I had this dream was around 10-12 years old. It’s historically been the scariest dream of my life, and it is one of the most “real” dreams I’ve ever had.
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c. 1997
I awoke with a jerk and a jolt in the middle of the night, in my actual bed and my actual bedroom.
Something woke me, some kind of sound, but I didn’t know what.
I sat upright in my bed, and listened.
I sensed something amiss in the house. It felt empty and cold.
I looked at the clock and noted the time (today I have forgotten what time it said).
I knew that something was not right.
Then I heard the sound of mom, from my parents bedroom next door. It sounded like she was having a bad dream, and stirring in her sleep.
“No…. No…..Please…… ” I could hear her moaning. This was a very bad dream she was having. I needed to wake her.
My parents bedroom was right next to mine (Unfortunately…I heard more than the others ever did). I rose up from bed and walked to my door. It was wide open, which is why I could hear her loud enough to wake up in the first place.
I walked out into the hall. The house was empty. Cold. Dark. I knew that no one else was in the house but me. I knew my father was gone, and that she was sleeping in their bedroom alone.
I turned to face my parents bedroom door. It was was open, and I could see my mom stirring in her bed.
“No….no…”
I stood in the doorway. I didn’t want to go in.
“Mom. MOM. Wake up….”
I stepped into the bedroom and began walking, very slowly, towards my mom. Her stirring and her moaning grew louder. With each step, the nightmare grew worse and her tossing and turning heightened. “Please…No…. No…” she moaned
“Mom,” I said with each step. “You’re having a bad dream.
and “Mom, wake up. Its ok. Its me.”
I reached the side of her bed. Her nightmare reached an apex. “No! Please! Please!” Laying on her back, her body twisted and turned side to side, in a horrible dream.
I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Mom!” I said. “Mom! Mom! Its ok! You’re having a bad dream! Its ok!”
And then it stopped, very abruptly. Too abruptly. She didn’t wake; she was still. It was so eerie and strange. She looked asleep.
I peered into her face, perplexed. Is she awake? “Mom…..?”
Suddenly in her eyes flashed open – huge and wide. They were glowing red. It was terrifying. Her head slowly turned so that her eyes locked with mine. And when they did – in a flash – her right arm reached up and grabbed my throat.
“Mom!” I half-way choked out in a whisper. I could not breathe.
A slow smile began to stretch across her face. She grinned, and squeezed harder.
I used both of my hands to try and escape her grip on my throat but the grip was too strong.
It was not her own. I cannot explain the evil I felt. And the terror of seeing it, knowing it as I chocked.
My body began to jerk. And then I jerked awake and woke up, in my own bed and my own bedroom,
just like I did in the dream. Like the movie Groundhog Day.
It was so eerie.
Sitting there upright, and feeling the strange eeriness of it all, I remembered the clock from my dream, and noting the time. A seriousness about this dream swept over me. Like a “prove it: look for yourself.” I was afraid to look at the clock, but I did: and the clock showed the same time as in my dream.
I had difficulty falling back asleep that night.
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[Art: Serguei Borodouline]
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