I must be sleeping too deeply these days. Or, maybe it’s just that I’m waking up during that deep sleep, filled with dreams. Throw in the stress of worrying about everything that comes with getting a job and buying a home and you’ve got a recipe for nightmares. For the past two nights, I’ve had some pretty vivid and unpleasant dreams. The first I would definitely call a nightmare, but the second might just be a bad dream. I don’t usually remember my dreams, but when I do, my restful sleep declines. This might even have been triggered by that scary knocking on the door a few nights ago.

So it started Tuesday night. I had an interview scheduled for the next morning and it is THE job I want, so you can imagine I was a little nervous. I knew my stuff and prepared really well, plus I’d done quite well on the phone interview. That wasn’t the issue; I was anxious because I’m really counting on getting this job. In an effort to ensure I got enough sleep and would fall asleep at a reasonable hour, I took some of that Dream Water I’ve been getting in subscription boxes. The entire bottle seemed like overkill so I went with about 2/3. I fell asleep relatively easily (I’ve been known to toss and turn for hours).

Wednesday morning, 5:50 am, I jolted awake. In my dream, I was on a bus, maybe a school bus. I was headed into town or something, but decided to get off at a stop where my house was. Apparently my orange tabby from childhood, Jerriey, was playing in the bushes and I figured he probably got stuck again. I was going to retrieve him and continue on my way. Once I got off and the bus left, I paused to look for Jerriey. A car passed by and the bus neared the next turn. Then, a truck pulled over and a man got out. I started taking a few steps towards the bushes where Jerriey was, but took a quick glance at this stranger stopping here when there was no reason to. He and I looked each other in the eyes and somehow I knew: he was there to abduct and assault me. I started to run towards the house, but everything was painfully slow – apparently I had been to swim or track practice and I was sore beyond belief. I hoped that someone on the bus might notice, but it was rounding the bend. Somehow I thought that if I could run fast enough towards the fence, I could float over it (which made sense at the time because there was a hill sloping down to it so if I could just run fast enough to run straight out at the same height as the hill, I could clear the fence). Meanwhile, the man calmly pulled out his cell phone to call his brother for backup (don’t ask me how I knew – it’s a dream!). His confidence that he would catch me anyway was even more frightening than if he were chasing me.

That’s when I abruptly woke up. The terror of running from a possible kidnapper left me with a pounding heartbeat. When I checked the time, I found that I had another hour and a half before I was set to get up, so I tried to get back to sleep. For awhile, all I could do was think of what I would have done had I gotten over the fence into my backyard. Would I run through the backdoor, lock it, and hide? If I did that, would there be a way I could text 911 so I wouldn’t alert him to my whereabouts by speaking? I figured he’d be able to shatter the glass of the door and walk right in the house. As he looked around, how could I get help without betraying my hiding spot? Or would I not hide but run out the front door to a neighbor’s? Would I pretend this wasn’t even my house and run through the yard to the street in front and find help? I didn’t want this guy to know for sure that I lived here so he could come back to find me. After running through some of these scenarios, I fell asleep and luckily had no more dreams.

Then last night I went to sleep earlier than usual again and when I awoke this morning, I had dreamt that I was being exceptionally rude to my relatives. I believe my grandpa, cousin, and mom were involved? That one is more hazy now, but I just remember I had said something really mean to one of them (grandpa, I think) and the others were defending him. I eventually realized I was wrong, but I kept being horrible anyway because of my pride. At the point where I was getting disgusted with myself, I was awoken. It might not be a nightmare quite like the night before, but it certainly was a bad dream. I hope I never actually let pride turn me into a mean person!

I hope this isn’t some new trend and I’m not sure what about my sleeping situation or mental state might be causing it. I’m hoping that with the stress of the last few weeks melting away, so too will the nightmares. Is it possible it’s related to me sleeping earlier and waking earlier? If that’s the case, I’m in trouble since my job will require me to sleep on that new schedule. I guess I’ll just have to see how tonight goes!

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