Bloganuary – Day 24

Write about a dream you remember.

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I know I dream all the time and about all sorts of things, but I also know my dreams fade as I wake and holding onto them is like trying to catch a tendril of morning mist.

I also have nightmares. Not too many, but I have had a few that have woken me with a start in the middle of the night, scaring me with horrible thoughts of impending doom.

One such nightmare occurred when I was only five years old.

It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day and my mother and I were on the beach. The beach was packed with other people sunning themselves, or splashing in the ocean. The sky was blue, the ocean was blue, and the sand was an eclectic collection of multicoloured beach towels and umbrellas.

Suddenly, huge bees appeared. These bees were enormous – think of a black and gold striped hippopotamuses with wings and an enormous stinger – and they started stinging people, and some of the people who got stung more than once died!

Police and ambulance vehicles arrived with their sirens blaring, their lights flashing, and people were screaming and yelling and running all over the beach, trying to get away from the giant bees.

One bee stung my mother and suddenly we were in an ambulance racing to the hospital. Then just as suddenly we were in an operating theatre and the doctors and nurses were going to save my mother, but a giant bee got in and again there’s the yelling and the screaming and the running and I remember my mother and I hid under the operating table while the giant (angry) bee flew around the room looking for us.

There seemed to be no escape and then . . .

I woke up.

I remember going into my parent’s bedroom and waking my mother to ask if I could get in the bed with her because I’d had a bad dream. Unfortunately, my mother said I couldn’t because my little brother was already in the bed with her.

She said it was only a dream and if I went back to my own bed and went back to sleep, everything would be ok.

Alas, as soon as I closed my eyes . . .

I was back on the beach with my mother on a beautiful, bright, sunny day when suddenly, huge bees appeared and started stinging people, and then my mother and I were in an ambulance racing to the hospital and then we were cowering beneath an operating table while a giant angry bee flew around the room looking for us.

Each time a closed my eyes, that played in my head, frightening me and waking me up countless times that night.

It continued to play out in my head often enough over the years that I am still able to recall it in all its vivid, technicolour detail.

I’m not sure when it stopped, but I believe I was in my early 20’s.

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