I am eight years old. I keep having this dream. It's the first one I remember. In my dream, I'm just starting preschool. My mom takes me to the doctor to get my shots for school. The nice nurse lady brings us into the doctor's room and tells us to have a seat, the doctor will be in soon. I go look out the window and I stare across the parking lot at another building. Mom knows I'm nervous whenever I'm at the doctor, she comes and stands behind me, putting her hands on the sides of my head. Suddenly, I feel a sharp pain where her fingertips touch me and my head starts to deflate, just like a balloon. My mom just stands there and watches as I deflate and collapse. My world goes dark, and I wake up. I have this dream about twice a month, it never changes. I tell my mom about it, she tells me that God is angry with me, I don't pray enough to Him. I'm going to start praying every night. I hope he forgives me.
Whenever I close my eyes at night, I see nothing but a black wall. That's normal, right? But I always feel so far away from it- and I'm always moving farther away. The longer my eyes are closed, the smaller and more nervous I feel. I'll open my eyes every few minutes and when I do, everything I see is so small. I often reach out to touch whatever is close to me and my arm will span for what seems like miles. My mom tells me I just have a creative imagination, that I should be the one telling the bedtime stories. I tell her some of them, but I'm afraid to tell her more. The way she reacts tells me I'm not normal. I'm scared of what she would think of me if she knew.
Tonight, I see this bug, it's most like a mosquito. As the black wall goes further away, the bug gets closer and bigger. I am scared, so I open my eyes. Everything is very small and my lamp seems like it's so far away. I reach out to touch my clock, I make contact. OK, my eyes are playing tricks on me, it takes a minute, but everything starts coming back into focus. Including the bug. Oh no, the bug. It's real?! I'm going to hide under my covers, mommy told me if I cover my entire body with my blanket the monsters can't get to me. I don't hear anything, maybe it's gone. I'm going to reach out and turn on my light. I'm happy I got this touch lamp for Christmas, I can turn it on real fast. OK, the light is on. Where is the bug? I peek out, but I don't see it anywhere. Maybe I'll sleep with the light on tonight.
I've been at camp for a few days now, and I still have a week to go. It's my first time being away from mommy for more than one night... It's scary because I'm surrounded by people I don't know. The counselors are telling me that I should write her letters so that she has something to read when I go home. I write her a letter telling her about the craft project we had today. I tell her about how we collected pine cones, stuffed them with small green leaves and glued googly eyes on them. It was a fun project. I think I'll go sit by the campfire now. It's dark outside, but it's still a bit warm even though the flame is gone. But I'm alone and I feel calm. What's that? There's something moving over in the bushes. Is that... a girl? I run over to check it out, but when I get there, there's nothing but bushes. I go back and sit down again. As I look up, I see her - she's in the tree above me! How did she get there?! I get up and move closer to her, but she's gone. She just disappeared. I'm seeing things. I think it's time to go to bed.
I'm at camp again, this one is only a few days long. We are going for a night walk as a class and I'm really excited! We are going to go to the beach – I've never seen the beach at night. Our teachers are telling us we need to line up single file and hold each other's hands so that we don't get lost. We start making our way to the beach. We finally clear all of the trees and I see a large open area. This is cool! The tide is really far out! Look at all of these pockets of water! Wait a minute, that's not water, those are all birds! I'm scared, people are walking towards them. No, don't go near them, they'll all start flying! Stop! Don't! Now they're angry! They're flying everywhere! I scream and feel a hand grabbing my shoulder. I turn around, my teacher is telling me to calm down, asking me what's wrong, and people are surrounding me. It was in my mind, nothing happened. Why do I keep imagining things like this?
I'm twelve today. My family got me a new cross to hang on my wall. My grandma says that having another cross should help me sleep more soundly. I don't tell her that I'm having another repeating dream, I think I might have accidentally woken her up a few times when I got restless and started playing video games. This dream is more difficult for me to forget. My family and I live in this little rambler style house. It has dark wooden closet doors with light wooden knob handles. I open one of the doors and the knob falls out. It bounces, and bounces, and it keeps on bouncing – going higher and growing larger each time it hits the ground. Finally, it is much larger than me and it can't bounce anymore. It starts rolling and makes its way through the exterior wall of our house, creating a giant hole. I walk through the hole to follow the knob. As it rolls away from the house, it starts to get smaller again until finally I can't see it anymore. I look back at our house and a rainbow is going in through the center of the newly created hole. Then, all the sudden, the house collapses. My family was inside. Once again, I am jolted awake. I think I need to pray again. I say the prayers, Our Father and Hail Mary. I have been adding to it, every night. "Dear Lord, please hear me tonight. I have been suffering from these horrible dreams. Please protect me tonight, I don't know what's going to happen if I can't sleep soon. Thank you, God, for listening to me. Amen." I really hope he hears me tonight.
I'm told I need to see a therapist. I have no say in the matter, I must go. Something isn't right with me. I don't want to go. My mom drives me to my first appointment. She walks me in, she knows I would try to dupe her and walk away if she didn't go with me. They call me into his office. He introduces himself to me and tells me to have a seat. His eyes are blue as ice, I can't look into them. If I make eye contact with him, he's going to know everything. He starts to ask me questions about why I'm so sad all the time and why I'm not very talkative with my family. I tell him it's because my mom took me out of soccer and how I didn't want to stop playing, I can't tell him about my dreams or my visions. I don't want my family to know, we're already disconnected enough. He keeps asking me more questions. He stares me down. He refuses to break eye contact, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to scream. I can't get out of here. He keeps staring, asking me more questions. Finally, the hour is up and it's over, I can leave. I make it out to the waiting room; my mom goes in and talks to him. He promised me he wouldn't tell her anything I said, he better not lie to me. After about 15 minutes, my mom comes back out and we make it to the car. She tells me we need to stop at the pharmacy on the way home. I'm going to be put on medication. I have to take pills everyday now. This is horrible. After a few weeks, I'm not feeling anything anymore. Nothing excites me, nothing makes me sad. Is this who I am now?
There's finally a cloudless sky tonight. I think I'm going to steal one of my mom's beers and sit out back and stare at the sky. I love the stars, they are so mysterious. It would be nice to see them more often, but it's always overcast. This beer is good. I hope I get a good grade on my history project, that's such a difficult class. I just heard a noise- is someone there? No one is here, I'm alone. Oh no, it's happening again. I see her now. It's been years since she's shown herself to me. Still in that same dress. She isn't fluid, her arms aren't moving like a girl's, though... She's a doll. She's not a girl. I can't see her face. I can make out everything else, from her blonde hair, to her pink and black dress, her white stockings, and her black shoes, but I can't see her face. It's black, it matches the night. I'm not going to move. I'm just going to sit here and stare. Nothing's happening. I still can't see her face. I'm going to get closer- damn it, I accidentally blinked and she's gone. Maybe there's something wrong with me...
