The Western Gate

This dream, though lucid, was one of those where I had no control over the images arising, they were going to happen no matter what. It is like those dreams where you are trying to get somewhere but the bus or car or even walk takes you into unfamiliar areas even though you try to backtrack, or will yourself into familiar surroundings.

At the outset I had one objective in this dream, I wanted to face my nemesis. Many years previous I had those dreams of running from some approaching demon or monster and as I knew I was dreaming, I stopped, turned and ran straight towards the impending doom. The first time I did this I ran straight at the shadow and the creature behind me turned into a big furry soft monster like the ones from Tom and Jerry or monsters inc. Other times afterwards when this occurred they just melted or turned into a pathetic person asking for help.

This time, before I slept I had it fixed into my mind that I wanted to face my nemesis. I held the notion in my head as I fell into sleep. I felt myself fall, at that instant I was barely sleep/ and close to reawakening, so as always I just fell. Just let ‘go’ and allowed myself to fall. Eventually it were as if I were rushing headlong through a water canal, like a pipe or a flume. Here again, if I panicked I would awaken, so I just allowed myself to be swept along, inevitably awakening in dream.

I was in a cabin, that was in the middle of woods. Immediately I was in a contrived space much like every low budget wood campfire slasher movie. This couldn’t be my nemesis?

“Let the nemesis come forward”, I demanded.

At once, now, the scene became different, regardless of the fact that I was in a log cabin devoid of the evil dead or an axe wielding Jason. The storm outside became audible and oppressive. Sometimes listening to the storm can awaken me, I love storms, I would awake to watch them, but I was aware in dream, and allowed the scene to arise.

Then it happened, I knew, outside, approaching, my nemesis was coming. It felt like the paranoia achieved walking through unknown landscapes or dense woods with invisible eyes scouring my every move. Unlike the times when I turned and ran towards monsters, I was petrified. My body I felt was rigid, and even if I wanted to wake up I was now in a state of sleep paralysis. I couldn’t hear footsteps approaching but could feel a magnetic pressure exerting itself towards me. It is akin to fear when our senses reach outwards like the sonar of a bat until it receives an echo of what is there. For me, becoming increasingly pathetic , there was no reassurance, just an overwhelming oppressive sense of dread. I became more static, no movement, and rigid.

I knew now that to want to dream of meeting my nemesis wasn’t such a good idea.

Any thoughts that this dream could cease my physical life were not even thought about, the sense that my nemesis would be revealed far outweighed any mortal concern, and then I heard the footsteps. They seemed to be shuffling somewhat across a gravel pathway outside, there was a slight undertone of the dampness from the storm underfoot, as I think of it now, I remembered the skit in laurel and hardy, I think they were in the foreign legion and the prisoner in the jail they shared, clearly mad kept haunting them with the tale, “slowly I crept, step by step.” Maybe it was Abbot and Costello. But that was how it was, without the comedy, and with no stooge at my side to reassure me.

There was a dull roll of thunder before three broad knocks fell upon the door, and even as I thought I couldn’t move, I viewed myself walk towards it. I then reached out and flung the door open.

My nemesis was there, crying, holding out its hands, drenched, pleading. It was me. I was staring straight at myself in its depths of despair, it’s lowest ever point. A miserable wretch pleading for death.

Then it spoke, “what have you done to us?” , it reached out towards me and I stepped back as it burst into hopeless tears at my rejection. It came shuffling towards me, it’s hands clawing for space and tenderness, hoping for some reassurance, but I stepped back again.

There was a colossal vacuum that sucked me inwards and I jumped, awake in my bed. I checked my fingers to note that I was not still in dream (fingers tend to melt like the witch in Oz does when faced with a bucket of water).

My heart was racing. I am sure my hair turned white as a result. And I’m sure somewhere in my soul I burst into tears.