A Dream Becomes A Nightmare

Verse I

M.

M—M.

E?

No, it can't be.

Ram couldn't postpone sleep for much longer. Three days had come and gone since the last time he'd gotten even a minute of shuteye.

He studied his open palms closely. The crisscrossing lines on both hands formed into a janky M. Flipped sideways, it sort of looked like an E, but that was a stretch.

M on the left. M on the right.

Did it mean something?

Maybe it did. Maybe it didn't.

Flipping his left hand 180 degrees, he stared at the scar on his pinky & the disjointed fingers he'd broken at one point, including the thumb.

A brief chuckle escaped him, remembering that one saying about knowing something like the back of your hand. The laugh was not because anything was funny, though. Slowly but surely, he was losing his mind.

From various sources, albeit not the most credible ones, he'd learned about different techniques for lucid dreaming.

Apparently, light switches can't be turned on and off.

Apparently, if you stare at your hand while dreaming, the image will become distorted.

Repeating these things during your waking life--flickering the light and staring at your hand--makes it more likely for your dream self to mimic these actions, thereby providing a potential action or test for the dreamer to discern between the reality of waking life versus others.

That as well seemed like a stretch, but it couldn't hurt to try, right?

Ram had been doing this for years and years yet had never been able to replicate the practice in whatever dimension, realm, or plane he went to after falling asleep.

Now, the stakes were much higher.

His concern was no longer focused on lucid dreaming so he could fly around and have fun.

Something much more sinister was going on underneath the surface.

Eyelids heavy, he snapped awake from his dropped cigarette burning another hole through his shorts.

Back against the garage door, butt on the concrete driveway, his body was taking over. No matter how uncomfortable he was, sleep would soon take him, whether he liked it or not.

And then, inevitably, the Nightmares would return.

He picked the cigarette back up and took a long drag, hoping the nicotine would buy him another five minutes.

He thought of an expression about one's eyelids feeling heavy. At that moment, he realized it wasn't just a figure of speech, considering his eyelids literally felt like some unknown force pushing down on them, no matter how hard he resisted.

A gust of wind snuffed out the burning tobacco as the cigarette fell from his fingertips once again, this time rolling down the driveway.

Before it came to a stop, Ram could stay awake no more.

A pounding at the front door caught his attention. Something urgent. Most certainly nothing good. That left one question remaining…how bad?

Making his way towards the front door of the cabin in the woods as fast as he could, it still took him a solid fifteen seconds. By the time he opened it, no one was there, although they did leave something behind.

A letter. Addressed to him. And after reading it, he broke into a dead sprint towards the trail him and Mandy typically walked along three times a week.

This morning, he was feeling extra tired and stayed back. Intense regret sent shivers down his spine. He had a bad feeling about this.

All along the trail he shouted her name over and over, trying to locate her. Certainly, she couldn’t have strayed far from the trail, but he was approaching its turnaround point, so maybe she did.

Before he could finish the thought, he saw her. Back turned to him, Mandy made no outward movement nor acknowledgement of his presence despite the fact he was shouting towards her, asking if she was alright.

Still, nothing. No movement. No verbal response. Nothing.

Even without being able to see her face, Ram knew something was wrong. He couldn’t find the words to describe it, only that he knew in his heart of hearts something was off. Cautiously, he approached, wondering if she had gotten attacked and the lack of a response could be attributed to shock.

The rotten stench of death hit him smack in the face within five feet of her. It was enough to stop him in his tracks. Slowly. Hauntingly. Mandy turned around. The entire flesh on her face was rotting like she had necrosis on steroids. Her clothes were tattered and ripped as if she was a savage living out in the wild.

Mortified, Ram stumbled while reflexively taking a step back.

“No. No, no, no, no. Please no.”

“You’ll die alone, freak.”

Her tone embodied aggression, hatred, and it accompanied the most vitriolic stare he’d ever seen.

“No…”

At that moment, a car honking its horn jarred him awake.

Verse II

Ever since he was a boy, Ram could remember his dreams. Some were pleasant. Some were strange. And every once in a while, some were down right frightening to his very core.

The nightmares were few and far between enough for him to pay them no mind. He'd wake up sweating, heart racing, scared and confused until he came to his senses and regained his wits, realizing it was only a dream.

Only a dream. Hah. If only, if only. How wrong he was.

Curious about what they could mean, he picked up book after book about the meaning of dreams. Certain symbols, subject matter, and characters, all seemed to have a rather straightforward tie to his everyday life. He started keeping a dream journal, whether that be a brief handwritten entry in a notebook or a voice recording on various devices.

Things started off innocently enough. He daresay there was even a point where he looked forward to sleeping, excitedly wondering about what adventures his sleeping life would bring next.

It was all fun and games for Ram...at least until it wasn't.

The older he grew, the sadder he grew, feeling like life was simply passing him by.

He'd reached an age where he should have had everything figured out by now.

His younger self most definitely thought he'd have everything figured out by now.

Dreams of meeting his beloved, walking hand in hand along the beach, smiling and laughing, then returning home to make love, now brought him nothing but sadness.

Back in the good ‘ole days, the future was so bright. Endless possibilities existed upon the horizon. And then…

Another day passes.

Another week passes.

Another month. Another year. Another five years.

And before ya know it, the window of opportunity for a peaceful, happy life mercilessly shut close.

It'd been years since he'd held a potential beloved 's hand, let alone make love. His peers would probably call him a bitch if he ever talked like that aloud. Guys and girls.

At this point, however, it didn’t matter. The life he foresaw himself having while he grew up was nothing but a lie. A fantasy which elicited a small semblance of hope, only to leave the person holding out said hope broken and devastated. One of those persons was him. Who would’ve thought finding someone whose company you enjoy, and vice versa, could be so astronomically difficult to find. Even the most self-confident, self-validating, mentally tough individuals could fall privy to the effects of absolute, cold-hearted rejection in every single facet of life, not just romantically speaking.

At some point, enough was enough. Ram had reached that point and beyond. He wanted out of this world, but obviously that option held no feasibility. He could take drastic measures, but there was no guarantee things would get better, or that things wouldn’t get worse if he were to follow through with said drastic measures. For all intents and purposes, he felt trapped. Suffocated. Confused. Lonely. And during all this, as a man, he could never show weakness. The responsibility was all on him to be the rock, despite having no one to play that same role for him.

Quietly he went about his business, saddened to see how the more time passed, the more people hated him. People who didn’t even know his first name, that just lumped him in with other assholes who shared similar characteristics. The cold hard truth about it was this…

‘No one gives a shit. I mean, that’s fine and all, I don’t need anyone to care about me, per se, but then why am I here? Why me? If everyone hates me so much and are better off without me, why do I even bother continuing with living. Why do I bother with giving up my seat on public transportation for someone? Why do I bother trying to give guidance to other men? Being a gentleman. Whatever. My kindness is again and again only interpreted as weakness and another reason to hate me.'

Ram paused his interior monologue for a brief moment, then continued again.

They all judge me. Almost all of them don’t like me. And worst of all, no one has ever expressed why they feel some type of way towards me. Everything they hate about me are things I can’t change. But why? Just why? Why do I have to be all alone?'

He paused again, then spoke aloud as he continued.

"I know I know. Cut it out with the pity party. I know. It’s just… the amount of self-loathing I’ve experienced went beyond anything I could have ever imagined, and it left scars. Oh boy did it leave scars, and in multiple areas too, physically, mentally, emotionally. Not only am I broken, but wore, I’m unfixable. I suppose sometimes, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Life ain’t fair, and it will eat you if you let it.’’

Yeah, yeah yeah. They all say for a man to speak his mind. Share his feelings. Yada, yada, yada. That’s all fine and dandy until that information gets weaponized against him. Or is looked at as weak. Gets disrespected. It’s just not worth sharing anything personal, plain and simple.

All that being said, it didn’t take long to logically conclude the chances of finding someone to spend the rest of his life with were drastically lower than he anticipated. Virtually zero. And finally, he’d come to expect that.

What he didn’t come to expect, however, was how his subconscious would take that revelation. It didn’t like it. Not one bit. And shortly thereafter, the nightmares began.

Ever since then, recurring nightmares contributed a massive part to his mental health’s decline. It was never the same dream over and over again, however, it was the same exact theme, same exact theme, same exact set of circumstances playing out in different ways.

Ram found himself in the midst of what seemed like an upper echelon party inside a huge castle style mansion. Based on the fact all the attendees were dressed up as monsters, logically it must have been a costume or Halloween party of some sort.

Lory, his partner, came from the kitchen offering him something to drink. Parched, he naturally obliged, thanking her for grabbing it for him. He took one sip, then his eyes went wide.

“There’s no way.”

He said it under his breath, only loud enough for him to hear. To confirm his suspicion, he took one more small sip from the glass and couldn’t believe it. At first glance the contents of it looked like red wine, but there was no question in his mind, the glass also contained blood. And a high concentration of it, at that.

Seconds earlier, the room had quieted down. All eyes were on him, and he didn’t even realize it until now. Then he started connecting the dots. This was no party. These were not costumes. And if all that were true, his attendance here probably meant one thing…later on, he would be on the menu.

Seemingly able to read his mind, a few of the party guests—or should I say monsters—headed straight at him. Instinctively, he bolted towards the back door and crashed through it. By now it was practically second nature to escape at the slightest hint of danger, and he’d become quite adept at doing so after all the situations he’d found himself in requiring him to move quickly and smoothly, evading pursuers in the multitude of other nightmares he’d had getting chased by demons, monsters, and/or watching in horror as his beloved turned into a monster, got killed, belittled him, so on and so forth. There were so many iterations of these nightmares he’d lost track of all the different geographical settings, people, and things he’d seen over the course of the past few years they’d been continuously recurring.

Once out of the house, Ram zigged and zagged, trying to throw off his pursuers. It was almost as if he existed in this kind of ‘spectator mode’ where he was inside his own dream body and could consciously feel all the emotions pertinent to the situation, however he had no conscious control over what was going on.

What a surprise, the whole ‘staring at your hand’ thing and ‘flickering a light switch’ didn’t do jack shit in sparing him from the unmitigated fear seeing his beloved get killed, turned into a monster, and all sorts of different horrible fates. Not to mention the other monsters chasing him, who would always catch up at some point.

A car pulled into the driveway, flashing its lights straight into his face, then backed out. Ram buried his face in his arms and knees, wanting to cry but being unable. He had none left.

He didn’t want anyone to touch him. He didn’t want to make love with anyone. He had no interest pursuing a partner. The thought of having to hold someone's hand made him want to recoil. He jumped at every odd sound. His racing thoughts never slowed down.

He had nowhere to turn. No one was qualified to handle all of…this. Whatever this was. And even if they were, they’d just think he was crazy. He knew he wasn’t crazy. All of them were crazy. If only they knew. If only, they only.

Ram walked to the end of the driveway and picked up the cigarette from earlier to throw in the trash, then lit another one and returned to his spot on the driveway.

“What to do. What to do. What to do.”

He mumbled that to himself several times over, then said two more things, directed up at the sky.

“I don’t know what to do.”

A few minutes passed, and no response came. He took a long drag from his newly lit cigarette, and the cycle continued.