zombiesarebad

this was years ago; i think 2005-ish. I was in my early twenties. I had a string of lucid dreams that were not induced... they just sort of happened. This one was the first and most memorable.

I was in Boston walking past the mouth of the big tunnel. Suddenly a coach bus went by going impossibly fast, careening between the lanes until it lost control and flipped over. When it entered the tunnel- sideways and on its roof- it took out dozens of cars and people (who for some odd reason were standing in the tunnel).

i went into the tunnel to look at the damage, and i saw a whole bunch of people flattened out on the road like pancakes... there was no blood or gore, they were just flattened into ten foot circles. It was then that i realized i was dreaming, and as i looked at them i began to laugh hysterically.... which , of course, woke me up.

i had kind of a fitful sleep last night that was filled with odd dreams. I only remember two of them:

in the first i was in a dimly lit funeral home with some older guy whom i understood to be the mortician. He was telling me about a horribly mutilated body that had come in, saying that it scared him to even look at it. We were trying to just leave the building, but couldn't find the way out. Every time he opened a door he would say that it didn't lead to where it was supposed to and that the spirit that belonged to this body was causing it. He was getting more and more exasperated... finally he opened a door to the embalming room holding the body. It was strung up with gore that formed something like a spiderweb that stretched from wall to wall, taking up the entire room. Body parts were stuck in it here and there, including the head whose eyes were open.

in the second dream i remember, i thought i was watching a movie. I don't remember the entire beginning, but it was about an older black guy who was a professional clown. For whatever reason he was forced to join the navy... i think as a cook. He had tried repeatedly to get out, saying that he couldn't stand the isolation of being at sea. It kind of dragged on but in the last scene he put on his clown outfit and makeup and went on deck during some sort of ceremony. He took out a pistol and shot himself in the head, blowing half of it off. He was still alive, and yelling about how he wanted to go home. It was really horrible, but everyone on the ship was laughing. The intensity of the scene made me forget that it was supposed to be a movie, and i was yelling at everyone to shut up. Finally, he fell over dead. His last word was "DEEEEEEEERP," which made everyone laugh even harder.

had a dream last night that i started a new job (which may actually happen) in a new hospital lab. They tell me the first thing i have to do is go up on the floors and collect specimens.

i get up there and it looks ultra futuristic... the walls are white plastic and the floor is some glossy black material. It looks like a spaceship set on a science fiction show. I get lost and i'm trying to find my way back down to the lab, and i'm worried that i'll make a bad first impression.

suddenly i come upon a patient room where i know i am supposed to go in and draw some blood. I go in and it's nothing like the rest of the hospital: the walls have peeling old wallpaper and it's really dirty.

the patient is just a giant head sitting in a wicker basket. It has a sign on it that reads, "Old Father." A nurse explains that the patient has hydrocephalus. I ask where I'm supposed to draw the blood from and she says, "you're supposed to know that."

odd.

i've had sleep paralysis a handful of times, but there are two instances that really stand out:

the first time it happened to me was (i think) eight years ago... i thought i had died. I woke up on my back in the early morning and couldn't move, couldn't breathe, and i felt like there was an incredible weight pressing down on my entire body. It also felt like there was a pair of hands pressing down on my face, contorting my eyes into slits and exposing my teeth. This made my vision blurry and i could even hear air rushing in and out through my teeth. I began hearing voices... most of them just sounded like people screaming really far away, but one was right in my ear. It was a deep voice that was just yelling all sorts of things at me; "FUCK YOU!" and "I TOLD YOU I'D MAKE YOU SORRY!" and stuff. FYI, I don't believe in demons or anything supernatural, but my half-asleep self did at that moment.

the next time it happened was not long after that. Again, it was early morning and i woke up on my back. There was an old man standing in my doorway... nothing special or weird about him, but he still somehow terrified me beyond all description. It seemed very real. He was wearing a blue flannel shirt and brown pants. Just standing there staring. The whole time i could hear a steady beeping, like a heart monitor or something.

It has happened a few times since, but the first two occasions are the only ones i remember well. They were definitely more intense than any other episodes since then.