This prompt is very difficult for me as I rarely remember my dreams. I wish I did. I love when I do, mostly. But I’m not a great sleeper, never have been, so maybe that’s why I don’t remember them.
I can tell you a very weird dream I had as a child. It was most definitely a nightmare. I was sleeping in a room with two twin beds, and I think my dad was in the other bed. I could see his outline in the dark, his back facing me. I knew that if I moved even a muscle, even to blink, the room would implode killing him. This was a recurring nightmare, showing itself perhaps every five or six months until I guess I finally outgrew it. But that’s not the weird thing.
I’m third of 11 children. I have a brother Mike who is 16 years younger than me. Finally adults, one night we were all sitting around a campfire reminiscing about growing up in such a large family and comparing differences and similarities between us. As I began telling about my recurring nightmare as a child, Mike suddenly interrupted saying, “I had that same nightmare!”
What??
And then he went on to describe his experience, the absolute terror of having to hold himself so still in case any slight movement would make the room blow up with his dad in it.
I couldn’t believe it. Mike likes to pull your leg and is very good at keeping a straight face when he does. But he swears it happened to him, and more than once. And what he added to his narrative jibed with what I’d experienced but not yet spoken aloud.
I’m relieved I don’t have that dream anymore, but I will always be curious how two siblings, so far apart in years, could possibly have had and still remember the same recurring nightmare.
LiviKnit 