based on a true story the nightmare
Have you ever had one of those dreams, where you dream you’re doing something, only to wake up and realize you’re almost acting out your dream in real time? The most common instance of this is the ‘it’s completely normal’ wet dream, though there are many other common instances, especially in sleepwalkers, where you see yourself walking along a path, only to wake up and find yourself actually walking somewhere, and other similar scenarios. I, despite no longer being a sleepwalker, have one such story myself, from my childhood.
The year was 1996, I was 5 years old, and had recently lost my great grandmother. I was having these weird ongoing nightmares at the time, where someone would call my name.
I woke with a start, standing in the hallway outside of my room, peering into the blackness of the quiet family home. I turned around, stumbling sleepily back into my room, remembering the dream like a far off memory, and directly in front of me, the window that once sat above my bed sat empty, shattered, with its glass fragments dug into my mattress, exactly where I would have been had I not been sleepwalking…
To this day, I don’t know what caused the window to shatter, nor how the glass had managed to embed itself so deeply into the bed, nor do I know if my sleepwalking was a lucky coincidence that saved my life, or an intervention from another being. If you’re looking for a nice clean ending where everything is wrapped up and explained nicely, I’m sorry to disappoint; I’ve been searching for the answers too. Regardless, sometimes the things that scare us most, are those that we’ll never be able to rationally explain.