I Had a Nightmare!

I seldom have nightmares, but I had one last night.

In this nightmare I was shutting off lights and checking doors prior to going to bed. I turned off the living room light, then walked through the dark dining room and then into the kitchen where there was just a nightlight burning across the length of the room beside the refrigerator. This was my totally familiar present day house looking exactly as it looks every day and it all seemed so very real.

I always check to make sure the kitchen door is locked before I go to bed. I looked at the knob and saw that it was locked, but then noticed that the door was not shut tightly, there was a little gap. I murmured, "That's strange," then approached the door and pushed it closed. Almost immediately I got a weird feeling, as if something was on the other side of the door on the deck, and I began to back away from the door.

In horror, I saw smoky dark "arms" come through the closed door, reaching toward me. Shocked and scared, I backed away from them. My mind was struggling to comprehend what was going on. I'd never seen anything like this before. I was backed into the corner, the microwave cart to my left, the farm table to my right, the cat food bowls on the floor behind me. I had nowhere to go! The arms kept getting longer, kept reaching for me. I could feel the tendril like fingers brushing against me.

My mind was reeling. I was telling myself in my head- you have to say something! You have to cry out! You have to try to wake up John (who was already in bed at the far end of the house.) I had to struggle to get my voice out. First I said, "No..." in a very weak, terrified, breathless voice, so unlike me. And then I managed to get the words, "Help me," sort of rasped past the constriction in my throat, but again they weren't very loud as I could barely speak.

However, it was loud enough to wake me up, and I was still saying, "Help me..." and "No," as I laid there in bed trying to figure out what had just happened, the dream still vivid in my mind, but now I was struggling to understand how I could be in bed and not in the kitchen. I reached over and touched John's arm and asked, "Did I wake you up?" but he has a CPAP, and we had a fan on which is on the dresser on his other side and he hadn't woken up.

I just lay there sort of stunned by the fact that I'd just had a nightmare. I hadn't spoken loud enough to alarm the cats who were asleep in the living room.

This morning I was still a little rattled by the nightmare. And tonight, when I found the kitchen door unlocked at 10:13PM I was actually nervous about locking it and made sure I had a clear path away from the door so I didn't get trapped in a corner again!

So- what do I think caused the nightmare? The last nightmare I had was a few years ago when I used a muscle relaxer for low back pain and muscle spasms from sacroiliitis. (I dreamt I was a tiny entity huddled in one corner of my own coffin, and a voice entity was speaking to me from the far opposite corner...and it terrified me because A.) I am severely claustrophobic and I knew my coffin was buried with me alive in it underground, and B.) I knew I was trapped in that coffin with whatever it was for all eternity!)

Anyway, I had a right shoulder issue for a few days with pain and muscle spasms down to my right elbow so when it got really bad I took a different muscle relaxer I'd been prescribed recently, one I've used before without any problem....and I had a nightmare.

Well-the smoky dark arms reaching through the closed door will most likely find a way into a future ghost story, so there's that to say for medication side effects anyway!

This, by the way, I solemnly swear, is an entirely true account. Although I could make up stuff like this easily enough, I certainly didn't make this up! Real and true, this happened last night...and I am avoiding the kitchen for the rest of tonight because of it!