Hesitation

I hesitate to make this post, but thought it might stimulate discussion and, admittedly, I'm curious about a possible response via comments. Some people think I'm sufficiently mentally borderline anyway, much less considering what I'm about to write. But in any event it was, to say the least, wholly unnerving. And I have never, ever, experienced anything like it in my 50+ years.

In the process of driving home from our honeymoon last week, my wife and I stopped, last minute, at a motel overlooking Lake Shasta in order to avoid being stuck in a nasty snowstorm ravaging I-5 in California. I can distinctly remember we were on the second floor in room 214. There were perhaps 5 others in the entire motel complex.

We had dinner at the motel's restaurant bar and found it overpriced and disappointing. We went back to the room through a heavy downpour, where we watched some television for an hour or so, and I went to bed first. She continued to watch television for a bit longer.

I had a dream where I found myself in that same precise room, in the darkness. I could see, in my dream, the shape of my wife sleeping on her left side, away from me, as a darker object framed by the slightly lighter shades of the bathroom in the background. I found, in my dream, comfort in front of me and terror behind. I was on my back in the motel room, my right hand hanging over the bed.

I can recall an overwhelming feeling of malevolence in the room, encompassing the room, draping the room. I can describe it in no other fashion: malevolence, a permeating malevolence, something clearly wishing to do me harm. And, as my hand lay over the side, there was pressure on my hand and it was clutched by something much larger than my hand, damp and cooler than my prevailing body temperature. I was being touched. Clasped.

There was pressure and contact; my brain told me so.

Because of this contact, I recall my brain awakening me from the dream. And yet this, this, presence was still there, a damaging presence, an ill presence. I had had the dream and yet the dream seemed to have followed me into the present. There was the silhouette of my wife, rimmed by the light from the bathroom window. I could hear her heavy breathing away from me; I could hear the rain and wind outside, spattering against the glass. My hand was held. The presence was on my right. I turned my head left to see my wife. I did not want to look to my right. I pulled my hand, successfully, away from the edge of the bed. A large, large presence was still at the direct edge of my side of the bed though no longer grasping me. It was massive.

And then it was gone.

I remained awake for at least another hour and then fell asleep.

The next morning my wife asked: should I wake you up when you do that?

I asked: do what?

When you moan in your sleep, she said.

It was some time after midnight, perhaps 12:30, and you were moaning in your sleep. I've never heard you do that before. Do you want me to awaken you? she asked.

I said: how did you know I was moaning?

She replied: I heard something. There was something in the room. I felt it and I heard it. And then I heard you moaning. It was so strange.

I have never, ever, retained a dream into wakefulness where my dream contained my immediate reality. That is to say, I've never dreamed about my actual surroundings and incorporated them into my waking reality threshold. Though, I must admit, my dreams have always "taken care of me" in the past when I am in danger of being "killed." When my demise is imminent my brain has always dragged me into the land of the living. I have survived any number of actual critical incident events during my career but, despite this, have found myself challenged but never "killed" in my dreams.

Despite that, I knew I had come closer to death than ever before that early morning.

Was it a dream within a dream?

It was, I must admit, all too real to me.

BZ