I've died so many ways, so many times and so vividly in my dreams. I've been shot, stabbed, strangled and choked. I've been hit by a truck, drowned, fallen, blown up and crashed in a plane. Some are one-time dreams and some are recurring. All feel very real.
The worst ones are drowning, being choked/strangled and having my throat slit. They're just incredibly terrifying—panicking and knowing death is imminent. The most painful is falling. That split second of impact fucking hurts. For some reason, I've never felt the impact of being hit by the truck. Maybe because it whacks my head instantly. I see the grill of the truck, my heart jumps and all goes black. The plane crash is the death that I have the most time to contemplate. Rather than fear, though, my feeling as we're going down is one of utter disappointment. I always scramble to write a note for my family, but never succeed before the crushing impact that forces me and my seat into the seat ahead of me, compressing my head. Being shot in the gut isn't so bad, except for the bleeding part (I die from the bleed out). And being blown up is a piece of cake—there's just a weird sensation of being tugged for a second.
So what's the deal with all this? Is my subconscious really that morbid? Sometimes I think maybe I've lived before and these are all the ways I've died. And maybe the reason so many of the deaths are violent is because I was a bad person in some previous incarnations, but I'm improving with each life. It's not so much that I really believe in reincarnation as I like the idea of it. I like thinking that at least a part of me has been before and will be again. And that my life is a journey towards another installment, where I'll have another chance to do and be. Or maybe my deaths are all just dreams.
The worst ones are drowning, being choked/strangled and having my throat slit. They're just incredibly terrifying—panicking and knowing death is imminent. The most painful is falling. That split second of impact fucking hurts. For some reason, I've never felt the impact of being hit by the truck. Maybe because it whacks my head instantly. I see the grill of the truck, my heart jumps and all goes black. The plane crash is the death that I have the most time to contemplate. Rather than fear, though, my feeling as we're going down is one of utter disappointment. I always scramble to write a note for my family, but never succeed before the crushing impact that forces me and my seat into the seat ahead of me, compressing my head. Being shot in the gut isn't so bad, except for the bleeding part (I die from the bleed out). And being blown up is a piece of cake—there's just a weird sensation of being tugged for a second.
So what's the deal with all this? Is my subconscious really that morbid? Sometimes I think maybe I've lived before and these are all the ways I've died. And maybe the reason so many of the deaths are violent is because I was a bad person in some previous incarnations, but I'm improving with each life. It's not so much that I really believe in reincarnation as I like the idea of it. I like thinking that at least a part of me has been before and will be again. And that my life is a journey towards another installment, where I'll have another chance to do and be. Or maybe my deaths are all just dreams.
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I do the opposite. I kill evil things a lot in my dreams. Sometimes very violently. The most recurring element I have in dreams is a horror movie environment where I eventually overcome the fear and rip something's heart out of its chest (sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively).
Uh, sorry for the ramble.
You kill things in your dreams? I've never done that. So weird how opposite our dreams must be. So do you think you've got some anger stored away or are you just really bold and courageous?
My only moment of courage in a dream, is when I got rid of a recurring dream I'd had since I was a kid several years ago. I was always being chased by gunman. Sometimes he'd fire at me, but usually it was just a tense chase. Anyway, one night I finally stopped running and asked him why he was chasing me. He didn't say anything, just turned and left and I haven't had the dream since. But I'm going to take a lesson from you and if he ever shows up again, I'll kill him :D
Edited at 2008-05-29 04:31 am (UTC)
Both. I have been known to put myself in physical danger trying to "right a wrong." (Like silly things: putting myself between angry drunk men and kids. Punching bullies as a kid, etc.) But I'm also a bit violent in my urges. I love to fight.
Also, randomly, I frequently have dreams were I will myself to fly. No falling. We really are opposite.
That's awesome about overcoming the recurring dream.
I had this dream in college, where vampire-like creatures were attacking my home. It had two notable moments:
1) I was running away from the creatures and realized it was a dream. I thought about stopping and waking up, and decided that there was always the slight chance it WASN'T a dream, so I should keep running.
2) The point in the dream where I helped rally the troops in my parents' dining room. This included trench coats and sawed off shotguns, and a long speech about human survival. Ha.
There was also the one where I forced a female demon into my broken television set and set her on fire.
*sigh*
Oh, brain.
I don't think I've ever had a dream with any creatures or monsters or vampires or demons or anything like that. Mine are always more reality based. You must have a good subconscious imagination.
Anyway, my dreams? I tend not to remember them. They're usually very epic in feel, though they're mostly never positive or happy. My latest one was my family traveling to some city (L.A., I think. Goddamn Terminator) and surviving a nuclear blast.
My dreams also tend to get writing ideas in my head. Although the occurrences are in no way related, the nuclear dream I had got me thinking and eventually I had an idea to write (though I haven't yet) a story set after the Rapture occurs and how atheistic or otherwise faithless people deal with the promised Tribulations, as well as the absence of several millions of people. So yeah. Some are inspiring. Do dreams ever make you want to write?
Anyway, my dreams? I tend not to remember them. They're usually very epic in feel, though they're mostly never positive or happy.
Happy dreams, yeah. I've woken up laughing before, so I must have them, but I never remember. So maybe you have morbid dreams too and just don't remember them? It could just be that for me, the scary death dreams are the ones I tend to remember.
My latest one was my family traveling to some city (L.A., I think. Goddamn Terminator) and surviving a nuclear blast.
Oh that one was most very likely Terminator inspired! I can't say I've ever dreamed about a nuclear blast, but I think that would be a pretty cool one to have as far as these types of dreams go, especially if I survived it —Road Warrior style. :D
My dreams also tend to get writing ideas in my head.
That's awesome that you get inspired to write by dreams. I've gone to bed with ideas in my head that I can't seem to flesh out, hoping I'd work it out in a dream and woken up with creative ideas solved. So I guess it works sometimes even if I don't remember having the dream.
Funny you should mention the rapture...
I was raised in the christian faith and for a while we went to these odd, holy-roller type churches (people dancing in the spirit, speaking in tongues, that sort of thing). Anyway, the rapture was always a big topic — second coming, rapture, tribulation, armageddon, judgement day. As a kid it freaked me the hell out and I had dreams about getting left behind.
Anyway, if you could write the kind of story you're describing, it could be a pretty cool one. There was a 1978 film: A Distant Thunder that dealt with it. Bad/cheesy 70s film, but worth seeing if you can find it.
Anyway, the concept really intrigues me, and I ended up checking a few websites, including some crackpot site called "Rapture Ready." They have this "Rapture Index" thing that measures such things like the European Union (supposedly the new Roman Empire than will usher in the Antichrist as its ruler) and liberalism. It's really frightening to see how easily these ideas have caught on in our society.
But I digress! We were discussing dreams. And I don't have much more to say about it, so if this discussion gets wildly off track and begins to focus on fundamentalism, it's my fault, heh.
It's nothing new, I can assure you. When I was a kid, UPC codes were the in-thing to fear. Yes, barcodes were going to be the mark of the beast and we'd all have to get our hands scanned to buy food at the grocery store (or anything anywhere). I can only imagine how freaked out some of those people are now about microchip IDs that you can get implanted under the skin. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG! Heh. Sometimes I think evangelicals are really just luddites.
No you probably wouldn't be an atheist if you'd been brought up in religion. I could never be atheist because christianity is too ingrained in me. Agnostic, yes, but I can't turn away from it entirely.