Dream Journal: Reoccuring Nightmare

As stated previously I rarely remember my dreams, to the point where I don't know if I even have dreams most nights. There is one dream that I remember clearly to this day however. It is a re-occurring nightmare that I have had three times in my life. The first two were when I was very young (roughly 4 and seven) and the most recent was when I was in college. It was exactly the same each time I dreamt it, and here is a description of it for prosperity. Like most dreams it is hard to describe completely. Even if it could be described fully the description still wouldn't be that scar, but it was very scary for me to experience. This is a nightmare, and one that affected me enough that I remember it clearly years later. But as nightmares often are, it hardly seems scary in the telling. For those of you who believe you have the knack of dream interpretation, dig in, and feel free to leave your hypothesis in comment form.





It is night, and there is a violent thunderstorm raging across the sky. I'm in an airport. This airport is on an island in the ocean, the whole island being a plateau with sheer rock face all around. The airport covers the top of the plateau, so that it seems that the outer walls of the airport turn to rock that descends into the sea. The sea is whipped into a fury, and waves rise up to crash against the airport in explosive slaps. I am inside in a large room where people come and go. The walls are completely glass windows streaked with a constant torrent of rain, and the dark view of the outside stands in sharp contrast to the floor and ceiling which are white. The storm and thunder are muted inside the building but strangely the people make no noise as they move around me, all in a hurry to be somewhere. I am young, about four years old (the age I was when I first had this dream I think) and I have been separated from my parents. I lost them, or they left me in the movements of the throng. I look around with a sense of displaced shock and then accept the fact that my parents are not around. I find myself staring at the window, watching with unease the flashes of lightning that reveal the violent rolling of the dark sea. To the people around, moving purposefully across the white floor, I seem to not exist. I am not an obstacle, point of interest, or out of place. Suddenly I am aware that I have some one's attention, I can feel the focus of their eyes between my shoulder blades. Slowly I turn from the window and gaze back into the milling people. As a few of the throng moved a man is revealed. While the other people have a washed out look to them -severely muted colors- this man is in full color. He is wearing a disheveled tan trench coat. He is staring right at me. He has reddish hair that at one time was combed back but now has untidy strands sticking out. His face is gaunt and he is so fair that his skin is almost transparent. When I say gaunt I don't mean skull like, but like there is not an ounce of wasted flesh on his head (If I had to cast this dream using actual celebrities I would use William Atherton who played Environmentalist Walter Peck in Ghostbusters). But the most striking, unnerving, and compelling feature are his eyes. He is slightly bug-eyed, they stand out of his face more than they sink beneath his brows, and neatly bloodshot- the veins are clearly defined without any redness of the whites. The center, the irises, seem to glow slightly with an inner light; not an actual glow but just a fierceness of color, that color being a swirling of red green and yellow. I am frozen by those eyes and a wave of fear chills me from the inside out. I think to myself his eyes are the color of madness. He extends his hand, beckoning me towards him and I get a sensation of wrongness from him; he is unnatural. The room is full off washed out people, constantly hurrying about all around us and yet there is a feeling of intimacy as if he and I are the only ones in the room. None of the others acknowledge him or me. He speaks, his voice sounds like granite shot through with neon, a baritone registered upward by insanity, and the pitch of his voice is unstable. His words are slow and drawn out, his mouth opens fully with each word, his lips never collapse to cover his teeth. He says, "There's something I want to show you." I know that whatever it is I don't want to see it, and I know I'm going with him. The dream shifts.

I am outside the airport. The storm that was muted inside the building rages around me in full fury, the wind and constant pounding of the waves is a constant cacophony that assaults my senses. Red haired madness man is there leading me, and behind me are two large broad shouldered men in dark clothes that I somehow know work for him. Their features are non-descript, cast in the darkness of the night. We are on a path that is cut out of the sides of the plateau, spiraling around it beneath the airport. I can see clearly, it is lit with the dark blue light of a cloudless night with a full moon in spite of the massive storm rending the heavens above me. We press on through the rain, leaning into the wind, feet gaining firm purchase on the packed dirt of the path. Occasionally a wave crests the side of the path drenching us further and pushing us up against the rock face. We continue on and eventually the path dead ends at a wooden shack made of old weathered ill-fitted boards. Red haired madness man turns to me, eyes burning, hair plastered down on his skull, rivulets of rain running off of his face. He reaches out a skinny hand and points to the shack's door and says, "In there"; his insane voice clearly audible through the roar of the storm. Slowly I move towards the shack. The door opens for me. Inside is a stone altar and I lock eyes with a glowing yellow skull sitting on top of it. Lightning flashes, there is an immense crack of thunder, and then...

I wake up.