I awoke from a nightmare, my face was covered in sweat. I felt my heart pound and the feeling of sorrow taking over my whole body. After gaining some composure, I looked around my room. The curtain was slightly open and the moon was illuminating the room, partially. I took a deep breath and tried to get back to sleep, but to no avail. I switched on my light and sat at my desk that was on the right side of my room. I put my head down and closed my eyes, it felt like forever, but I finally started to drift to sleep.
"Damien..." A pair of hands started to shake me, "Damien, what are you doing sleeping at your desk?" I finally recognized the voice as Gram.
I almost forgot how I got there myself, "Huh...? Oh, I had a nightmare and I felt like sitting here, I guess I fell asleep," I shook my head trying to wake myself up, "What time is it?"
"It's almost nine-thirty," She smiled.
I quickly jumped out of my seat, "Oh man, school!" I started running around my room. Book bag, clothes, shoes, homework, "Homework! I forgot to do my homework!" I started freaking out.
"Damien, Damien...it's Saturday..." The look of concern growing on her face, "I think we should go see a psychiatrist for your anxiety."
After a few weeks of searching, my grandparents found a psychiatrist. Dr. Alex McDowell; he was a short man, black hair, brown eyes, at least late 30's early 40's. I walked through the door of his office, nervous and dreading the fact that I was there in the first place. He greeted me with a nice smile and told me to sit. The room was dim lit, but calming at the same time, pictures of doves and other various birds hung on the walls. There were two chairs opposite of eachother, next to them was a small table with flowers sitting on top of them. I sat in the chair facing his work desk, he sat across from me.
"So Damien, tell me about yourself," Dr. McDowell smiled.
"Don't you already know mostly everything about me?" I smirked, "From what my grandparents told you, from the research you probably dug up about me, my past. Why do I need to tell you what you already know?"
He laughed, "You've got a keen eye for this sort of thing, I see you also have a good sense of humor as well. Alright, then tell me about your nightmares, that seems to be the cause of a lot of your stress."
I hesitated, "...Well, I guess my nightmares have been the same for a while now, that night, and their death. I'm still haunted by it, I know it's been three years, but...It's one of those things that's impossible to get over."
Dr. McDowell started writing notes on his clipboard, he looks up, "Well what you went through, it's hard to get over something like that, especially at your age."
I gazed at the floor for a bit, it was hard to talk about this sort of thing, and I thought people like Dr. McDowell really didn't care. They saw this sort of thing all the time. I tried to speak, but the words took a while to come out, "It is hard," I said trying to swallow any tears that made an attempt to escape. I stared up at him as he wrote more down on his clipboard. I thought to myself, 'He must think I'm some kind of nut job,' but I didn't say anything.
"Do you want to talk about your parents death?" That one struck a chord and made me uneasy, he said that without hesitation, "Your thoughts or feelings from that night? If it's not too hard, maybe tell me what happened?"
A sigh of relief came over me, the words 'If it's not too hard' made me feel better, it was reasuring that, even though he said if I want to talk about it, he gave me a choice if I did or didn't. I paused for a second, then said, "Sure."
After the session was over, I shook Dr. McDowell's hand and walked out his door. I was greeted to my grandparents smiling, "So Damien, how'd it go?" Grump asked.
"I don't like him..." I said as I walked past with a cold look in my eye, "But...he seems to know a lot about this sort of thing, so I want to come back another time."
Gram followed me, Grump watched me walk away for a second. I couldn't tell you what he was thinking, hell I don't even know. He started to chuckle, "Looks like we picked the right psychiatrist."
I smirked a bit, attempting to brush off the thoughts running through my head, 'My parents had died when I was thirteen, the gunshots were loud enough to wake the dead. At the time I was asleep. I was dreaming about wandering into my Dad's office when he wasn't there. His office was where he wrote his books, and of course being thirteen gave me reason to be a little nosey at times. I don't remember what I was looking for, but I just liked to investigate. We lived in a big house, so I thought maybe our house had some kind of secrets, so I would go explore random places to see what I'd find. The gunshots woke me before I got to any interesting part of the dream. The gun fire finally ceased, then after ten minutes of hesitation to go downstairs, I finally did...'
"Damien, I know you don't like him, but give him a chance, okay?"
I looked over to her, with a reassuring smile, "I know, Gram."
That night seemed to drag on, besides the pile of homework on my desk, I was sitting there dazed, just thinking about the dream I had the night my parents died. To me, it seemed like that dream had some significance. Possibly a real memory of when I was young, I had to find out more. I searched through books, and ran through anything involving memories and dreams. I came across 'Lucid Dreaming,' though not what I was looking for, helped me better understand how one's self could be fully aware they're in a dream.
Another thing I came across in my search was memory retrieval, in a sense, one could forcibly remember something they'd forgotten so long ago. Possibly even by ways of hypnosis..."That's it!" I accidently cried out. "I'll ask Dr. McDowell if there's anyway to hypnotize me into remembering that dream, and maybe even what happens next."
