You may call me a Dreamer ...

... but you'd be the only one.  Yes I know, that's not how the song goes.  Call it artistic license.  If it's to be the title of my post some changes had to be made for the sake of accuracy.  Technically he's not talking about sleeping dreams either, but that is my subject. 

 

You see,  way back in the day when I was young and didn't know any better, somehow I found a way to turn them off.  Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that I do, in fact, still dream.  I just don't remember them.  Sometimes I wake up with the residual feelings that go part and parcel with them and know I WAS dreaming, but try as I might I can't seem to remember a thing.  Every once in a while I get a flash, just for a second ... but then it's gone.

You might wonder why a person would want to turn off their dreams.  Ah well, that's where it gets complicated  ... and weird.

This post probably should have been part of my Weird Wednesday series, but in my world weirdness refuses to confine itself to just one day.  For those of you that are new here, let me reiterate my skepticism policy.  I understand that my tales may strain your concept of reality ... and I don't mind in the least if you say so.  I'm a bit of a skeptic myself.  I've lived through these things so I can't deny them, but if I hadn't experienced them myself I would have to wonder if storyteller hadn't been tripping with Lewis Carrol and some chick named Alice.

As far back as I can remember I dreamed, all night, every night.  Good dreams, bad dreams, wild and crazy dreams, prophetic dreams, and recurring dreams ... it was like going to the movies in my sleep.  By the time I hit my teens I had learned that if I would take a few minutes before falling asleep and concentrate on some good thing, something I would like to happen, I could control what I would dream about.  I could always have GOOD dreams (and no nightmares!) ... at least the ones I would remember.  There were always more that I didn't remember. I knew this because when they started happening I WOULD remember. 

Yeah, I kind of slipped that 'prophetic dreams' in up there hoping you wouldn't notice.  Old habits die hard ;)  Okay ... (big breath) ... I used to 'know' things.  Oh, not the big things, those stayed buried deeply in my subconscious.  I would get a 'feeling' something was not right when major things were about to happen in my life, but was clueless as to WHY I was feeling so flustered until whatever it was happened. 

I might just dismiss that as childish fantasy now, if it weren't for all the little things ... inconsequential little everyday things.  Like being with a group of friends talking about school, clothes, boys, whatever.  Then the sense of deja vu would hit.  Suddenly I'd know what the next person was going to say, and what another would answer, and who else was going to come into the room.  It was like walking into the middle of a movie and knowing you'd seen this scene before ... then I would remember dreaming it.  Things always happened too, just like I remembered them. 

In and of itself, it didn't spook me really.  I don't remember a time when it didn't happen, it just always had been there.  It was just little bits of information, nothing important.  I didn't realize then that it didn't happen to everybody.  I soon learned, from the reactions I got if I said anything, that people get really freaked out when you know things you're not supposed to know ... even if those things are not very important.  They back off, they look at you funny.

It's all well and good to be 'different' when you choose to do so.  I had always been quirky and reveled in my uniqueness, but this was something else again.  I was 13 years old.  I didn't WANT to be freak!  Also being a teenager, I didn't always remember to concentrate just before I dropped off.  When I didn't, I paid for it. 

There was a particular nightmare that recurred again and again.  I called it the Red Dream.  It doesn't sound like all that when I try to explain it but the feeling it left me with was sheer terror!  Maybe part of that was because it didn't FEEL like a dream. 

The dream would start with me waking up in the middle of the night.  I'd be in my room, with all my things but it wasn't right.  Everything would be glowing with a red cast.  And it breathed.  Yes, the room, the things ... they all breathed.  Inhale, exhale ... larger ... smaller ... thump thump ... thump thump ... I'd get up and the rhythm would get louder, into the living room and still everything glowing, breathing, growing, beating until I couldn't stand it anymore and the FEAR would wake me up.  I can't tell you WHAT was so frightening, but I've never been more scared.  
 

Somewhere between my fear of being thought of as a freak and the terror that was the Red Dream I found the switch and turned them off.  I'm older now, and wiser, and I wish I could get them back.  I want to be entertained by my own imagination and not have to pay 10 bucks a shot.  I now know how useful little bits of information can be.  I could write stories,  and see how the movies would play out, maybe hear about a job about to  hire here ... or horse that's hot there, and I'm betting that knowing some of these politician's secrets could be um ... quite lucrative if you could get past the brain damage they would cause.

And as it turns out my life is the stuff nightmares are made of, I AM weird, and the crazy shows anyways (who knew?) so it may as well have a reason.  Now if one of you would please be so kind as to point me in the direction of that switch?