What was that nightmare all about?

The nightmare began in the house, and it ended in the house. I never left the house, but I was trying. I remember the shake I felt the second before I woke up, sweating and scared to fall back to sleep.

Here's what happened. I was walking through a large open space. The place reminded me of the house I spent my teenage years in, the one on Frederick Pike in Dayton, Ohio. But this space was much larger, and dark, so very dark.

The white floors stretched up the walls and onto the cathedral ceilings. There were so many windows with no curtains. There was no furniture. There was nothing hanging on the walls. There was nothing.

In the middle of this giant space were stairs, three steps that wrapped around in a circle, I can only describe it as an island. In the middle of the island was a chimney, a white brick chimney. All around the edge of the stairs was a railing, with metal plates spread around the top of the railing, and connected all the way around the island in a full circle. Each plate had words embroidered into them but I couldn’t make out what they said. It was the oddest thing. I quickly drew this blueprint up for you guys to have a better idea of what the crap I’m trying to describe. Not my best work, I’ll admit.

There were these massive glass doors that led to the outside, and as my eyes started to adjust to the darkness, I could see a forest beyond the yard. The forest was visible from every window. "That forest is wrapped around this place?"

Shadows started appearing, and as I turned around to walk down from the stair island, my youngest sister was walking towards me. She was on her phone, she looked confused, I think she was drunk. I didn’t like her eyes and she wouldn’t answer my questions. She was swaying back and forth looking down at her phone, and then she took off running into the darkness. As I was walking through this place I would see quick glimpses of her from my peripheral. But I could never catch her.

I still didn’t know that I was dreaming, and I started seeing shadows of a man. I started catching quick glimpses of the this shadow man. He was a tall guy, wearing black basketball shorts and a black t-shirt. It felt like he was chasing me, but teasing me at the same time. I couldn’t hear any foot steps. I was scared. I tried to run but I couldn’t move. Then I turned around, sensing he was coming towards me, and he was. He was running right towards me, and my sister was walking around, aimlessly behind him in the background. I stopped and my body started to slowly lean backwards. Everything switched to slow motion.

His nose touched my nose and I felt him grab underneath my armpits as if he were going to pick me up. Everything around me started to melt away, and I heard him breathing. Then I woke up.

What does it all mean? Or does any of it mean anything? I keep walking myself through the small details, and thinking back to everything that has happened in this last year. Then a couple months ago I stopped giving this dream so much energy. Then I decided to write about it because I have random moments throughout the day where I think about that chimney island, or whatever the hell it's supposed to be called. I will randomly think about the man that was chasing me, and the fact that I wasn't really scared of him, I think I know him. There's a familiarity there, a sense of safety, as bizarre as that may sound. It's like, he reminds me of someone that I used to know.

Maybe it’s the trauma from my past relationships. Maybe it’s my misunderstanding of my own low self esteem that has kept me in toxic relationships my whole life that I find so comforting about the scary, not so scary shadow man. It’s so weird though, I really felt like someone was actually touching me in real life. Dreams mean something, right? This is something I will be researching further. Sweet dreams.