Ensconced (Dreams and their interpretation)

He was a nightmare.

With his enormous painted eyes, his wild orange matted hair and that evil grin plastered on his face…Chuckie the doll was every kid’s nightmare come to life…

In my worst dreams, he’d be cackling loudly, a most evil laugh…his pudgy little plastic hands gripped on the bloody handle of a large meat cleaver, stabbing at a man over and over and over again…

And it was mostly at this time in the dream when I’d wake up, sweating heavily and panting loudly. My hair would be sticking to my head, and I would feel my heart hammering against my chest, as I try to catch my breath. I’d try to move, but my legs and arms wouldn’t let me…they were as heavy as lead.  I was held down by a force I could not overcome…my fear.

I sometimes didn’t know whether I should open my eyes or just squeeze them shut. In the first few seconds of waking up, I usually would be in a disoriented, groggy state, not knowing where I was, or whether I really should be opening my eyes in the first place. And then I’d realize that I was in a dark room, lit only by an amber nightlight, a bedroom that I shared with my brother. The first thing I’d see when I wake up was the toy shelf on top of the altar…with my brother robots and that…doll. She had blond, flaxen hair and was tall, and she could dance. She even had this creepy music-box tinkle tones that would play after you wind her up and set her to dance. (I believe it was Mozart’s Minuet.)

I would then yell out for my mother (my parents were probably watching TV downstairs),almost in anger, because I was scared and frustrated that nobody was around. Then a few seconds later, either she or my father would come up  and lie down in my bed and hold me. Papa would say, “It’s ok, I’m here…” and then presently, I’d fall asleep again, safe in their arms.

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CHILDHOOD NIGHTMARES

“I’m Chuckie..wanna play?”

For most of my days as a kid, Chuckie was the ultimate bad guy, the evil monster who scared me more than anything else. My Bogeyman wasn’t any mysterious shapeless formless thing that hid in the closet…he was an effing doll.  Now that I’m older, I kind of laugh at myself for being so silly and obsessively scared of the freaking doll. I even had my dancing doll taken down and hidden somewhere else, because I was afraid that one night she just might be possessed by some evil spirit and come down from the shelf to strangle me in my sleep, and I would die.

It was a number of years (when I was in high school, I think) when I had it put back to where it was. It was a silly childish thing to be afraid of an inanimate object, but hey, man, you don’t know Chuckie. He can induce scary nightmares (although, as an afterthought, those “Bride of Chucky” movies were really just very comedic.)

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THE ROYAL ROAD TO THE UNCONSCIOUS

In Psychiatry, dreams are a peek into our subconscious, a subject of great importance. Why, even the great Sigmund Freud, in his book The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), had this to say… 

“In no other phenomenon of normal psychic life are so many of the unconscious processes of the mind revealed so clearly and made so accessible to study. Dreams are indeed a royal road to the unconscious reaches of the mind.”

The royal road to the unconscious, it has been said. There is no better way to see into a person’s subconscious and unconscious thought processes than his dreams. Dreams, to a psychoanalyst, offer up a piecemeal view of what a person is, and how all of his past experiences are coming together to help make sense of himself. To the dreamer, dreams are a manifest work, an impressive collaboration of psychic energy, made up of his (or her) current sensations, his current concerns, and most powerfully, of his inherent or hidden wishes or fantasies.

As children, dreams are simpler. Like, for mine, since I was horrified by the infamous Chuckie doll, I had a dream of recurring images of the scary thing when I was a child. As we grow older, and as our subconscious matures, our dreams become more subliminal, yet still symbolic. To protect ourselves from losing valuable restful sleep, our egos (that all-important aspect of ourselves that make us who we are and how we function), allow us to dream. It allows stimuli and sensations from our waking life, along with our memories, our current problems and joys, and even our deepest (secret) wishes and desires to be made into something visual. It may be coherent or not, or, it might not mean anything at all, just a hodge-podge of images that seem familiar, yet otherworldly.

Dream interpretation should not be taken lightly, and it would be erroneous to say that they could also predict the future. The guidebooks would help, but dream interpretation is an aspect of psychoanalysis that requires a lot of study. A famous psychiatrist advised that you need to know the patient first before you can decipher what the dream means to him.

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DREAM MEANINGS

I remember chuckling to myself one time when I was wandering around in Powerbooks and I saw this card bearing the title, “Dreams and their Meanings.” Hmm…I mused, and checked out what “Vampires” meant.  Freud wrote a whole book on the subject, and now popular psychology has relegated the whole profound matter to but a card with a list. Will wonders never cease? I thought wryly.

“Emotional anxiety.” (or something or other), it said.

Recently (but not very), I’ve had this dream of vampires…and although I didn’t get bitten or anything, it still made me feel uncomfortable.  I dreamt that I was with a vampire guy, and as hard as I tried to open my eyes and to run away from him, I couldn’t.  

He was beautiful… and I had the feeling that it was dangerous to be around him. I think I was in love with him in that dream, but I couldn’t be sure now. He was trying to tell me to get away, because the other vampires were going to come, but the strangest thing was, I couldn’t will myself to get away, I was too weak. I couldn’t even open my eyes fully, because my eyelids were so heavy, and all I could see was half my field of vision.

I can’t remember what else happened in the dream, but all I know was, in the end…I ended up in a big dining hall, in servants’ clothes…and along with other servant girls, serving a roomful of vampires their dinner. In the dream, I was resigned. It felt as if I had resigned my fate to that of serving people…and I didn’t feel anything else. Just, well, dead.

Such a loss of control. I had surrendered in the end.

It scared me, you know.

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OF VAMPIRES

Although it might seem as if I might be joining the vampire genre bandwagon after my mentioning the vampire dream…I can’t help it, corny as it may be. Vampires are pretty contemporary, and they symbolize many things.

Dreams become harder to figure out, the older and more complicated our personalities. become. That doesn’t take away the fact that they can still strike fear in our hearts, or confuse us. They’re supposed to make sense out of our inner turmoil.

That will never change.

Most times, we might wake up in the middle of the night because of some bad, worrisome nightmare, but we won’t always have someone to hold us or pat our fears away. Or maybe even just hold us to protect us from whatever it is that worries us or troubles us.

There is no better joy of comfort and safety than sleeping in the arms of someone you love and trust, ensconced in the warmth of their protection. As a child, it put me to a dreamless, restful sleep. As I got older, it gave me the utmost feeling of peace…that somehow, despite the turmoil and the many ways I could have messed up, it was all somehow going to be ok. #

On Sleeptalkers

It was way past 2AM when I turned off the lights before crawling into bed.

I had already settled in when my sleeping roommate in the top bunk suddenly began groaning... first, it sounded like a sorrowful, frustrated, soft moan that crescendoed into a loud groan and she started kicking too. It would have been funny had I not been a scaredy cat.

I whispered to my other classmate who was in the other bottom bunk, "What was that?? Should we wake her?" I asked anxiously. My mind was considering a possible demonic possession happening right above my bunk.

When she came to, she said that she was dreaming that someone was trying to steal chickens (they didn't have any) from their place, and that there were also kids in Mission Impossible garb that she was trying to fight off too.

Anxiety dreams...

After prayer time last night, my other classmates were joking about how they were starting to hear each other talk in their sleep, or thrashing, kicking and even yelling out. Teeth grinders raised hands.

I'm not alone, after all...In the recent days, another of my roommates got scared because when she was up late studying (the rest of us in the room were sleeping), she heard me start talking in my sleep. She got scared silly, afraid that the next time she turned, instead of being asleep in bed, I'd be by her side, wild-eyed, with hair raised, foaming in the mouth and grabbing at her leg (or worse).

(Exagg...)

I do talk in my sleep, they say. There were other episodes, and on top of that, I'd be grinding my teeth. My (favorite) Psychiatry textbook said that teeth grinding or bruxism was found in 5-10% of the population and required no treatment, except of course, maybe teeth-guards/plates to protect the teeth during sleep.

Also, since they can't understand nor speak my dialect (I was a natural-born Cebuano, they speak Hiligaynon ), they really have no idea what I talk about (Thank heavens.hehe) Although, one time, they said that I said out loud, "You're just being kind...", and chuckled about it, because, even in my sleep, I'd still be speaking English.

Bad dreams, nightmares, sleep-talking, bruxism, are said to be manifestations of anxiety. With the "Mother of All Exams" coming up in less than 50 days, and closing in fast, I wouldn't be surprised if bad dreams and teeth grinding get more frequent among us. I'm expecting someone to start sleep-walking any day now...

According to Freud, anxiety dreams are a failure of the normal dream mechanisms of displacement, condensation, etc., to control the dreamer's state, where symbolism is supposed to mask the patient's drives, frustrations so that release is still possible, and that sleep won't be disrupted.

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Contrary to popular belief, sleep talkers do not reveal secrets in their sleep. If they were to talk lengthily, it is usually about life events. One time, I remember my father reciting lines from an Edgar Allan Poe poem in his sleep when we were younger... talk about cool sleep-talking. lol.

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P.S. I write more when I'm stressed and anxious. Don't be surpised to see me here more often.