My Childhood Nightmare: Memories That Have Made Me

So much has happened in my life already, and a lot of those experiences have stayed with me.  They are not all monumentous, nor are they all life changing.  But every single one of them (and the countless more that are buried deep within me) have made me who I am. 
 I hope others will join in with me and post their own memories on their blogs (or in the comments).  I will be posting mine every Friday, but it doesn’t matter when you write yours or if you wish to do them fortnightly or monthly – your writing should fit with your schedule.  If you do join I ask that you link to my blog with this link: http://emptythoughtsrewritten.blogspot.co.uk (until I’ve worked out how to create a button for you to display) and that you will link your POST (not just your blog link please) in the comments each week (until I’ve worked out how to make a linky thing for you to add your links to – I’m really not very tech-savvy!).

When I was a child, about 10 or 11, I had a reoccurring nightmare. It always started with me playing with my best friend at the time, Mary-Ann – who just happened to live with me in the dream – in my back garden. As we are playing, we found some eggs that had been left by dinosaurs (as you do); instead of getting rid of them or telling an adult we decide to keep them safe under the stairs. When they hatched, out popped some cute little monsters (it’s a dream, just go with it), which we happily played with. Then one day the monsters weren’t little and cute anymore, but big and dangerous – as I found out when they ate Mary-Ann and then my family.

When I looked at the actual dream I never understood why it scared me so much, as logically it’s a fairly average dream. But it wasn’t the dream, so much as the feeling I was left with, that terrified me. I would wake up not only scared, but guilty that I had caused the disaster, and this feeling refused to go away for quite a while.

I don’t know how many times I had that nightmare, but it never got less terrifying. I have no idea how to interpret it (if you have any ideas please leave them in the comments), nor why it suddenly stopped.

I don’t really have nightmares that often now, at least not ones I can remember. I know I dream a lot of the time, but I’m rarely able to hold on to them long enough to know what actually happened. But the ‘big’ dreams are the ones which leave me with a feeling. Admittedly, it isn’t usually a pleasant feeling, and not remembering the specifics of why I’m feeling it creates confusion, but the intensity of those feelings always surprise me and remind me each time how powerful the subconscious is.

So, my reiterating my childhood nightmare seems to have turned into some kind of psychological ramble, oops.  I’d love to know if you also experience intense feelings when you wake from a dream; and if you’ve ever had a reoccurring dream. Let me know in the comments.