The mind is a funny thing.
We all have nightmares, right? According to an article I just Googled ten seconds ago, they’re perfectly normal, and probably an evolutionary response to help us gear up for the dangers of the next day’s woolly mammoth hunt. Our brains can’t necessarily evolve at the same rate of speed as industrial and technological change, so we still have nightmares today, even though woolly mammoths are long gone, and supervisors or gypsy moth caterpillars are probably the scariest monsters we face each morning.
But what is a nightmare to you?
See, our brains are catching up. And they’re learning. Evolving. ’Cause that’s what they do.
When I was a kid, I’d have nightmares about the snapping turtles in our pond. Standard little kid fare, right? As I got older, I’d occasionally have nightmares about demonically possessed clowns—thank you very much, Steven Spielberg and the Poltergeist series. As I gained more life experience, and discovered most clowns are not demonically possessed, my nightmares changed. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, calling for my mother, because I’d dream I was still married to my first husband.
Then I started writing horror. Seriously, there’s nothing more therapeutic. I killed off my ex a few times in stories, and the nightmares stopped. I’d have dreams about playing poker with Satan, or discovering a body farm, or coordinated jellyfish attacks, and as soon as I woke up, I wrote it down. Bad dreams were now becoming source material.
Oho, my brain said. So you think you’re too grown up to scare anymore? You’ve got another think coming!
Then the grown-up nightmares started in earnest.
The first night, I dreamed the mortgage was due on the same day the power company needed to be paid. When I tried to go online to maybe change the due date on the electric bill, I discovered the Wi-Fi was down.
The second night, I dreamed I got into the shower, and there were ten bottles of conditioner . . . but not one bottle of shampoo.
“You think you can break me?” I yelled at my brain. It was possible I’d reached my breaking point, but my brain didn’t need to know that. “I just read an article yesterday about how people should only shampoo every third day. Nice try!” I felt smugly superior to myself. But my brain wasn’t done yet.
That night, things started out innocently enough. I found myself dreaming of a cafeteria full of gluten-free foods. The menu listed pizza, bagels, pasta, macaroni and cheese . . . anything a carb lover who can't digest this stuff regularly could desire. And the dessert menu? I wept in delight: chocolate mousse cake, chocolate mousse pie, chocolate mousse . . . I stepped to the counter, which was being manned by Connecticut libertarian gubernatorial candidate Rod Hanscomb—this should’ve been my first tipoff that all was not right—and held out my plate. “Give me all the desserts, please,” I said shakily.
“Sorry. All we have left is vanilla custard. Can I tell you about my thoughts on the current state taxation model, and why we should move to a zero-income-tax based structure that will increase our sales tax to 9.5%?”
“Noooo!” I shouted. “Vanilla custard?”
And for the first time in over a decade, I woke up in a cold sweat, calling for my mother.
We all have nightmares, right? According to an article I just Googled ten seconds ago, they’re perfectly normal, and probably an evolutionary response to help us gear up for the dangers of the next day’s woolly mammoth hunt. Our brains can’t necessarily evolve at the same rate of speed as industrial and technological change, so we still have nightmares today, even though woolly mammoths are long gone, and supervisors or gypsy moth caterpillars are probably the scariest monsters we face each morning.
But what is a nightmare to you?
See, our brains are catching up. And they’re learning. Evolving. ’Cause that’s what they do.
When I was a kid, I’d have nightmares about the snapping turtles in our pond. Standard little kid fare, right? As I got older, I’d occasionally have nightmares about demonically possessed clowns—thank you very much, Steven Spielberg and the Poltergeist series. As I gained more life experience, and discovered most clowns are not demonically possessed, my nightmares changed. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, calling for my mother, because I’d dream I was still married to my first husband.
Then I started writing horror. Seriously, there’s nothing more therapeutic. I killed off my ex a few times in stories, and the nightmares stopped. I’d have dreams about playing poker with Satan, or discovering a body farm, or coordinated jellyfish attacks, and as soon as I woke up, I wrote it down. Bad dreams were now becoming source material.
Oho, my brain said. So you think you’re too grown up to scare anymore? You’ve got another think coming!
Then the grown-up nightmares started in earnest.
The first night, I dreamed the mortgage was due on the same day the power company needed to be paid. When I tried to go online to maybe change the due date on the electric bill, I discovered the Wi-Fi was down.
The second night, I dreamed I got into the shower, and there were ten bottles of conditioner . . . but not one bottle of shampoo.
“You think you can break me?” I yelled at my brain. It was possible I’d reached my breaking point, but my brain didn’t need to know that. “I just read an article yesterday about how people should only shampoo every third day. Nice try!” I felt smugly superior to myself. But my brain wasn’t done yet.
That night, things started out innocently enough. I found myself dreaming of a cafeteria full of gluten-free foods. The menu listed pizza, bagels, pasta, macaroni and cheese . . . anything a carb lover who can't digest this stuff regularly could desire. And the dessert menu? I wept in delight: chocolate mousse cake, chocolate mousse pie, chocolate mousse . . . I stepped to the counter, which was being manned by Connecticut libertarian gubernatorial candidate Rod Hanscomb—this should’ve been my first tipoff that all was not right—and held out my plate. “Give me all the desserts, please,” I said shakily.
“Sorry. All we have left is vanilla custard. Can I tell you about my thoughts on the current state taxation model, and why we should move to a zero-income-tax based structure that will increase our sales tax to 9.5%?”
“Noooo!” I shouted. “Vanilla custard?”
And for the first time in over a decade, I woke up in a cold sweat, calling for my mother.
NOT for the faint of heart.
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