Over the past few weeks, Gabe has been waking up and saying he's scared, suggesting that he's been having some nightmares from time to time. Every time I've asked him (until this afternoon), he's not been very forthcoming on what, exactly, he dreamed that scared him. One time, I'm pretty sure I know what it was, even though he couldn't describe it to me. Last weekend, we decided to let Gabe watch the new episode of Doctor Who with us. By Hollywood standards, it was a pretty tame episode, but Gabe was up in the middle of the night with a nightmare, so maybe three years old isn't QUITE old enough for science fiction monsters and robots.
Anyway, this afternoon, when I went to get him after his nap, he said, "I was scared."
"Of what?" I asked.
"The door," he said, pointing at the door into his room. "It changed to green and then to yellow."
And that, apparently, was it. It's too bad I paid for the whole seat, because I only needed the edge.
But I can hardly fault him for being scared of something so mundane. I have a very clear memory of the first nightmare that I found so terrifying that I couldn't go back to sleep. I'm guessing I was four or five years old. My cousin Renee (who was my only friend until grade school, just one of the drawbacks of growing up on a farm) and I were exploring this house. The house wasn't particularly spooky, as I recall. Just a house. But it was empty, except for a single chair in a big room. As we approached the chair, it started rocking by itself. And I woke up terrified beyond anything that I had ever known before. I wasn't thinking ghosts or anything spooky like that, either. I clearly remember that I was scared because the rocking chair started rocking all by itself, and that was the entirety of what was frightening about it. Weird.
But it did start off a string of bad dreams that really didn't stop until I was in high school. Somewhere about middle school age the dreams shifted from scary dreams to falling dreams--and I stuck with those pretty much exclusively throughout my life. I don't have many anymore, because I hardly ever remember my dreams now, but if I DO wake up from a dream, falling is involved.
Back to the earlier nightmares that I had. I was, apparently, a sponge for scary images growing up. If something was even mildly disturbing or possibly threatening, my subconscious incorporated it into some harrowing event. Three characters in particular kept cropping up, too. The first was Darth Vader when I was about seven or so. I didn't see the first two Star Wars movies until they made their way onto network television (I did see the third one in the theater, though--I remember counting telephone poles on the way home from the theater in Wichita, don't ask me why), but Darth stuck in my mind. Of course, like most boys my age, I was VERY into Star Wars, so it's not surprising that Darth worked his way into my dreams from time to time.
The second character was the werewolf from American Werewolf in London. The summer I turned ten, I was allowed (by my aunt and uncle, who I thought were the coolest ever since they let me watch stuff like this) to stay up late and watch American Werewolf on HBO. I regretted it for much of the next year. Werewolves were everywhere. But, then werewolves are pretty goddamn scary. Pretty much the most terrifying of the undead, if you ask me. All the fangs and claws and lightning fast movements. There isn't much you could do if one decided it wanted to see what your jugular looked like. So I can't fault myself for having those bad dreams. I'm a little surprised that I still don't.
And the third character was a clown. I might have mentioned the clown nightlight my grandma made for me when I was six or seven. It was something she made in a ceramics class. It stood about eight inches high and had all these little glass balls all over it that let the light out. So it was ALWAYS clearly visible in the darkness of my room, which meant that it was usually the last thing I saw before I went to sleep. I used to have dreams that the creepy little thing would use the electrical cord attached to its base (the clown itself was removable, so the light bulb inside could be replaced) to climb down from my dresser and down onto the floor. Since it didn't have a light inside it anymore at that point, I couldn't see it anymore and I always lost track of it. Then, it would proceed to move all over my room with the intent of causing mischief and harm, popping out of the dark just long enough for me to be terrified. I hated that goddamn nightlight--and I still hate clowns because of it. I hated it so much that I still have it somewhere on our property (but it's safely locked up in a big plastic container, wherever it is). I'll be damned if I'll let that thing get TOO far away from me. Who knows what damage it might cause.
Actually, I blame that dream, at least in part, on an episode of Fantasy Island in which this big collection of dolls started to come to life in order to cause menace. I've always wanted to see that episode again, just to see if it was even the least bit scary, because it sure caused me trouble over those early years. But I'd really rather not start remembering my dreams now that I've put all the nightmares behind me, so maybe I better not try to find it.
Update: Gabe just informed me that there were also dinosaurs involved in his dream. He accused Norah of being one of them when I brought her down from her nap. He said that I brought her down from his room, where the dinosaurs were hiding. Now, dinosaurs I have NO idea why he'd be scared of. He's seen plenty of them, of course. Preschool shows are FULL of them. But all of those dinosaurs are nice and not the least bit scary. Another one of those things that he's learned that I'll be damned if I know how. But dinosaurs are certainly worthy of a few nightmares. They rank right up there with werewolves in terms of how quickly a normal person SHOULD fill their pants if they were ever to come face to face with one.
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