Nightmares and Murder

I awoke before daylight this morning in the midst of one of the scariest nightmares I’ve had in quite some time. And like most nightmares, the memory quickly began to fade. Since I had no intention to write about it at all, the memory has faded even more now that over seven hours have passed.

What I do remember is that there was a stunningly beautiful woman in this dream that I had come to fear because of my unnaturally strong attraction to her. I also remember that someone else became involved with me in an attempt to do something to her with a red hot length of metal. I jerked awake to the image of her stroking her beautiful cheeks with the red hot metal (which now looked like a dagger) – while saying, with a smile, how it would help to maintain her complexion.

So that’s how my day started. And why am I telling you this? Well it’s what happened at noon that provided the next shocker for the day, and brought about the urge to remember the dream. If you’ve paid any attention at all to my writings here, you’ll be aware of my struggles to deal with the ramifications of having grown up amongst violent and intensely superstitious people. I wouldn’t dream of discussing this dream with them because I know that listening to their attempts to “interpret” it would be worse that the dream itself. And getting into a debate with them over such issues has never been a good idea.

Well anyway, there I was watching the noon news, and what do I see but a photo of my great-nephew who is being reported as on the run from that law after having murdered his estranged girlfriend last night. I called my son in to see the rest of the report and, after we sat in stunned silence for a minute, we began to discuss what we knew of his personality and guessing at why he might have done such a thing.

We both agreed that he was the kind of person that didn’t handle things not going his way very well – at all. My son said that his experience with his second cousin was that he thought that the women in his life were his “property” and that he could see him possibly becoming violent with one that didn’t do what he wanted. I simply verbalized a guess that perhaps he had found one that he’d become so attached to that he simply couldn’t handle her not wanting to be with him. And that’s when I thought of the dream.

I remembered all the times, during the ordeal of my marriage, when my mother and sister had speculated that my wife must have some “unnatural” hold on me or else I would have separated from her before it ever developed into such a disaster. I won’t bore you by repeating some of the bizarre things they told me that women would do to maintain control over their men. You can use your imagination, and your experience watching horror movies, to give you some idea of what I’m talking about. What’s important is that hearing all this stuff, and remembering having heard things like that before while growing up, had been giving me nightmares at that time similar to the one I had last night.

So what am I trying to say here? I’m not really sure. All I know is that the scientific thinker in me says that my dream is not some phenomena of clairvoyance or precognition. But the small child in me that still shudders from the stories of my childhood is nevertheless shuddering again today. And, assuming my great-nephew is actually guilty of this terrible crime, then there is absolutely no excuse for it and he should pay whatever price the law requires. But considering that he no doubt heard a lot of the same nonsense growing up that I did, I can’t say that I’m surprised that he grew up to be a dangerous lunatic.

I want ice water.