The Gravely Journal

Dreams and Nightmares

Growing up in a funeral home, with the trappings of death, grief, and creepiness all around me, you'd think I'd be prone to nightmares. You'd be wrong. I didn't even know what a nightmare was until I looked up the word in the dictionary. Apparently, the term comes from Old English vocabulary with "mare" referring to a mythological demon or goblin. The primary mission of a dastardly mare is to torment and scare the shit out of sleeping people. Naturally, the prefix "night-" was added to stress that this category of dream is more common and worse when it's dark. The dictionary referenced fearfulness in a person's waking life being linked to repeated nightmares. Also, dream studies have led researchers to note that, 75 percent of the time, the emotions evoked by nightmares are negative and unpleasant. Well duh!!

After the break-in at Martha's beauty salon, I had a nightmare.  It was one of those vivid dreams full of sights and sounds and smells. As the dream unfolded, Martha was nowhere to be seen but I was reclining in her treatment chair. My hands were soaking in a heavenly warm tray of paraffin, my face was slathered with a thick layer of an herbal mud mask and, as happens in dreams, I was naked. The salon treatment room was dark, due to the power failure, but there was a sense of calm. After all, Martha was making me look beautiful. Oddly, the purpose of the make-over in my dream wasn't for Healy or any other guy. I was just there for me. If you're into dream interpretation, maybe that meant I was in a happy place, feeling good about myself, which is a positive. Right?