Waking Nightmares

I was in third grade when the dreams started.

I had always had dreams before that point, don’t get me wrong. But before my eighth birthday, they had always been good dreams. Genuinely, innocently good. Like suddenly discovering that I could fly above the clouds. Or that by pushing my belly button twice, I turned invisible. Or that when I looked into the mirror in the bathroom, Papa was standing next to me, and I could talk to him, ask him what Heaven was like.

But then my mind decided to take me for a ride. A ride to hell. My childish dreams of lovely fantasies turned to night terrors, of men with giant eyes and bloody smiles, eating my younger siblings and ripping apart my pets. I dreamt of treasure chests that seemed to be filled with gold, but when my mother reached inside to show me the beautiful shine of the coins, it swallowed her whole.

I can still hear the screams.

I dreamt of wolves with ice-blue human eyes, howling at me to let them inside the house, scratching at the window with wicked claws. They returned night after night, their muzzles dripping with the blood and tears of the helpless trapped outside of my house’s walls.

I dreamt that I could fly, but when I got above the clouds, I fell. I would fall long enough to realize my fate, and observe the harsh, raw fear in my stomach. Sometimes I would wake just as I was about to hit the ground.

Sometimes I didn’t.

I always dreamt of knives. Children with knifes, women with knives, my father with a knife. Always after me. Never letting me rest.

Men dressed in black, calling me the murderer, and I, a young child, wondering if they were right.

I was raised well. I was never abused, and I have two parents who love me. But no one could explain the dreams that left me screaming in the night, waking to a pillow soaked with tears, or even lying on the bathroom floor, with no idea how I got there.

My mother told me that once she found me with my hand on the front door knob, ready to throw myself into the snow outside. When she asked what I was doing, I turned and looked at her, but my eyes didn’t focus. I was asleep. She carried me back to my bed as I mumbled about the wolves.

I would wake with bruises from falling out of bed, with eyes heavy from exhaustion, despite sleeping a full twelve hours, with my heart pounding as the faces of monsters loomed in my delirious mind.

Some kids had a monster under the bed.

I had monsters inside my head.

But then they found the cure. Sleeping meds, some iron for my blood, no more television before eight.

I slept peacefully for the first time in years. And I kept sleeping. And sleeping.

When I would wake in the morning, I felt refreshed. Peaceful. The wolves hadn’t returned. The Joker-men with bloody smiles were gone. The knives were safely in the knife block. There was no mud on my toes from wandering through the garden.

I was fixed. Cured. Normal.

I slept like a regular person for three years. My nights were dark, but only because of my closed eyelids. I had occasional dreams, but they were the nice kind. Soft, somehow. Dimmed by the meds.

I’m in ninth grade. It has been six years since the night terrors first made their grand appearance.

My body has created an immunity to the meds.

The terror is back.

Just last night I dreamed of shadow men, reaching from the walls to strangle me with tendrils of darkness. I dreamt of my beloved little schnauzer puppy being run over by a car before my eyes. I dreamt of my anorexic best friend withering to bone, and I, my real self watching on in horror, started laughing at her.

I have stopped screaming. I have stopped sleepwalking. But nothing has changed. My mind hasn’t changed, and my dreams never will. Sometimes I climb on the roof to make it fade, because the moon helps, if only for a little while. I write poetry in the middle of the night. I write stories based on the dreams that I can tell no one else.

The doctors can do nothing. My parents can do nothing. My family and my friends can do nothing.

I can do...nothing.

So I wrote my story. My waking hours only lead to night. Surrounded on all sides, I gave what I could, to allow you a glimpse of what it means to sleep with this head of mine. What it means to never fully have rest for your weary mind.

Some kids have monsters under their bed.

I keep mine inside my head.