The Nightmare

I don't always have dreams, but when I do, boy they're something for the books.
I've had a lot going on lately, both my grandparents died within 3 months of one another, I did all their private homecare and they died in front of me. Sometimes when I close my eyes I still see their charts and unresolved questions I have about things rolling like film credits. Some of the questions I know I will never get answers to because, well, out of respect-no, that's a lie, I just don't want to be fucking nagged at by my mother or arsehole uncle if I go digging in things-some of the questions will have to go unanswered. I didn't really mind caring for them or even doing the after death body prep and clean up, that's just old hat, it's more the unresolved things that nag at me. It's just been a pretty hectic time for me and I'm finally able to get some form of sleep...but this recent dream or nightmare rather, has put the fear of sleep into me. I'd like to share it with you guys and maybe get some thoughts on this? I have some thoughts of my own about the dream I'll add after. Just as a note, it's pretty strange, graphic and well, unholy.

The dream started out normal. I was travelling, just like I love. I was in Heidelberg, but it didn't really look like Heidelberg, it looked more like a cross between that and Prague or Norway.I was going to take the Neckar river cruise..I've never done that but I should do that I heard its bomb ass. Anyway, I stayed at this old place right on the river. I'd never heard of the place before, which was weird, but all the local places I stayed when I visited Heidelberg were booked up and of course, I could no longer stay with Anja, her being gone and all. 
It was kinda overcast when I arrived there, but it didn't bother me since I love that kind of weather. The train pulled away from the station, the conductor waving at me as the train disappeared around the bend into the fog. I knew it wasn't the Heidelberg station, but I didn't think to question it. I knew I was dreaming. I walked to the hotel, my trainers soaked by the time I got there. It was a little place next to a shop and bakery. It looked like a building out of the early 1800's, which thrilled me to no end.
There was a small blonde woman behind the desk when I checked in. The wallpaper was a weird golden yellow and white stripe, but I'm not Gordon Ramsay here to comment on the decor. They didn't have a lift, which wasn't a problem, but they had a narrow winding staircase leading up to the upper level of rooms. I fumbled with the key before eventually getting in. The room was gorgeous. Two double beds, thick and fluffy, gold-framed mirrors, two fireplaces, silk curtains, the works. It was luxury to the highest end. 
I took a picture of it and sent it to a few of my mates. I was desperate to connect with them but my mobile service was really shit, so I figured I'll wait a minute and connect to wifi, no big deal. I walked around exploring the massive room. I switched on the telly so it would be less lonely in the room. It just felt so large with just me in it. I took a selfie but when I looked at my phone it told me that my kidneys were at like 30% function and were critical and it scared me. And I'm like "what the fuck is this?" The phone looked like my iPhone, but it was a futuristic one. It had the ability to read what was wrong with the body, even record thoughts and memories and store them on an infinite capacity drive. Everything was on the device. It was like holding my entire existence in my hand in addition to all the information I could ever want. 
I needed to calm down and not panic. A part of me knew this couldn't be real. Mobile devices can't do this in 2018. It was just my mind playing tricks on me once again. "Okay, I need to drink something I've not drunk all day, this is probably just my brain playing games on me. I'll have a drink and everything will be fine." HAHA good one brain. When I looked at the image again it told me my body temperature and my liver was failing too. It showed my liver function at 28%. That can't be. I feel completely fine. I panicked and l ran into the bathroom to look at my skin and sclera in the mirror to see if I was jaundiced or not. When I flipped on the bathroom light and looked at the image a third time, there was no date or nothing. It was just me stood there. My sclera and skin were normal colour. I showed no other signs of organ failure. I was freaked out, totally unsettled and all of a sudden this evil feeling washed over me. Something didn't feel right at all.
I looked into the jacuzzi bath and saw a specimen floating in some kind of solution. I'd never seen it before, upon further inspection, it was a large colon. (like the one I saw in the Mütter Museum) then when I turned around there was a skull being cleaned by beetles in a glass jar on a shelf. I saw them gnawing at the flesh, going wild. Animal skins decorated the white and mint coloured tiles. Blood began to dribble from the caulking. 
Stupidly, I walked down the bathroom which was kind of like a corridor. Part of me was screaming to get out of there, then my morbid curiosity was whispering to me to explore. Find out what else as hiding here...And why all of this was housed in a hotel. There was a uterus in bio gel, breathing and there were more organs just rotting in the shower. I screamed and ran out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I wondered what the fuck I'd gotten myself into. When I turned around, there was my fucking grandmother, Barb, sat on one of the other beds. She was wearing her white puffy coat and her leopard shoes that she loved. She was like "Christ, I'm tired, what a journey here."I asked her if she was okay, but I knew she was dead. She was solid, it wasn't like a ghostly apparition or anything. For a moment I was afraid that if I touched her, my hand would go through her and I'd be sucked inwards. It was her before she got sick, before the COPD got worse and the cancer diagnosis. It was her from 2 years ago. She complained that I'd just left her and jet-setted off again and that she wanted to spend some time with me. I still had to pee so I went back into that "bathroom" to clear my head and figure out what the fuck was going on and when I switched the light on, it was a normal bathroom. No organs, no gels, no flesh being devoured.
By now dream me is wondering if I took bad drugs on the train journey to the city. So I peed and everything was okay. No signs of kidney distress. I came out and she was still sitting there but she was in her usual clothes, jumper and wool slacks. She told me she was tired and she was going to have a rest and I could talk to "Chubby" on my laptop or talk to you while she napped as long as I wasn't my usual loud arsehole self.  I laughed told her that I could do that, but before I had the chance to do anything, the door opened and two women and two men walked in and asked what room number we had. They didn't speak German so I explained in English that 3869 was our number when the receptionist read it in German they'd confused "drei" with "zwei". We joked that with a place this old the keys must match up with some of the other doors, no problem. I wanted to double check myself, but not alarm barb so, I asked the guy to look in the bathroom to see if there was anything unusual about it and he looked in and said: "No, it's just a regular bathroom...but the tiles are ugly."
They left, Barb went to sleep and I sat scared as night fell over the city. I couldn't make sense of what was going on and I still couldn't connect to the wifi. My sense of isolation was only worsening the fear that was blooming in me. I couldn't let my usual anxiety overwhelm me and I needed to eat something. I head out to get take away and wander through the streets which are dark and icy. A train ran past a lake (there are no lakes in Heidelberg) and it began to snow. Thick snowflakes began to coat everything in sight and somehow the night grew darker.  I almost got hit by the train and almost fell into the icy water trying to get out of the way, but I managed to hold my balance. I scramble across the tracks after the small train had passed, my heartbeat in the back of my throat. Why am I wandering along the tracks when it's dark like this?
 I end up in this 90's style shopping centre that was filled with children. There were few adults and it felt like they all were laughing at me, like they knew my secret and were taunting me. Their little faces seemed to glow with evil. They're the same age that I would be if it was the late 90's, but that doesn't do anything to settle me. Hunger and confusion nibble away at me.  I walk up to a McDonald's style place and order a burger and just walk around with it and a diet coke. Broken toys line the shop shelves and haunting music plays faintly, echoing out from somewhere deep in the bowels of the centre. I need to get out of here before I'm consumed. It feels like something wants to consume my soul...if I have one that is. I feel eyes on me. I turn around and the corridors are empty. The children have vanished. The merry-go-round turns on and begins to move despite being completely empty. The eyes of the horses glow an evil orange. I need to get back to the hotel room. When I get back there Barb won't be there. I'll be okay. This is all just a bad reaction to something I took. I should know better than to mix drugs, especially when I'm travelling.
When I get in I mention to the receptionist something felt a little weird. She offers me a bright smile. "Many guests say the same thing and that's because they used to conduct many human and animal experiments on the property and many of the subjects died here. There are still experimental chambers below the current level they've not renovated or anything because of cost." Well, that's not strange or anything. I kinda want to see what she's talking about, but I don't know. Something tells me that if I walk through those double doors that I won't be walking out of them. She ensured me not to worry, that nothing is dangerous here and the feelings usually pass. I go up to the room and by the time I get there, it's already around mid-morning. (I don't know how we got to daybreak so quickly when I'd arrived at the hotel around 2 am and spent only 15 minutes max in the lobby) to find Barb having sex with a young female housekeeper. This can't be happening. 
She's blonde with piercing blue eyes and has little diamonds in her ears.They're half under the sheet as I walk in and I just can't control myself. I scream "JESUS FUCK!" at the top of my lungs and turn to leave, but the housekeeper cooes at me. "No, no sweet boy, come, I can do you next or you can join if you like. We're all about pleasure here." "Hell no, that's my fuckin nan!" Barb giggles and goes "Well, you sure know how to ruin a party." That's more horrific than the breathing uterus. "Why are you doing this?" "Because I don't want to have any regrets this time around." I don't understand and I'm afraid to ask what she means by that. They return to what they're doing, then she housekeeper started giving Barb a rim job and I turned to leave but Barb grabbed my hand. She told me this was a new experience and that she needed my support. She clutched my wrist and despite my size and strength, I couldn't break away from her. I couldn't even wiggle free despite my best efforts. So I sat their eyes closed, while she held my hand. The housekeeper gets out of the bed and heads to the bathroom and I turn to Barb."Barb we gotta get out of here." She told me not to worry that we could go on the cruise together still, not touching on what just happened thankfully.  I told her that I didn't have extra tickets and she said we could go down to the docks together and get her one and we could sail together. I don't know how she knew about the cruise because I didn't tell her what I was doing in Heidelberg.
It cuts to us walking down to the docks, the day misty and the sun hanging behind the mist. It feels demonic, but I don't say anything until we reach the ticket window. It looks like the same girl behind the counter. "Hello, how can I help you?" Yeah, um, I think So. We need one ticket and I have a question. I already bought a ticket for the cruise, but it was for yesterday but I  forgot so can I use it today?" She fluffs her hair and checks the ancient computer. "Technically no, but I won't tell." She winks at me and I got a bit of an ego boost. We got out tickets and I stood there on the dock with Barb; I looked over at her and before my eyes, she started to putrify. Her eyes sunk in, her skin turned a light minty green. Her veins started to bubble and burst. I couldn't say anything as I watched it happen and her jawbone disconnected and hit me in the foot and no one saw this it was just me, only I could see all this. Then I woke up screaming I was gonna die. 

THOUGHTS
A. I know why the liver and kidney function was presented to me in the dream. I was reading my granddad's chart and that's what he was dying of. I was going through the records before I fell asleep, trying to answer a few of my own questions. He's only been gone about a week, so naturally, the things would still be on my mind regardless if I was reading his charts and putting the information away.
B. I was working on the last few travel blogs, thinking about them before I went to sleep. Finishing them has been weighing on my mind and I feel that I've been lazy with the last few, and I have, letting other things and my depression getting in the way. It's a struggle because I want to do them, I want to share how I felt, the adventures and the photos I took, but at the same time, I'm longing to go back. I had so many incredible times and felt alive while I was away and it feels like it was a bit of a cruel taste of what will never stay with me. Maybe one day it will stay with me, I don't know. I did feel as lonely as I do now when I was away. Travel has always been a passion for me. I've spent so many free afternoons daydreaming about where I want to go next and where I've been. I'd always wanted to take a riverboat cruise through Germany, so I guess that's why it cropped up..not to mention someone I loved and lost lived near there. We'd spent time there, going on little trips together or just enjoying one another's time. I guess losing her and my grandparents bothers me more than I thought it did. Subconsciously, it must have always been there or it was jarred with all the events coming on. I don't think I ever really dealt with losing her because, like with Ralph and Barb, there were so many things left unanswered and I'm not allowed to dig around for the answers. 

C. Barb and I talked a lot about life; she knew about me, I told her, about my sexuality, my identity and she in turn, confided with me about her regrets in life. I think that by her telling me that she didn't want to have regrets, she was really telling me, or rather I was telling myself, not to hide things. To be more open about who and what I am, what I like, my preferences and all that. She was so unhappy with some of her choices and always told me that I was smart enough to make my own. She told me to not let bullshit get in the way of the things I wanted to achieve and who I wanted to be. It took her a long time to come around and accept me. She used to be anti-gay, anti-trans. She loosened up after all the time we spent together. I told her about liking men and women and the only thing that she told me was to not fuck it up and don't allow myself to be used. When I came out to her, she said she didn't understand but told me that she was sure that I did. She told me she trusted my thoughts and feelings.
D. I don't want to have any regrets. I've never really experienced true feelings of regret before, but I've been thinking a lot about my life, where I've gone, how far I strayed from what I wanted to do and so much more. I've been needing to reevaluate things lately, plan for a real sort of future, not my usual running around with my head coming lose scenario. I don't want to look back like she did and feel like I missed out on things or didn't do enough...I often feel like I don't do enough.  I guess I'm getting older, fuck I'm not too far away from 30 now and I don't want to keep doing what I've been doing; well, not everything that I've been doing. Some things I totally want to keep doing. (And no, that's not a sex reference or joke...take it like that though, I'd quite like that.) 
E. I realised that the wallpaper in the hotel reception area was the same that my nan had in her house back in the late 70's, the early 80's. (I know because of photos, not because I was there; though it's possible I was there and was reborn in 1991...HA, no, that's just me messing around.) The tiles in the bathroom are the tiles Anja had in her bathroom. Pieces of the places I went to with these people cropped up in the dream; I guess they don't want to be forgotten. I won't forget them, I guess I just needed a bit of reinforcement. The mind is a tricky thing and mine has so much stored in it that it's a miracle that things don't leak out of my ears when I'm sleeping...speaking of sleep, I've been kinda afraid to go back to sleep. I've not had another dream like this in the past few nights, but you never know. I hope I never have a dream like this again, but if I do I'm sure to do a blog on it. The scariest part of the dream was my grandmother getting a rim job. I don't think that will ever leave my goddamn mind. I wonder what Freud would say about this...no wait, I know what he'd say about it and I don't even want to get on that subject. Good night. 

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