Neon Dreams - I

I keep telling myself that it has to end but the longer it keeps going the less sure I am it will.

Originally posted on Dream Discussion discussion board of TheDreamEncyclopedia.net forum by user [REDACTED], 11/08/2012 05:10:33 UTC

I've been having the same reoccurring nightmare for months, now. Three. Four, maybe. I don't know what to make of it. I never put much stock into dreams before. All the dream symbolism, the idea that there's some deeper meaning to them, I just never bought it. But I can’t stop thinking that this nightmare is something more than just a normal dream. It’s different. I don’t just have it almost every night, but I remember it, clearly and vividly, when I wake up. I feel like that must mean something. I feel like there’s some reason it’s happening. Please, if anyone can make sense of this, tell me.

It’s always a maze. I’m lost in a maze. The walls are tall and white, flat and featureless like giant slabs of plastic. The floor is the same. I can never tell if there's a ceiling made of the same material or if it's just too high above me to see. The corners are all right angles. There's no curves, no bends, no soft edges. There's long neon lights in every corner. Some are red. Some are blue. Some are purple and orange and green but most are cerise, a bright, violent pink, and they cast each corridor and hall in an electric glow that catches and hangs in a thin and ever-present haze that never seems to dissipate.

I just walk through it. I turn corners. Walk down hallways. I'm always in the same white dress each time and it never changes. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing but I feel this knot in my stomach, a weight on my shoulders, a distinct and unshakeable feeling of anxiety that something is watching me intently.

I never see it. I never hear anything except the dull hum of the glowing neon tubes. There’s never anything in the maze except for me and the statues.

They’re made of white marble and set on top of pedestals shaped like columns. They’re life-like. So uncanny I almost expect them to move or breath or blink as I study them. They’re perfect replicas of people, naked, all set in different poses. One is curled into a ball, with her legs up under her chin and arms wrapped tight around her legs, hair spilling over her face and hiding it from sight. Another is frozen in a frantic run, one leg outstretched in front of the others. One is cowering, arms raised over a lowered head with her eyes screwed shut and her teeth clenched like she’s bracing for a hit. Another is just sitting there on her knees and crying into her hands.

Most of them look despondent and depressed. Some of them look terrified. All of them are in states of misery, agony, despair, or rage. And they all look like me.

For the longest time I’d only ever just wander through the maze, constantly looking over my shoulder, examining the statues, trying to find my way out. The most that would happen would be a light going out. A sudden spike of anxiety. But I never find the exit. There is no end to the maze. No exit. No escape. It’s so big I never see the same statue twice.

I don’t know when I began to notice the distortions. They look like .jpeg artifacts or a screen glitching out or the warping on an old television set. A ripple would run through a statue or a wall would start to flicker out of existence. It started getting more intense the longer I’ve had the dreams to the point that, some nights, the entire maze looks as if it’s slipping in and out of reality. I can see something on the other side, but I can never make out what it is. Whenever I try to leave, I can’t. Even when the walls look like grainy television screens, I can’t walk through them and get to the other side.

The statues have gotten worse, too. They’re damaged now, almost all of them.

Some are have their arms or fingers or other pieces broken off. Some look like someone started hitting them with hammers, tearing out big chunks of marble and leaving ragged, open gouges and wounds all over them. Usually, it’s the faces that are the damaged. There was even one missing a head. I feel like it’s all symbolic of something. The damaged statues, the flickering, warping walls, it all feels like wherever this is supposed to be is gradually unravelling. I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that I’m supposed to find something or do something and the longer it drags on, the worse things are getting. Whatever’s holding it together is losing power. Or maybe it’s just losing patience. Every night the sense of anxiety gets worse. I feel like I’m running out of time and I don’t even know why I’m on the clock.

Last night, I found a statue in a pose where it was sprawled out on a large, low pedestal, head tilted to the side, mouth and eyes open with a gash in her throat and the jagged shard of a mirror laying in her open hand. The wound was leaking real blood, slowly trickling out like a fountain. It dripped off the pedestal and onto the floor. There was so much of it I could smell the iron. I didn’t even know you could smell in a dream. I feel like that’s not normal.

These dreams aren’t outright frightening, not like a horror movie. There’s no jump scares, no loud noises, no hideous monsters chasing me. I don’t wake up in a panic or screaming. It’s worse than that. It’s disturbing. It’s unsettling. The uncertainty of it all is worse than any sudden fright because at least that has the decency to end quickly.

I hate seeing these statues of me in pain or crying or dead. I don’t have to explain why I don’t like seeing myself in stone with my face shattered and my body defiled. I hate laying down in bed and knowing I’ll be back there, again and again, anxious and paranoid, and it’s gotten to the point where I put off sleeping because I just don’t want to see those endless neon halls and awful statues.

I keep hoping, every day, it’ll just stop. But it hasn’t. And it’s beginning to affect my life. The worst part about these dreams is that I never feel like I sleep. I wake up and I’m even more exhausted than I was when I went to bed. I can’t concentrate. I can barely eat because I feel sick, and I feel sick because I can’t eat. I can barely even stay awake during the day. My grades are slipping because I’m forgetting to turn in work and missing classes. I got in trouble at work because I keep zoning out or I forget what I’m doing and nothing’s getting done. The other day I was so tired I nearly rear-ended a parked car on my way home.

I made this account just to find some help. I know someone will ask, because everyone has, but nothing was wrong with my life before this. I wasn’t any more stressed than I normally would be. I didn’t suffer some traumatic event. I don’t have a history of mental illness. My life, my health, my mind was all fine before this. There’s no obvious reason this should be happening.

The sleep medication my doctor prescribed didn’t fix it, it just made the dreams last even longer. I can’t get into see a psychiatrist or psychologist. They’re all booked out and I can’t wait another two months just for someone just to tell me I’m crazy or put me on more drugs that’ll make everything worse. I’ve done my own research and I’ve found nothing. I even went to church for the first time since I was a kid and prayed for it all to stop. Nothing’s worked.

I feel like I’m coming apart. I’m so scared of what will happen if this doesn’t stop I wake up and start crying. I’m scared it never will stop. I keep telling myself that it has to end but the longer it keeps going the less sure I am it will. I don’t know what else to do.

If anyone has had any experience with these kind of recurring nightmares or this type or dream or even if you’ve ever even heard of anything like it, I need to know. Please tell me.

I can’t keep going on like this much longer.

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