WordPress Daily Prompt: Nightmares

Describe the last nightmare you remember having. What do you think it meant?

You mean when I awake bathed in sweat screaming for help? Basically what happens when I sleep is between me and the sheets and I very rarely remember in the morning what it was all about. When a dream (nightmare) takes place, it is very vivid and the feeling is that it exists. Reflecting on a long life of dreams and sleep, one seemed to have left a long lasting impression.

You are lying in bed, it is dark when you open your eyes and a figure is standing in the doorway. Dressed in black of course (all murky frightening figures are dressed in black) and is wearing a hat with a wide brim. You do not even see the features on his face. “Go away” is all you can scream at him, but he just stands there looking in your direction. Although looking is an overstatement, when he has no eyes, mouth or nose, the figure being drenched in darkness and dripping black, you do not know that he is actually focussing you, he is just standing turned in your direction. As I said this was many years ago, not enough to write a best seller about. If I was Bram Stoker I would have written a book to remember for years. I read that Dracula was based on a dream he had.

Strange figures in dreams are always suspect. Generally I suppose you can blame it on eating before bed time, or drinking too much coffee, or perhaps having a problem that you cannot solve. Now if you were living at the time of Sigmund Freud, I am sure he would have explained why you had the dream, but he seemed to blame everything on your mother or an unhappy childhood. I hope my kids do not dream, otherwise it would be my fault. I do not believe that dreams mean anything in particular, they are just a result of the subconscious playing tricks on you. Fragments of life that lodge themselves somewhere in a grey cell.

I am sure my cats dream. I have three. One does not dream. She sleeps twenty-three hours and spends an hour a day looking for somewhere to sleep so she does not have the time to spend on a dream. My blind cat Fluffy, often makes strange noises in his sleep. Perhaps the tuna monster is walking over him. My big fat longhaired black cat, Nera, also dreams. She murmers in her sleep, I am sure she is working out a devious plan to take over the world.

When I have the dream of dreams, I will write a best seller.

WordPress Daily Prompt: Whoa!

What's the most surreal experience you've ever had?

"MEOW help, they are coming to get me" and Nera fell from her pole position on the cat play center. Tabby her litter sister rushed to see what had happened and Fluffy turned his head in her direction when she landed on the floor with a thump.

"Nera what is the matter. I told you not to eat too much tuna. Now you have the result. You have lost your balance because of your weight problems. Give yourself a lick and you will feel better." said Tabby.

"I did not fall from my pole position on the cat gymnastic centre because of my weight problems which I do not have, I had a bad dream. Hundreds of glowing felines with staring eyes were after me. They wanted to dissolve me with their green and organge liquids."

"Cool down Nera, I dream all the time, although I have never had glowing felines in my dream, but now and again a glowing mouse that always seems to escape just as I had my claws ready to pounce." Fluffy was trying to help, but Nera was not interested.

"Fluffy, this is serious and no Tabby, a lick will not help and if you are insinuating that I am overweight, it is just fluff. I can still hear the growls and the bubbling of their poison. Green and orange, just terrible. I am sure I will not be able to close my eyes again for a long while."

"Nera perhaps you ate something that didn't agree with you. I told you that eating tuna after fresh mouse is not good for you. That mouse looked a bit dodgy as well. Probably gave himself up. Seems to me you are a bit slow on your legs these days."

"Tabby that mouse was very tasty, are you jealous that it was my paws that caught him? I am not slowing down, I just do not like to rush around, it spoils the rhythm of my wonderful feline movements."

"I dream all the time Nera, but only of nice things like mouse holes, birds sitting within paw distance and lots of wonderful juicy butterflies flying around my nose. Then I really sink into a Nirvana sleep." Fluffy  was trying to reassure Nera.

"Fluffy, you astound me. You mean a sleep like the imperturbable stillness of mind after the fires of desire, aversion, and delusion have been finally extinguished." said Tabby.

"Yes exactly Tabby, you have brought it to a point."

"Excuse me Tabby and Fluffy, but I do not want to interrupt your mystic conversation, which seems to be drifting onto a higher level of my understanding, but I was woken up by something surreal, a progression of Dada,it was a horror dream, a catmare - get it?"

"Nera, we know the solution. Fix your eyes on your photo of Garfield, signed by his pawprint. Make two circles with your wonderful streamline body, close your eyes and sink into oblivion, thinking only of your hero, Garfield. He will rid you of all negative surrealistic thoughts."

And so Nera sunk once more into a sleep. Her monsters had disappeared and she was soothed into sleep by the visions of her dream cat, Garfield. She decided it might have been the food, although it could also have been the film she watched on the television, Cat People. It disturbed her to think that humans could change into cats.