The Friendly Old Dream

I had a visit last night from an old friend, a completely terrifying dream about a giant monster. In this instance, a huge, angry, ultra-destructive vision of King Kong. It is strangely comforting for me to dream of these things, because this has been a recurring nightmare for me since I was a small boy. Even though my fear during these dreams is very real, gripping and quite horrifying, I am familiar enough with them to know that they are probably, in their way, cathartic, a way of discharging some real-world tension. I survive the dreams, after all. So I welcome them.

This dream went on for a very long time; it was actually a suite of dreams. I woke up with my head full of the imagery of it, and considered it for a short time before visiting the toilet, and then to the kitchen to drink some water. Upon returning to sleep, the dream picked up again in mid-stream. I awoke again some time later, amazed at the vastness of the dream landscape, an entire city in broad daylight, being demolished by the roaring creature, complete with people running in every direction, some being crushed, some being seized and throw against buildings. Thereafter, I drifted in and out of sleep, and in and out of the same dream. What a marathon!

I tried alternately to escape and to find good places to hide. I interacted with lots of people, some of whom were hysterical, some of whom were hiding, and some of whom were strangely at peace, as though nothing were happening. These last I attempted to warn, to varying effect.

Sometimes I would be hiding in some interior room just to have the beast rip the entire side off of the building. Off running again, in heartfelt, hair-on-end terror. I can remember the smell of the fear. This was King Kong on steroids, more the size of Godzilla, over two-hundred-and-fifty feet. And angry! The roaring! The stomping! The lashing out!

I began to have these dreams before I started school, and they had adopted their particular, recurring character by the time I was in the first grade, six years old. I remember going over one in class while Mrs. Leopkeger was trying to teach us spelling. I have had them on a regular basis ever since, lets say two to four times a year. That’s between one- and two-hundred dreams! It’s always a different scene, sometimes daylight, sometimes at night, different monsters, sometimes multiple monsters, often there’s another plot angle grafted onto it, like invasion from outer-space. Quite amazing, but like I say, there must be some psychological purpose to them, so now I just accept them.

My wife always felt that there was nothing in the world more boring than listening to me recount one of my dreams, but honestly, I find some of them to be utterly fascinating!