Nightmares of my dead clone bodies, and my friends

I had such nightmares!

In one, I was trying to save Moomin from drowning. We were in the ocean. Moomin had some kind of floating pillow, and Rook was encouraging him to kick, but he was going under and breathing water and couldn't. I was screaming at Rook to help push Moomin up onto a sort of raft. But he kept saying "He can do it!" and I had to do it myself and couldn't lift him high enough, over and over I kept trying through the huge choppy waves. My legs weren't kicking very well. I couldn't get up on to the raft to pull him up after me, so I was trying to use the waves and then push him up and over the edge. Moomin was still struggling a little to help get onto the raft, but then he'd choke again and go limp. I was terrified. Usually in dreams I have a lot of "lucid dreaming" power and can rewind and "fix" things and make it come out how I please. But here I couldn't. I don't know if anything finally happened. I think I woke up.

In another nightmare I kept dying over and over, and coming back in clone bodies. I was an assassin with a bunch of fellow assassins and there was some confusion so I'd come into a room with my message for them, but they'd kill me before I could explain. I kept coming into the room in new creative superhero-assassin ways, and as a result, just died all different ways. Sometimes it took a few minutes, and I'd be lying there thinking "Oh hell, not again, get it over with" but the actual experience of dying was never very comfortable. Waking up in the new body was disorienting. It all felt so futile. I felt sorry for the poor clone bodies.

In another, just now, I was in a sort of conference that had a dealer room that was so huge it was like Walmart. A guy was explaining a sort of computer phone device to some other dude who had problems understanding and I was chirping up to help and out of curiosity. Then the customer-guy was somewhere else in the store and asked me where the original aisle was. I took him back and he was saying it was amazing that I remembered and was nice of me to help him, then suddenly we ran into like everyone I know, and the guy whipped out some sort of amazing high tech wheelchair out of nowhere, and was buzzing around in it, and converted it into a sort of bike.

My friends and co-workers were all standing around (we were magically in a giant lobby or living room space) talking about me scornfully. "She doesn't try... she would never be able to go in races like YOU can" one of my friends said offhandedly to the bike-wheelchair guy. "If she would just work harder at it, well, but no she won't. She's like, a 1400-yard sort of girl." I was trying to get people to listen to me. But no one would. They just sighed impatiently and listed off all the things I do wrong. I eat the wrong things, I don't exercise like I could. I was crying finally and screaming at people to listen to me. "For one thing, 1400 yards is a LONG WAY! What are you talking about!" and saying that if I went for miles in a wheelchair I would just mess up my shoulders and wrists anyway, and my hands would hurt too, especially in the cold. But they turned away and said "You're just making excuses... like you ALWAYS do."

One guy was bitching about how I eat and I was like "Dude what are you talking about, you barely know me, and besides, think about yourself, why don't you go worry about maintaining your OWN body?" And then other people up came up to yell at me for saying that to him because he was so emotionally fragile... "do you know what you just DID to him?" Others explained I was being a huge downer and it was not what they wanted at their conferences and I would not be welcome again and also I had emotionally damaged all the children around me by crying and yelling.

Finally I got one guy from my work to listen to me explain that it would not matter how much I exercised or what I did; it doesn't change my motor neurons from decaying, it isn't under my control. And he went "Oh. I didn't know that." But he was only one person, and the rest of the world just swirled around me not caring at all.

What a horrible night! And after such a nice day, too. Was it Pretty Lady who suggested that nightmares come sometimes when you feel safe enough to deal with your unconscious fears?

Comments

[Lisa Hirsch]

Oh, YIKES, horrible! Hope you have a better night tomorrow.

Am also wondering if you were reading John Varley in the last few days.

[Lisa Williams]

Oh, how wrenching. It's terrible to feel -- even in a dream -- that others think you don't measure up, and worse, the reason that you don't is some sort of moralizing b.s. So often people's assessments of others have all this moral baggage -- so and so doesn't try hard enough, is selfish, isn't disciplined, whatever.

Why is all that crap ever neccessary? We'd all be so much better off if we refrained from speculating on others' motivations, and it's a big red flag when those speculations make a particular person or people look good by comparison.

[Pretty Lady]

Yes, it was me who said that. Also, they say that in dreams, all the characters are aspects of yourself.

Except, of course, when I dreamed that my ex-boyfriend was booby-trapping my truck to blow up with us in it. That was definitely him. ;-)