Michelle's House of Horrors

 

Good night means that I hope you will sleep well, and wake up safely in the morning, and that nothing bad will happen to you.

Well, such as…I can’t think what sort of bad things might happen to you.

Good night.

–MaddAddam: A Novel/Margaret Atwood

 

 

Bed, bed I couldn’t go to bed
My head’s too light to try to set it down
Sleep, sleep I couldn’t sleep tonight
Not for all the jewels in the crown.
–My Fair Lady/I Could Have Danced All Night

 

I don’t know what it is, but I am always particularly sleepy this time of year.

Maybe it’s the cooler temperatures, maybe it’s the darker mornings, but in the late Summer and early Fall, I sleep more hours and more soundly than I do in the brighter, warmer months. That means something, because sleeping is something I’m generally good at any time of the year. In the Fall, I tend to go to bed a little earlier, fall asleep a little sooner, and sleep until it just isn’t decent.

Don’t hate me because I’m well rested.

Because sometimes I’m not! In spite of getting more sleep this time of year, I often feel sleepier during the day. I think it’s because in addition to sleeping a little more, I also have more dreams and the dreams I have are more likely to wake me up. Often, they’re spectacularly violent and bloody. If I’m lucky, they’re sexual. Sometimes, disturbingly, they are both.

So what?

Yeah, so what.

I don’t know.

I tend to think that the dreams must mean something because they are so vivid. Some of them can just be enjoyed, of course. No, I don’t mean the violent ones. If the dreams “must” mean something, then I feel like I need to take heed. Which means I wake up and take either real or mental notes about what happened in the dream. Usually it also means that I’m awake for a while trying to shake it off, especially if it was violent or upsetting in some way.

In spite of that, I’ve never been very successful in extracting meaning from dreams. In one especially grim recurring nightmare, children were being sexually tortured and flayed at the airport while I watched, unable to save them or to escape myself. I’m not even sure why I couldn’t escape, since all I had done was walk into a room that was supposed to be some sort of gallery. The children were the exhibit. My watching was part of the torture. In one especially horrifying version of the dream, the torturer tried to make me skin a child. Or rather, tried to persuade me. There was never any overt violence toward me. Being led into being complicit with such a monster was guaranteed to wake me up screaming, paralyzed and adrenaline-poisoned and completely unable to get back to sleep. But I never really figured out what it was really about. What did I feel like I was participating in that I needed to get away from? I have no idea now, and didn’t then. Eventually the nightmare stopped.

And I could sleep again.

Because I always do eventually.

Maybe the dreams don’t matter.
Maybe they do.

I just don’t know.

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

–Edgar Allan Poe/A Dream Within A Dream

In my dream, there were many people at some sort of gathering. There were 30 of us or so there.

We were all dressed in fitted ankle length tunics with trousers underneath. The style was both old fashioned and modern. Timeless would be a better word. The fabric was definitely modern in a way I can’t describe.  Not silky or flowing.  Dense somehow but not heavy at all.  The clothing was very functional, I could tell somehow that the fabric was unusually durable, but also attractive. The colors were all somber, but beautiful: grays, browns, blues, dark reds.  The tunics were v-necked, with a wide design around the neck and a talisman-like medallion at the bottom of the v.  All of the designs were different. They all had long, straight sleeves. They were definitely  not costumes. We were clearly people who were wearing our usual clothing, though the clothing was very different from the other people in the city of the dream. We spoke in a modern way.  Definitely not Ren-Faire people, or people playing dress-up.

We were meeting in a very modern looking outdoor facility. It reminded me a little of a stock yard,  with chain link paddocks that were paved with concrete. Paddocks isn’t the right word. I’m not sure they were designed for animals. They seemed to be for some sort of commercial purpose. There were no animals and there was no animal smell.

People there were slightly formal with each other, as if they did not know each other well. More of a business than a friendly relationship, though everyone seemed to be cordial. Though clothing styles were similar, it wasn’t like a clan or close knit group. Each person was wearing different colors and so on. I didn’t get the impression that the people lived in a group or associated other than some sort of business. They weren’t uniforms, just regular clothes.

One of the men put a  carded fleece, or fleece-like batt  in my lap. He seemed to know I would have an appreciation for how beautiful it was.  I asked how much it cost, knowing it was nothing I could possibly afford. The man said it was not for sale, but he wanted me to see it. I remember burying my hands in it. It was springy like a Targhee fleece, which won’t mean anything to most people. It was a beautiful dark gray, not quite black, with a few tan streaks.  It was special in some way I understood in the dream, but don’t understand now. In the dream I knew immediately that it was very valuable.  Something that would be hard to replace. As i handed it back, I said I’d kill to have it, and I don’t think I was  entirely kidding. I  wanted very much to spin it and weave it into fabric. It was very hard for me to let go of it. I’m not entirely sure it came from an animal, but it felt like a very, very soft wool fleece that had been prepared for spinning. It had special properties of some sort, I knew in the dream, but what those properties were  I don’t know.

I’m not completely sure if the woman was me, or if I was just seeing from her point of view.  She could spin, like me. And knit. She could make things. She might have been an artist. I think all of the people there were makers of some sort.

After I gave back the fleece, people started to scatter to discuss whatever business they were there to transact. Then there was  sort of a rumble of alarmed voices, not shouting. Someone standing  in a doorway,  said “they are coming” and then…wasn’t there any more. I’m not sure if he was one of the group, he was only a shadow in the doorway.

When we ran out of the place, my point of view switched to something more like watching a movie instead of being part of what is happening. We came out of the meeting place into the city. It was very urban. There were a lot of people around, running from…something. People were hiding in alleys, stairwells. There were pools of blood where people used to be. We didn’t seem to be seeking out whatever/whoever was killing people. We hid. We didn’t seem to be overly surprised or scared. We were very matter of fact. Not totally calm, there was definitely adrenaline, but not really fear.  I don’t remember seeing any bodies. Just blood on the ground. The people in the city were dressed like they would be in any US city. Some in suits, or jeans. Dresses and skirts. The city people were running/screaming but not the people who I was with. We scattered and found places to hide. I hid under a stairwell behind a dumpster. There was blood in front of the dumpster and on the stairs. Dripping. The air smelled coppery.

Eventually, when the city people had stopped running and screaming, those of us in the tunics start going back to the original location. A bit bedraggled, but not as much as you’d expect. Some with blood stains, but I don’t think it was our own blood. No one seemed obviously hurt. We didn’t seem to be scared of what just happened, but more…resigned..maybe. Like maybe it wasn’t completely unexpected, though we’d hoped it wouldn’t happen.

Then I went back to seeing things from the perspective of the woman who held the fleece again.  We huddled in a group, there were 8 or 10 of us,  looking up at the sky, and when we looked  into the sky we all looked  terrified of…I don’t know what, but in the dream I think we all knew.  I don’t know if we saw it, or if we just knew. What it was. I am pretty sure it was a what and not a who.

I was the only woman. I’m not sure if I always was or if I just didn’t notice before.

Then there were sirens wailing, and police in the streets, riot police. No one seemed to look at us oddly in our old fashioned clothing, but I’m not sure anyone could actually see us. I’m not sure we were visible to the city people at all.

I woke up sobbing, though I was not crying in the dream.

I didn’t wake up scared, but I was terrified in the dream.

I wonder what it was that I was so afraid of?

I hope I don’t find out.