Do You Feel Lucky?

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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Open Dream Journal #91: INTO THE UNCANNY

I hate those sleep paralysis dreams, where you're almost on the edge of waking but your sleep-mind is engaged and your senses are not entirely true to reality. Anyway, I was lying in bed with my ex-girlfriend and I couldn't move, and for some reason she was down around my waistband kind of scrabbling at the buttons of my jeans and speaking a low, incoherent stream of subconsciousness. Which would have been nice I guess, but somehow I could tell it was not her. It was her demon doppelganger. OH COME ON!!! "Doppelganger"'s not a word? Spellcheck? Doppelganger? Doppleganger? What, do I need the accent? Doppelgänger?

For context, my ex-girlfriend's demon doppelgänger has bedeviled me before. At least once: back when we were together, and it was the scariest dream moment I ever had in my life, because it went on so long. I was once again, lying in the borderlands of sleep and waking, and I could not move or speak, and my girlfriend was kind of snugged up into the crook of my neck and shoulder, but my head was propped up on the pillow a bit. And my eyes had opened, and she was standing in the bedroom doorway. But I could feel she was right next to me! Her head was on my shoulder - but there she was as well in the doorway, and she was looking at us with a completely motionless face. This paralyzed stretch of time slithered over me for what seemed like minutes. I can't explain how terrifying it was, this unbroken stare, this absolute, definite presence, the dead, cold eye contact - eye contact sort of, but unmoored, crawling all over the both of us - and I was trying to move something, any part of my body, or maybe shout (okay, scream), somehow alert my real, sleeping girlfriend to the existence of this hideous, possibly malevolent apparition! Well wait, I guess "hideous" is kind of harsh. I mean, she was a dead ringer for my girlfriend, so, "hideous" - a bit strong. It was more psychologically hideous. Unheimlich, maybe. Those Germans have words for these things, I'll give them that. This thing was definitely there, and it was and wasn't her - and you could see both aspects of that for a fact, in its placid face, and its dead calm eyes.

So anyway, back to last night's dream. I realized somehow that it definitely wasn't my ex-girlfriend, and I started to struggle to move, which I couldn't. Finally I was able to force something through my vocal chords, and I heard myself speak aloud, in a hoarse, sepulchral groan: "NO ONE IS HERE." In response to this denial, there came a horrible, feeble, strangled, wheezing, outraged caterwaul from...my eyes opened in shock - there was a cat! Visible, up above me and to the left, hovering by the wall. It was sort of hanging in the air with its legs dangling, and it moved across the room up by the ceiling, to wait by the top of the door. The cat was kind of a pale, whitish-orange, but it was definitely not Noonie. My eyes were riveted on it the entire time: the room was very dark, and for instants at a time the dim form of this thing faded so that you could tell "Oh thank GOD - it's just a shadow! It's just how those angles of shadow come together," - and then it drifts a little further and you're like, "fuck, no, I am looking at a flying cat." Once again, the whole atmosphere was pervaded with a sense of wrongness, of unease (ever notice it's always the badnesses that pervade? Goodness tends to "suffuse"). Yet, I was also consciously aware of the fact that I was half-asleep, and experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations. So I was kind of intrigued by the terror itself. Why be afraid when you know it's fake? But I was. I kept looking straight at that cat until it dissolved. By then, my ex-girlfriend's demon-doppelgänger had also disappeared. Which, thank God for that! I mean, whatever happens in a dream is morally neutral I'm sure, but that thing of hers is CREEPY. Too creepy even for dream nookie.

Proof positive it was just a dream? When I awoke, I wasn't wearing any pants. I mean, why would I go to sleep in jeans? So those jeans in the beginning, they weren't my real jeans, they were my demon doppelgänger jeans. Anyway, bottom line, I'm glad I wasn't around during those Salem deals. Shit.

4 comments:

jill said...

Maybe your girlfriend is such an angel that you're actually scared that she's too good to be true. :p

dogimo said...

Hm. The tenses in this are a little confusing. It's because I'm talking about a recent dream (at which point she's my ex-girlfriend), and also a dream some time back (at which point she was still my girlfriend). Anyway, the upshot is: she's my ex-girlfriend now! But I don't believe she was ever too good to be true.

At least, I'm pretty sure she was true!

I guess you can't be sure, but I'm pretty confident.

VEG said...

I've had sleep paralysis probably five times ever and each time it freaked me out so much I can totally see why people proclaim to believe they've been abducted by aliens or some such thing (there's a reason these events happen to them IN BED, that's what I say). With me it was hearing voices of evil hissing my name and seeing glowing red demon eyes in the dark of my room and one time some big, bed-invading spiders. Hmmm. I'm always aware I'm dreaming too because I can control what I'm about to see most of the time but it's still damn scary.

How come no one has sleep paralysis vivid dreams about cakes and fluffy things (other than demon cats....dude...) and pretty turquoise beaches? Why? Because we're all warped, terrified creatures underneath I guess!

jill said...

Writing dreams down in blogs is a good idea. I've been just opening my notepad on my phone upon waking and typing in the details of my dreams while it's all still fresh. Some pretty weird stuff. I could transfer what I've got into blogs and have a few people questioning my sanity in no time. :D