Somnambulance

I've started to dream again.

For once I'm being quite literal. I have not dreamed during normal sleep in years. Only if I sleep in well into the double digits do I ever dream, and those dreams are typically a bit too vivid for my liking.

When I was a young child I used to dream quite a bit. In retrospect, my "normal" dreams were strange, in that I would reassure the people in them that it was just a dream and that it would all be over soon. In those dreams I had full control of my actions, words, and movements, and they were always in vivid color. In fact all of my senses were aware to the point that I would smell, taste, and feel everything, not just see and hear. Often I was able to decide what I wanted to dream about and live out whatever adventure I chose. Even when awakened in the middle of a particularly exciting one I was able to will it back into my consciousness when I feel back asleep.

However, many of my dreams were precognitive and quite frightening. They were as vivid as my normal dreams, but always very allegorical and full of representational imagery. The worst ones would recur until the foreshadowed event took place. I would always enter a state of semi consciousness after they ended in which I could see the room around me but was completely unable to move. I had to physically shake myself out of the temporary paralysis. On a couple of occasions when I was about 8 or 9 it took full blown seizures to get me out of that state.

I remember when my parents would walk into my room terrified because I would be thrashing all over the bed but conscious enough to tell them that I was alright and that it would be over soon.

The premonitory dreams became more and more frightening as I got older, especially when I could recognize the pattern and knew that what I had seen with my mind's eye would soon be visible with my physical eye.

I prayed. I asked God to keep me from dreaming. The dreams stopped. All of them, good and bad.

This past week I have begun to dream again. So far my dreams have been mundane and generic, but I do feel quite taken aback since I am so unaccustomed to them. It's been probably 25 years or more since I've dreamed regularly. Now when I wake up I'm not sure if I have slept well or not. I'm not in a very good way physically, and haven't been for a very long time, so I don't know what to look for.

I'm awake now as I type this. I'm not falling asleep at my desk. I'm not particularly drowsy. I'm not experiencing any emotional fluctuations. Is this what it's like to be able to dream when I sleep?

I am concerned though, not afraid, but definitely reticent, that the other dreams might return. I'm not sure how I'd handle them now that I'm older. Maybe I've grown enough to be able to deal with them and I might even be able to learn from them and attempt to avert the situations that they foreshadow. I really don't want to experience that feeling of paralysis though. It was horrible. It was like being buried alive in an invisible casket. I'm not sure how I'd handle that feeling now.

Maybe I'll be driven to pray again.

I'll need to wait and see, but for now I will choose to perceive the return of my dreams as a positive, especially since I do enjoy the ones that aren't trying to tell me that something horrible is going to happen soon.