Published October 14, 2023

I’m using the photo above for the second consecutive post because, frankly, I don’t care if I just used it. It fits.

Today finds me trying to shake yet another nightmare so I can function at work tonight. It’s hard. When I tell you it feels as if I actually lived through the events in the dream, be prepared to believe me. That’s how it feels.

There was more (there always is), but at one point I was driving at night, in the left lane of two lanes headed in the same direction. A highway of some sort, I’m guessing. It was hard to see all of a sudden, and I thought to check whether my wipers might clear my view. Did I have air circulating in the car to keep the windshield from fogging up? I didn’t know. It was as if I had suddenly been dropped behind the wheel of an already moving vehicle.

It became obvious I needed to turn the wheel to the right as I noticed the lanes curving that way. I saw a big white arrow pointing in that direction, and what I thought said “100 FEET” below it. That’s not much distance, I now realize, but at the time there wasn’t time to think. There was a car to my right, and because I couldn’t see in front of me, I used that car as an estimate of how fast to go and how much to turn the wheel. I suppose I was counting on both lanes continuing in tandem. There was no room to pull over, and I was afraid that if I suddenly stopped, I might get slammed from behind.

But all of a sudden, I saw, clearly, what appeared to be a residential neighborhood, and I realized I had driven off a cliff and was falling, nose of the car pointed down, and seeing the lights marking the houses and streets as I got closer and closer.

I was not falling as fast as I imagine a car would be falling in such a situation, but I realized there was nothing I could do to stop it. Should I try to aim for grass? Would that make a difference? Wait, what am I thinking? Of course it wouldn’t. And anyway, I am not in control anymore. And then I had the most clear thought I ever remember having in a dream.

Am I about to die?”

I woke up before the car reached the ground. And every minute and hour since then has been a struggle to distance myself from the nightmare and how it left me.

Shaken. Trembling. Feeling unsafe.

It did not seem like a dream. It was as real as anything I’ve experienced in waking hours. And this is not the first time.

I’ve written before here that I have had nightmares my whole life. One of the most difficult parts of that has been trying to go on with my day and be a productive little cog in the capitalist machine.

But it’s hard. It’s SO HARD.

Each time it happens, I feel as if I need a week off to decompress, to find a way away from the trauma, and to find whatever reset button will keep this from being my life.

What kind of life would I have had if I hadn’t had these nightmares from childhood until now? I have to think it would have been different, and not by a little bit. And by different, I mean better. As in, more possibilities born from simply having more trauma-free time. Moving on from such dreams and taking a clean slate into my day is something I have never mastered.

Right now it’s impossible to imagine that I ever will.

Photo of woman with her head under a pillow by Mita Stock Images/via Shutterstock.