Dark Danny Dreams: Nightmare Nation

Hey everybody!
Welcome back to another blog by yours truly. 

Today we're going to be talking about nightmares, as the title suggests, but this isn't a commentary on where I live or even life itself. I'm talking about that magical little state of semi-death that occurs when we close our eyes and lay down on something. You guessed it, sleep. I'm not really one to have dreams, which is interesting because I have a really active imagination.

Recently, I reconnected with a friend I'd not spoken to for a year, maybe more. It wasn't anything serious, just she and I got busy with things, but when I messaged her the other night and she wrote back it was like we'd never been apart at all. Friendships like this are rare. I feel lucky to have known her for 7 years now. We've had some wonderful adventures together, memories that I actually enjoy thinking about. I find myself missing Germany more now, but it is what it is. We had a few laughs and things got serious as we started to share what had happened to us over the year of not speaking. Death, serious illness, travel and some redemption were shared in this short, yet deeply intense conversation. It was almost unreal. She told me she was tired as she needed to work tomorrow so we bid each other good night and logged off the chat. I didn't give another thought to what we spoke about really. I started drinking and watching documentaries on the concept of life after death. I started to not feel good so I laid down and was pretty much instantly unconscious.

Then I woke up. Only I was still asleep. It was one of those weird lucid dreams where you think you're awake and actually experiencing what's going on, then a part of you realises it's a dream? You're watching yourself like you're a bystander or watching a film. That's what it was like for me. It was an odd colour scheme in the dream. I'd flown back to Germany, into Frankfurt and headed up to visit my sick friend. I know the route well, I've done it so many times from that route that it's ingrained in me. It's a second thought. There was something off about this journey. It was slower than usual. It was dark and overcast as the train snaked up the country. I arrived at the central station and knew I had to take the tram out to meet her, but I couldn't remember which one. As soon as I walked out of the station, something was wrong. It didn't look like Kassel anymore. It was almost a complete wasteland; resembling a Mars-style landscape with futuristic structures semi-constructed with a dusty haze on the horizon. I wanted to get back on the train. It didn't feel safe here, but the train locked the doors and pulled out of the station just as I raced back to the platform. I had nowhere to go, so pulling my suitcase I walked back out into the remains of the city. It didn't feel safe. I felt eyes on me, but when I looked around there was no one in sight. They had to be hiding in the crumbling buildings. I made my way across the sandy landscape to a freaky looking metal sign that had a cartoon drawing of a tram on it. I waited there, the sun a violent red staring down at me from above. It felt like it was trying to hurt me.

I got on the tram and we started to head further North, which was wrong. She doesn't live North.  Nothing looks familiar. The sky darkened as we headed East. I figured that they just had to reroute things because of all the destruction and reconstruction going on. I settled into a seat and fell asleep. I didn't think I was out that long. I looked out the window and saw thick lush trees, magical mountainscapes and deep violent blue lakes with dinosaur-like creatures rising to the water's surface. I screamed, unable to hold the confusion and fear inside. I'm not a screamer in waking life (well not over fear) by any means, but it was just completely unexpected. I didn't know where I was. The people on the train didn't feel real. They were like wax dolls...then I looked closer and they were all dead. I was on a train of the deadheading God knows where. It was like being on the London Necropolis Railway, except the corpses were not in boxes. They were sat up, staring blankly ahead. I knew I was on the wrong train, I desperately tried to get off, pushing two corpses out of the seat and watching them fall apart. It was like watching latex being pulled off a mould. I got to an exit door where there stood two guys my age. They weren't dead, they were speaking to each other. I asked them where we were going, in German, but they didn't seem to speak it. I tried English. They said something that didn't even sound like a language. They laughed and then spoke to me in German, telling me we were going away from this place. I told them I was trying to get to Melsugen and they told me this tram doesn't go there. They changed the routes. It's a different number now. I asked them if I could get off and they told me there was no way to get off until we reach the end of the line and that we were hours away from Kassel. 

The sky darkened even further and as I looked back through the tramcar at the dead they all seemed to look somewhat possessed. Like there was something at work that I couldn't comprehend. It felt like the two guys I'd been speaking to were in on the joke. I needed to try and get off no matter what they said. I grabbed the door to the carriage and began to yank on it. I remember the thought of "I need to escape" screaming in my head, radiating through my bones. I was about to get the door loose when they grabbed me and everything went white.

I sat up and was in bed, asleep with my teddy bear. These dreams that I have always leave me with feelings of unease. I'm different in my waking life than I am in these dream states, as nearly everyone is. I've witnessed death in my life and I'm not at all bothered by the decay of the body of humans or animals. It's when it appears supernatural, like in the dream, that's the thing the bothers me, not the actual decaying of the body. I think the dream signifies the thoughts I've been having about death lately and my dislike in regards to the lack of control I feel over it. I want it, but I hate it. I need it, I crave it, yet I'm ashamed of it. I don't want people to have to deal with my corpse after I die. I just wish it would be left alone. And hearing about her illness made these feelings for me even more intense. It's a fear that I have to face and somewhat come to terms with otherwise I will never be able to let go of this unrest.