The Things We Fear

In this blog from time to time I post a dream I have had the previous night.  I do this for two reasons; one is for myself, to help me remember some strange image or dramatic revelation.  The second is to share something unusual with my friends.  About four nights ago I had a nightmare I didn't post because it frightened me too much.  I didn't post it so that I could forget it; isn't that what happens to dreams that you don't write down?

But it's still here.

I dreamed I was living in what looked like a brownstone house, white carpeted living room, staircase leading to an upper floor.  An intruder enters my house and I saw him in half.  He is a big, African American guy in a dark raincoat.  It's a vivid killing, with spurting gore and plenty of dangling innards, and I place the two halves into big black trash bags.  As I kill this stranger, I realize that I've killed before.

There's a commotion from upstairs and I hear Trisdee and Jay laughing.  I realize I have to hide the body.  There is a kitchen next to the living room and I drag the trash bags into it, and as I step inside, I open the larder and I see that there is no stairway down into any sort of convenient basement; the bags have to stay in the clean white tile kitchen for now.

Confused I go back into the living room and I sit down at a dining table, pick up a phone and try to dial for help.  But just then the kids come running down the stairs.  They are playing, laughing, having a great time, and when the reach the living room they start play-fighting and Jay slips and falls onto the carpet ... which I suddenly realize is still covered with glistening drops of my victim's blood....

***

The fact that I still remember this vividly four days later must mean something.  The corpse and the trash bags are very black and the house is very white.  That is surely symbolic.  It's a dark thing right here in my house ... and my kids are about to stumble upon it?  I think that for once some classical Freudian scrutiny is probably called for.

But now that I've written this out, it will perhaps exorcise whatever is bothering me and tomorrow I can speak of beautiful, optimistic plans for the future and wonderful epiphanies in literature and music.