Bugman's Dream Weaver thread got me to thinking about the dreams I've had. This was going to be a response in his thread but it became of it's intense nature and length, I decided it was better to have it's own thread.
I'll tell you about the most awful dream I ever had, but there is some background history to it of which I'm ashamed to admit. You ever have one of those if-I-could-take-back-one-terrible-thing-I-did-this-would-be-it experiences? I wish I could say I was making this up, but unfortunately it's all true.
Before I was married or even engaged, I was driving with my brother one cold February night, about 1 am. We'd been out hanging out with friends, and I was taking him home. Right before his street I saw a very pretty young blonde girl hitch hiking. I dropped him off and went back out to the Avenue and saw the same girl still hitch hiking. What was a little disturbing was that as cold as it was, she was only wearing a heavy sweater. I picked her up and during the drive to her home, we exchanged phone numbers.
I called her a couple of times. Her name was Wendy, and she was 23. I was about ten years her senior. We talked, but she was distant, and though polite, you can always tell when a girl just ain't interested in you. No big deal, I've always been good at dealing with rejection. It's disappointing, sure, but you let it go, and move on.
About three weeks later I get a call from her. I was surprised and a little excited, since I didn't think she kept my number. She wanted to go out. So I went and picked her up to take her out to dinner. As we're riding in my car, she asked me if I like to "get high" and I said yeah, sure. Of course, I'm thinking marijuana, but she had something else in mind. She said she could pick up something for us if I took her to a certain neighborhood in Gaithersburg. She needed $20, though. I had my doubts, but against my better judgement, and because she was so pretty, I took her.
It was a rather seedy looking apartment complex, in a development I'd never visited prior. There was a guy hanging out near the children's playground. Baseball cap cocked sideways. Dark football jersey about seven sizes too big for him. Baggy oversized jeans that hung halfway down his ass. It was March by this time and still getting dark by 7 pm. She told me where to park and wait for her. She went out and talked to him. At no time did either of them laugh or smile. It occurred to me later that I NEVER saw her smile. She came back to the car and said, "let's go."
She smoked her rock right there in my car, through an old soda can she found on the floor of my back seat. She used her thumbs to create an indentation in the side of the can which served as the "bowl." She used a thumb tack to poke holes in it. She then said she needed a cigarette. I smoked Marlboro Lights in those days. She lit one up, smoked it down a bit, and carefully dropped two cylindrically shaped ash clumps side by side on the bowl. She then placed some rock fragments on top of the cigarette ash and fired it up, inhaling deeply. I'll never forget the smell of that shit. She smoked the entire rock without offering me any, not that I was inclined to participate. A joint or a few bong hits was more my speed, and I might have been up for snorting a few lines, but smoking crack was wayyy out of my comfort zone.
Once done, her mood brightened considerably. The plan was to grab a bite to eat and then head to my place to watch a movie on VHS. After dinner, she started getting a little antsy and asked me if I had another $20. Now, at this point, I knew I was going from wrong to really wrong, but the idea of getting that girl in the sack was really weighing on me. So we went back and got her another rock, which she smoked in the same fashion as the first. We're heading to my place, and by this time I'm really regretting this whole evening. The guilt over what I was doing was just increasing by the moment. Just as we're pulling into my development, she asks me for a third rock. "Please," she says. "This is the last one. After this, we'll go to your place for sure." She touched my arm. "I'll do anything you like."
Without a word, I turned the car around and started heading back to Gaithersburg. She said, "Thanks, I really appreciate this."
"Don't thank me," I said. "I'm taking you home."
"But...but why?" she stammered.
"Because I'm to old to be able to deal with this, that's why."
She paused, clearly flustered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...you know, I just wanted to get high...."
I said, "Look. It's not you that's the problem. It's me. I thought I could deal with the crack, but I can't. It isn't the money. This is all new to me and I'm just too freaked out to deal with it, so I gotta bail."
We made the rest of the trip in silence. Before getting out of the car, she asked me if I was going to call her. I shook my head no. I drove home, very depressed at the realization of how low I was willing to sink just to get some.
I never saw her again...at least in a real sense.
------------------------
Okay, now that you have the background, lets get to the dream, which happened about a week or two later...
...Like many of my dreams, this one started out in the house in which I grew up. We'd all long since moved out, and my parents were living in West Virginia at this time, but in the dream, my parents still lived there. After a great time with my parents, my three brothers and three sisters, I was saying good-bye. It was late afternoon approaching dusk. I was feeling very contented, and that life sure was good. I walked across the lawn and got into my car parked on the curbside. I started the engine and a moment later swung out and began driving east, toward Georgia Avenue, MD 97. My home street was a suburban street with houses all up and down both sides. I'd gone two blocks when I saw something that immediately and inexplicably filled me with apprehension.
There was a blonde girl hitch hiking on the side of the road.
(As I'm typing this, my entire body just experienced a cold rush of gooseflesh). There was something dreadfully wrong about her and this situation that triggered an unreasoning fear inside me. I realized suddenly that it was very near full dark when a moment before it was still very light. The girl hitch hiking was brighter than everything else, as if she were badly super-imposed into this reality. As I got closer to her, the unreasoning fear intensified somewhat. I knew the last thing I should do was to pull over and pick her up, but I seemed to have no choice in the matter.
She got in the car, and by this time, I'm deathly afraid. She was blonde and pretty, but just radiated with...the only word I can come up with is "wrongness"...like she didn't belong in this world, and I had just picked up a monster more horrific than anything Stephen King had ever imagined.
We proceeded two more blocks to the intersection at Georgia Avenue. It is a very familiar intersection but something was way wrong here. It took only a moment to realize that it was the darkness. The traffic light was dark, and no street lights were lit. The road straight ahead went into pitch black stygian darkness. To go there would be a trip down the throat of madness itself. I looked to the right and saw a half mile or so away, the bright lights of sanity and salvation.
I asked her which way she was going, desperately hoping and needing for her to say, "right." But of course she said "straight."
As I crossed Georgia Avenue and entered that awful blackness on the other side, my escalating fear suddenly exploded into full outright terror. At that moment she lunged at me and began violently kissing the side of my face, as I screamed a silent scream...
That's when I woke up trembling uncontrollably, drenched with sweat, and breathing heavily. I immediately swung my feet out from under the covers and sat up, to make sure I didn't slip back into that god awful dream again. As I was considering the imagery of the dream, that's when I remembered crackhead blonde chick. I buried my face in my hands and shook my head.
So...what do you think? Was this dream a kind of self inflicted punishment for so easily casting aside my set of values in pursuit of sexual fulfillment? Was it my own sense of guilt that created this dream? I can't say, but if I could go back in time and correct one wrong thing out of many, I know exactly what I would do. But the awful truth is that I can't ever change what I did. It's something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.
I'll tell you about the most awful dream I ever had, but there is some background history to it of which I'm ashamed to admit. You ever have one of those if-I-could-take-back-one-terrible-thing-I-did-this-would-be-it experiences? I wish I could say I was making this up, but unfortunately it's all true.
Before I was married or even engaged, I was driving with my brother one cold February night, about 1 am. We'd been out hanging out with friends, and I was taking him home. Right before his street I saw a very pretty young blonde girl hitch hiking. I dropped him off and went back out to the Avenue and saw the same girl still hitch hiking. What was a little disturbing was that as cold as it was, she was only wearing a heavy sweater. I picked her up and during the drive to her home, we exchanged phone numbers.
I called her a couple of times. Her name was Wendy, and she was 23. I was about ten years her senior. We talked, but she was distant, and though polite, you can always tell when a girl just ain't interested in you. No big deal, I've always been good at dealing with rejection. It's disappointing, sure, but you let it go, and move on.
About three weeks later I get a call from her. I was surprised and a little excited, since I didn't think she kept my number. She wanted to go out. So I went and picked her up to take her out to dinner. As we're riding in my car, she asked me if I like to "get high" and I said yeah, sure. Of course, I'm thinking marijuana, but she had something else in mind. She said she could pick up something for us if I took her to a certain neighborhood in Gaithersburg. She needed $20, though. I had my doubts, but against my better judgement, and because she was so pretty, I took her.
It was a rather seedy looking apartment complex, in a development I'd never visited prior. There was a guy hanging out near the children's playground. Baseball cap cocked sideways. Dark football jersey about seven sizes too big for him. Baggy oversized jeans that hung halfway down his ass. It was March by this time and still getting dark by 7 pm. She told me where to park and wait for her. She went out and talked to him. At no time did either of them laugh or smile. It occurred to me later that I NEVER saw her smile. She came back to the car and said, "let's go."
She smoked her rock right there in my car, through an old soda can she found on the floor of my back seat. She used her thumbs to create an indentation in the side of the can which served as the "bowl." She used a thumb tack to poke holes in it. She then said she needed a cigarette. I smoked Marlboro Lights in those days. She lit one up, smoked it down a bit, and carefully dropped two cylindrically shaped ash clumps side by side on the bowl. She then placed some rock fragments on top of the cigarette ash and fired it up, inhaling deeply. I'll never forget the smell of that shit. She smoked the entire rock without offering me any, not that I was inclined to participate. A joint or a few bong hits was more my speed, and I might have been up for snorting a few lines, but smoking crack was wayyy out of my comfort zone.
Once done, her mood brightened considerably. The plan was to grab a bite to eat and then head to my place to watch a movie on VHS. After dinner, she started getting a little antsy and asked me if I had another $20. Now, at this point, I knew I was going from wrong to really wrong, but the idea of getting that girl in the sack was really weighing on me. So we went back and got her another rock, which she smoked in the same fashion as the first. We're heading to my place, and by this time I'm really regretting this whole evening. The guilt over what I was doing was just increasing by the moment. Just as we're pulling into my development, she asks me for a third rock. "Please," she says. "This is the last one. After this, we'll go to your place for sure." She touched my arm. "I'll do anything you like."
Without a word, I turned the car around and started heading back to Gaithersburg. She said, "Thanks, I really appreciate this."
"Don't thank me," I said. "I'm taking you home."
"But...but why?" she stammered.
"Because I'm to old to be able to deal with this, that's why."
She paused, clearly flustered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...you know, I just wanted to get high...."
I said, "Look. It's not you that's the problem. It's me. I thought I could deal with the crack, but I can't. It isn't the money. This is all new to me and I'm just too freaked out to deal with it, so I gotta bail."
We made the rest of the trip in silence. Before getting out of the car, she asked me if I was going to call her. I shook my head no. I drove home, very depressed at the realization of how low I was willing to sink just to get some.
I never saw her again...at least in a real sense.
------------------------
Okay, now that you have the background, lets get to the dream, which happened about a week or two later...
...Like many of my dreams, this one started out in the house in which I grew up. We'd all long since moved out, and my parents were living in West Virginia at this time, but in the dream, my parents still lived there. After a great time with my parents, my three brothers and three sisters, I was saying good-bye. It was late afternoon approaching dusk. I was feeling very contented, and that life sure was good. I walked across the lawn and got into my car parked on the curbside. I started the engine and a moment later swung out and began driving east, toward Georgia Avenue, MD 97. My home street was a suburban street with houses all up and down both sides. I'd gone two blocks when I saw something that immediately and inexplicably filled me with apprehension.
There was a blonde girl hitch hiking on the side of the road.
(As I'm typing this, my entire body just experienced a cold rush of gooseflesh). There was something dreadfully wrong about her and this situation that triggered an unreasoning fear inside me. I realized suddenly that it was very near full dark when a moment before it was still very light. The girl hitch hiking was brighter than everything else, as if she were badly super-imposed into this reality. As I got closer to her, the unreasoning fear intensified somewhat. I knew the last thing I should do was to pull over and pick her up, but I seemed to have no choice in the matter.
She got in the car, and by this time, I'm deathly afraid. She was blonde and pretty, but just radiated with...the only word I can come up with is "wrongness"...like she didn't belong in this world, and I had just picked up a monster more horrific than anything Stephen King had ever imagined.
We proceeded two more blocks to the intersection at Georgia Avenue. It is a very familiar intersection but something was way wrong here. It took only a moment to realize that it was the darkness. The traffic light was dark, and no street lights were lit. The road straight ahead went into pitch black stygian darkness. To go there would be a trip down the throat of madness itself. I looked to the right and saw a half mile or so away, the bright lights of sanity and salvation.
I asked her which way she was going, desperately hoping and needing for her to say, "right." But of course she said "straight."
As I crossed Georgia Avenue and entered that awful blackness on the other side, my escalating fear suddenly exploded into full outright terror. At that moment she lunged at me and began violently kissing the side of my face, as I screamed a silent scream...
That's when I woke up trembling uncontrollably, drenched with sweat, and breathing heavily. I immediately swung my feet out from under the covers and sat up, to make sure I didn't slip back into that god awful dream again. As I was considering the imagery of the dream, that's when I remembered crackhead blonde chick. I buried my face in my hands and shook my head.
So...what do you think? Was this dream a kind of self inflicted punishment for so easily casting aside my set of values in pursuit of sexual fulfillment? Was it my own sense of guilt that created this dream? I can't say, but if I could go back in time and correct one wrong thing out of many, I know exactly what I would do. But the awful truth is that I can't ever change what I did. It's something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.
