Paralyzed

Last night I had a nightmare; it was the most vivid one I've had since the one last spring where I was dead-alive and embalming myself.

It started out really happily. I was sitting at a desk working on something and my Dad came up behind me and started talking to me. We hadn't really really talked in awhile, so I put down my work and enjoyed the conversation. Then for some reason it really scared me. I got it into my head that the only reason my Dad would be saying, sharing so much was that he was about to die, or was already dead.

I stood up, and realized I was dreaming. I lost control of my dream body and was all of a sudden hurling down a flight of stairs. I could hear voices of friends around me telling me that they didn't want me to hear or see, but I was headed down anyhow. Somehow at the bottom I was going to encounter either Dad's body or an explanation or foreshadow of some really gruesome, untimely death. I knew I was dreaming and it became absolutely crucial for me to wake up to avoid whatever it was at the bottom.

I couldn't wake up. I struggled and struggled, and it took all the energy I had. When I "woke up", I wasn't really awake, I was in the bedroom of the house I'd been in during the dream. I knew I wasn't in the right place but I couldn't remember what the place I was supposed to be in looked like. I finally snapped out of it and into real life. My (real) bedroom seemed out of place.

The content of the dream wasn't more frightening than usual, but the disorientation and difficulty waking up really shook me up.