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NIGHTMARES
My childhood home in Florida
was nestled right in the heart of Gulf Breeze, just across a long bridge that
led to Pensacola. If you’ve never been there, you’re missing a lot of slow and
sunny days. But not much else.
3 mile bridge from Gulf Breeze to Pensacola! |
Throughout the three years
we lived there, I had this recurring nightmare: hundreds of people are milling
about on the Pensacola bridge. It is the grand opening of the bridge (this bridge actually opened in 1960, but whatever), and
balloons and kiosks are set up all over the place. Don’t ask me. It’s a dream.
In my dreams, bridge openings requite kiosks that sell newspapers with headlines about the
bridge opening. Because obviously, the people there couldn’t figure that out on
their own.
Everyone is having a
fabulous “yay it’s a new bridge!” sort of day. Suddenly, the clouds roll in and
the sky becomes black as night. A floating vampire dressed exactly like Dracula
appears in the sky. He swoops down and grabs a beautiful woman with blonde
hair. She is wearing a tight red dress. (Let’s all take a moment to
remember that I am like FIVE years old here. What the hell?) In the instant
that Dracula look-alike escapes with the gorgeous blonde, a tidal wave crashes
over the bridge.
And then I would wake up.
Years later, on one of my
trips to visit my grandparents back in Gulf Breeze, I had a new vampire
nightmare. In this dream, horrific creatures chased me, and I knew they were vampires
that wanted to kill me. During my dream, I remembered my nightmares from my
childhood and realized I was dreaming. I turned and screamed at the vampires,
“You’re not real!”
And I woke up, sweating and
entirely creeped out.
I think this was about the
same time I decided Florida was no longer a whimsical and fun-loving vacation
spot.
What a terrifying, yet amazingly creative nightmare...and you caught the vampire archetype far before "vampire fever" hit, decades later. I think my earliest nightmare was of riding a tricycle in circles in the backyard while some vague dreadful thing approached--something enormous, that sounded like a storm. I think yours is a lot scarier.
ReplyDeleteIf only I had written a blossoming vampire love story back then!! :D I love how you describe your nightmare -- "sounded like a storm"
DeleteLaughs! Did you know that (according to what I recall reading) having color in your dreams is fairly rare?
ReplyDeleteHow odd that you remember this dream so clearly, down to the red dress on the woman.
I have heard that about color! It's always seemed strange to me, since all my dreams are in HD. :) I actually remember many of my childhood dreams and many of my stories come from dreams. I'm just a weird dreamer!
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