Creepy, creepy dream last night.
Basically, there was this nightmare ghost that came around at night, and it killed people. This might or might not have been a result of the earlier part of the dream, where we broke into this creepy old library. (There's nothing quite like shelves upon shelves of dusty old books and movies set up inside something that looks like an abandoned bomb shelter to make you wonder what the hell you just stepped into... and, yes, you can have that reaction even when you're dreaming.)
So anyway, there's a point that I sometimes hit in certain horror movies, where I'm tired of the suspense and I just want to go confront the monster and get it over with -- even if it kills me. Which was basically how I ended up grabbing the nightmare-ghost as it was creeping up under my blanket. (Yes, I was sleeping in my dreams. Apparently I'm ready for a starring role in Inception II.) And pulling the ghost up to where I could see it. And demanding to know what it was doing and what it wanted.
It turned out to be the ghost of the younger sister of one of my old college friends. Not anybody in particular, not anybody from real life; but in this dream-identity I'd spend a lot of time partying with this girl. And her younger sister, who was now a ghost, was the one who always got ignored and left behind. And her hands were all scarred because when she'd bring people beer bottles (in a pathetic bid for attention) she'd have to use her teeth on top of her fingers to get them open.
So I opened a couple of bottles for her, and that kind of settled her down. At least, she quit being scary, and she didn't kill anybody else. I was never entirely sure if she was going to come back, but she never did.
Now that I'm awake, I can be more flippant about the whole thing and point out that returning from beyond the grave to murder people seems a little extreme as a reaction to being ignored; I mean, it's not the sort of thing that leads people to say, "Oh, she's not a bad kid, this is just a cry for help." But in the dream, that was pretty much how it worked, and it was pretty NFBSKing creepy.
Kids who are relentlessly ignored sometimes end up killing themselves. I'm sure the idea of coming back as ghosts to take their sweet, sweet revenge would appeal to them.
ReplyDeleteI'm just going to consider myself lucky that the dream didn't go into quite that level of detail about the dynamic behind the haunting. That's right about the point where I stop wanting to go to sleep any time for the next week or two.
ReplyDeleteBut yes: being ignored can be pretty horrible, and as motivation for a vengeful ghost really not so hard to believe.