Nightmares

February 19, 2013 by UndercoverL | 14 Comments

Warning: Scary photo ahead.  Do not share with your kids.  Seriously.

I am really stuck when it comes to creativity lately.  I realize that a lot of my lack of success in life stems from the fact that, if I actually do have creativity, I have a very hard time accessing it.  I am creatively stifled when it comes to almost everything in my life.  So, that said, I am relying on the daily prompt for today’s subject: Nightmares.

I had a nightmare a few nights ago, but I woke so suddenly that I forgot it within seconds of opening my eyes.  Now that I am older, I have nightmares that are more germane to my life as it is.  But when I was a very young child, I began having a recurring nightmare that plagued me from the age of 3 until the age of 10.  I was so terrified because of the dreams that I wouldn’t even go to the bathroom by myself.

When I was three years old, my older sisters (who were 10 and 15 at the time) decided that they wanted to watch “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”  For whatever reason, they decided that they wanted me to watch the movie with them.  From that night on I had dreams of Freddy Krueger.  The dreams occurred with enough frequency that I can safely say they were a regular occurrence in my life.

Having young children, I deal with the nightmares that they often have.  (For the record, I do not allow my children to watch movies rated higher than PG.)  When they are scared, I often employ the “black box” theory that I have.  Recently, after a night plagued by nightmares from both children, we spoke about nightmares over breakfast.  I told my children that when I was a child, I would often have nightmares.  I told them how I finally got rid of my nightmares.

One night, after seven years of fear, I had finally had enough.  In my dream, I turned and faced Freddy Krueger.  I told him that he either needed to kill me or to stop chasing me because I was tired of being scared.  I said I would rather die than continue to be scared and running.  Then I woke up.  I never had another nightmare about him or any other fictitious boogie man.

I encouraged my kids to face their nightmares like this and they would be surprised at what their subconscious intelligence could do to their subconscious fears.  I suppose it is a good life lesson: face down your fears and learn to control them so they don’t control you.

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How do you cope with your fears, real or imagined?

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Photo Credit: Freddy

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