Baaaad Dream!

Oh, man... I had some terrible dreams last night!

I woke up gasping after the first one, which was a typical weird dream. I was at the Dragon Boat races (which I'll blog about later). But something went terribly wrong, so Adam and my dad jumped into a boat -- I think it was an effort to save somebody's life, but I can't remember details... I do remember feeling a heightened sense of urgency and fear, though. While the guys did that, my mom and I set off on a different "mission", which was also very urgent. Again, I can't remember details, but we head away from the water. I wish I could remember what was all happening around us.

We found out a short while after leaving my dad and Adam that the boat tipped over in some rough water... maybe the "thing" that went terribly wrong was some sort of strange, sudden bad weather? Well, the boats tipped over in torrent waters, and both Adam and my dad drowned, and I was able to actually see them screaming and trying to stay afloat. They had on red life jackets, but couldn't stay above water. I don't know if something was pulling them under or what. But then it got quiet and I saw them both floating face down, and the water went calm. I was hysterically crying in my dream, almost hyperventilating when I found out, and I suddenly found myself all alone. I don't know where my mom went.

The next thing I remember is walking back to my apartment, alone, trying to decide what to do. I think I began to feel angry, and the only peace I could find was in the thought that I could put on my backpack and just disappear. Then I started to think about Adam and my dad and how much I already missed them, and that's when I woke up.

I rolled over and squeezed Adam so hard he probably missed a couple of breaths, even with his CPAP machine on... I was so glad to have woken up and realized it was all just a terrible dream.

Then I fell back asleep and had another one!!

This time I was backpacking. I was sharing a tent with a girl that I don't know. She had long, brown hair and braces, and was wearing a goofy blue and gray stocking cap that was kind of loose; almost falling off. We were laughing and talking about backpacking. I know that I wasn't really close to this person, in fact, I think we may have just met and were sharing a tent on our trip. We had just crawled inside to get some sleep and we were both kind of propped up on one elbow chatting. She looked at me as she shuffled through some of her bags and said, "I kept out these snacks in case we get hungry in the middle of the night."

I looked up at her and said in a surprisingly fun way, "You silly, we need to hang all the food, otherwise critters or bears can smell it and might try to get into the tent to get at it."

The fire was going outside, so you could see the glow from the flames. She looked up at me and we both kind of laughed, then we heard some twigs crack outside the tent. We both got stone-face and looked at each other with huge eyes and listened.

I started to see the shadow of a figure creep up the side of the tent behind my tent-mate. It stood taller and taller. Too tall for a raccoon, a wolf, or even a bear. I then realized it was the shadow of a person! Before I could think or say anything, the shadow's arm very slowly reached over, and the figure was holding a handgun! The shadow of the gun was pointed directly at the girl's head.

A second later, I heard shots fired off in the woods and flashes of light from the ends of gun barrels.

Then I woke up.

Every once in a while the image of that girl sitting in front of me, and the shadow of a person holding a gun to her head outside of our tent comes back into my mind and I get the shivers.

So, yeah... might be even a longer time before I get the courage to go solo backpacking. I always say I'm not that afraid of the bears, raccoons, wolves... whatever animals might be creeping around me at night... it's the strange people that I might not know how to deal with by myself that truly scare me. The chances of running into a weirdo in the middle of the woods is SO extremely rare, but after that dream, it's just gonna take a while to get that burnt image out of my brain! Ugh...

I hope for sweet dreams tonight. Rainbows, butterflies, waterfalls, rainbows, butterflies, waterfalls, rainbows, butterflies, waterfalls.............