at all my current home, but rather a mixture of two homes that I know intimately. There was a man who landed in the back yard. He was hang gliding, at night. He appeared as an ominous creature against the night sky. I know he means me harm. 

He's the leader of an organization who is against free speech, against gay rights,against religious freedom... He knows I'm a writer. He knows I want everyone to be equal. He wants me dead. He has government ties. I may not survive this.

Next scene (yes, scene as in a movie. I dream in scenes), I'm cornered in a school. I pack my drawings of rainbows, my writings on happiness, and the locations of my LGBT friends into a duffel bag. I've got to hide it all. He'll kill us all. The girl I thought I could trust is on his side (the girl is randomly Alyssa Milano). They're coming for me and in a moment, I'll be dead. I hear his steps. I duck down further, behind a desk. I hold my breath. Like a cell phone I command my organs to function on silent.  But none of it matters, in an instant he's got a hold of my arm. In a moment, I'll be dead.  

Here. There. In that moment is where I stayed, locked and afraid.

7:29 AM....I wake up trying to get away. I am throwing pillows. I see the time.

It was another dream. Just another dream. That's all. I'm shaking. It was a dream. I'm awake I was locked in terror for roughly two hours. Two hours stuck in a place where my mind could not decide if I was dreaming or living a horrible scene in the flesh. Was there really sweat dripping down my face, or was it a stray hair moved by my own breath tickling my cheek? Were those the footsteps of a killer coming closer, or footsteps of the neighbor upstairs heading out for her early morning run?

The moment I look down, I see bits of cord attached to my gold bracelet. Unbeknownst to me, the bracelet had hooked into my blanket. During my tossing and turning it must of happened, thus impeding my movement. In my dream, he had caught a hold of my arm, I wasn't going to get away. The realization made me chuckle, I had been captured by my comforter. Funny, didn't feel so comforting at all. My comfort came the moment that I rolled over, groped under the pillows for my iPad and began writing. Only after that did my mind begin to feel at ease.

This is nothing new, not at all. My dreams have always been so vivid that they live with me long after they should have faded away. Much of the fiction that I've penned my name to began as dreams. Such a blessing and a curse. Thank goodness there is a market for the dark and the horrible. Thank goodness people like to read and see things that grip them with fear. Thank goodness. I write comedy too, but I own a terrifying mind and there is nothing, nothing whatsoever comical about that. Useful, maybe.

Those dreams scare me, and not much truly scares me. Actually, scare isn't strong enough of a word. It's torture, torture of the worst kind. I never know when they are coming. There are nights when all I long for is a peaceful sleep (I'm busy, I'm anemic, sleep should be my friend), yet my mind refuses to settle down. Images of murder,death, violence, rape, and danger roll around like a movie reel that I cannot stop.I close my eyes, pray for sleep, and on more nights than I can count, that prayer has gone horribly unanswered.

Some of the worst dreams I have had are about tornadoes. I look up into the sky and the dark clouds gather and twist upon themselves. I feel the rumble of the ground under my feet, I run, my heart pounds, I sweat... I sometimes awake crying, yelling, and soaked in sweat. Other nights I wake throwing pillows and ripping the sheets from the bed. My body twists about the bed as the clouds twist in the sky. My legs kick,my arms flail...I don't have a night stand anymore. I bruised my hands one night punching it in rapid succession.

These nightmares, night terrors, subconscious movie reels, they run in my family. I've seen uncles and cousins alike wake in the middle of the night fighting off visions they have no control over. My uncle, the deacon woke the entire house one night with the sound of yelling and violent pounding. He was discovered beating the wardrobe in his bedroom. I watched a younger cousin have a nightmare. He pounded the bed in the same fashion, yelling unintelligible words, tears fell from his eyes. He didn't wake. I didn't wake him. Somehow it seemed fair that someone else suffered with visions they couldn't control.

Many nights, I avoid sleep. If I stay awake, they can't happen. Understand? If I'm awake there are no uncontrollable visions to frighten me. I'm often glad to be kept awake by conversations, or my writing. Anything to avoid sleep where the potential of me being tortured again and again is my very own strange bedfellow. Often I pace the rooms of my home; lightly touching the furniture or items. It makes me feel grounded, my real world becomes tangible again. That dream world doesn't exist anymore; I'm ok. I promise me that I am, but sometimes that isn't enough.

From time to time, I'll open a window to feel the night air. I need to feel. It helps me to remember my reality has a time of year, a smell; cold air is the best at these times. Sometimes, when I've awoken in a cold sweat I strip down to nothing, and lay on the cold hardwood floor; another shock to my system.I force myself to re-acclimate to reality. Force myself to realize that there are no more tornadoes, no bodies, no killer inside of me, or otherwise. By then, it's just me.

Once it's just me, I can write. I can get all of the images out of my head and on the screen. They aren't so scary there. There they are controllable. I can delete them, add to them, manipulate them at my will. They no longer have the control they once did. These tortuous dreams are now my writing prompts. I hate them, I love them, I accept them. Accepting them is how I am able to sleep with tornadoes and killers in my bed.

Asking me if I slept well is an insult, a complicated answer at best...I have never slept well. Part of me doesn't want to.