Anecdote of a Nighmare

Last night I had a vivid, horrific dream. I recall walking down this dark, damp corridor of this apparently abandoned hospital, or maybe it was a school-- hard to say. I remember long halls, absence of light, and in true Sin City style, a world embellished with dreary, gray-scale tones. Everything was somewhere between ebony and ivory, save the few effulgent objects, like glowing red eyes, and the  EXIT signs hanging at the end of the halls.

Making my way down this interminable corridor, suddenly my chest surged with adrenaline, as this loud theatrical sound interjected the dream, a kind of suspenseful, foreboding,  "ba-dum!", associated with a climactic scene out of a horror film. Standing before me was my sister, just glaring at me, her eyes wide open, contrasting the colorless world with a neon bloodshot, like she was either a zombie, or demon possessed.

I asked her, "What the hell is going on? What are doing here?". In a nullified, uncanny voice, she said, "Don't you know?", as if something horrible and obvious was happening, to which I was oblivious. "What am I supposed to know...?", I replied. I can't remember exactly what happened next, but I decided I'd rather assume she was sleep walking than possessed, so I told her to go back to bed, and lead her back to one of the desolate hospital-esc bedrooms.

Continuing my way down this endless corridor, next I ran into my mom. At least, she looked like my mom. But she too had the same bloodshot, nefarious, if not unearthly look in her eyes. I began to say "Mom..?" The words barely left my mouth before she lunged at me, knocking me to the ground, and began to strangle the life out of me. I began screaming "What the fuck Mom!", as it occurred to me that none of this was passing the reality test, and than I suddenly found myself transported somewhere else entirely.

With the inexplicable change of environment, I realized, 'Okay, this is certainly a nightmare, and I need to wake the f--- up'. The moment I became aware that I was dreaming, I was stricken with sleep paralysis. Terrorized, it became clear that I wasn't going to just 'snap out' of this one. (If you've ever experienced sleep paralysis, than you know it can be quite horrifying).

Decisively I tried to take control of the nightmare, hoping I could salvage the experience and turn into a lucid, perhaps even pleasant dream. That, as it usually happens, was a no-go. Words cannot explain what was occuring around me, but it was as if the Earth itself was crumbling back into the stardust from which it originated, unknown millenniums ago.

After what seemed like ten agonizing minutes in this dubious abstract, I finally managed to move my leg just enough to turn my body over and wake myself up. Aware of how quickly dreams fade from memory, I jumped out of bed, grabbed a pen and notepad, and began to document whatever had just occurred. But I'd badly burned my hand on a hot glass pipe last night, and it was too difficult to write. So I grabbed my cell phone, fired up an audio recorder, and instead, narrated the dream to disc. From those two memorabilia, I later composed this anecdote.

I thought this a great illustration of just how comically creative our minds can be while we sleep. Unfortunately, I can't consciously make this shit up.