Another Glimpse Of Hell: An Amusing Bit Of Auto-Suggestion

PRONE TO NIGHTMARES?  DRINK BEER

One who is very dear to me gave me her ring.

It's not a particularly valuable ring.  It's one of those inexpensive one-size-fits-all ornaments and was probably bought at low cost, although she'd had it so long she didn't remember how she came to have it.  It is, however, quite attractive and I like it very much, so I've been wearing it continuously, only taking it off to take a shower.

In fact, it's become such a part of me that I feel a bit incomplete when I'm not wearing it.  Which probably accounts for the fact that I've gradually come to regard it as a kind of amulet, one that provides an invisible layer of protection around me as an 'emanation' of the loving closeness that exists between her and myself.  That's how my mind works^^.

Anyhow, last night as I was getting ready for bed I realized I was not wearing the ring.  I knew where it must be -- there is a designated place in the bathroom where it goes when I take it off to shower -- and I started to go to fetch it, but then a thought struck me.

I had been going to sleep wearing the ring every night, feeling secure and protected by the feel of the ring around my finger and knowing that no ghosts or closet-monsters could disturb my sleep while I wore it.  So what if I suddenly went to sleep without it one night -- would spooks be alerted to my sudden defenseless state and take advantage of it?  Would I be haunted by ghosts and monsters this night if I did not put the ring on?

Feeling rather mischievous and adventurous, I decided to try the experiment.  I got into bed without the ring and covered up securely right up to my chin (because, as everybody knows, closet monsters cannot touch your head or your blanket, so you're safe as long as you're covered up like a burrito with only your face peeking out -- it's a universal rule), hoping against hope that some kind of encounter would take place.

Well, as it turned out, my sleep actually was disturbed.  Not by a monster as such, but by a nightmare.  One that resembled a typical teenager-friendly horror movie^^.  In the dream I was walking down a corridor in what appeared to be a hospital, along with a couple of companions -- one male, one female.  It was painted all white, and starkly lit by livid flourescent lights on the ceiling.  We were going toward the parking lot exit that we knew was some distance ahead and down a right fork.  Even though there were no windows, I knew it was night outside, and fittingly, there were no other people as we walked on.  But then, we were joined by someone -- or rather, half of someone -- moving alongside us.  It was the upper half of a man -- head, arms and torso -- sliding alongside us on some kind of wheeled platform.  That was startling enough, but what made it extra disturbing was the fact that whatever device he was riding on was not working very well, and like a shopping cart with a defective wheel, he could not move straight ahead but kept veering into the path of my female companion and tangling with her legs.  We just walked on quickly, afraid to stop or speak to him.  But then a second character appeared that was even more disturbing:  this one may have been a custodian, because he was pushing what looked like a giant squeegee in front of him as he walked, sweeping up a quantity of crumb-like debris as he went.  The debris was pink and some of it was red and wet;  it turned out to be little bits and pieces of a human body, and all the pieces were still alive and moving.  An eye was among them.  The man handed the 'squeegee' to me and I had to take over as the sweeper.  We were now totally panicked and began to earnestly sprint toward the exit.  Along the way I saw a large clear plastic box crammed full with the human crumbs;  an eye inside it blinked at me.  As we ran toward the parking lot, where my car was waiting in the darkness (the image that flashed in my dream mind was that of my actual car in waking life, bless 'er), more scary creatures appeared and started to chase us, and among them may have been the lower half of the half-man on a platform, but these new characters were just vague extras in the background and I don't remember them clearly.  As we ran pell-mell toward the exit I awoke.  With a full bladder.  Was I glad I'd drunk a bottle of beer that evening!

So that's what happened with my experiment.  Doubtless it was the suspicion/expectation of something happening because I did not have the protection of the 'amulet' that caused the monsters that were expected to appear, appear.  In a dream, if not in waking life.  Actually, I can see where some of the elements of the dream came from.  The half-man bore a certain resemblance in both face and size to Peter Dinklage, the dwarf actor whose photo I had seen earlier that day in an online blurb about the new X-Men movie.  The hospital setting was probably inspired by the fact that on the day before this I'd been informed of a friend being hospitalized.  As for my car loyally accompanying me into the dream, surely it's due to the fact that it's just a few months old and I feel very secure and comfortable driving it.  The rest feels like a hodge-podge of any number of horror movies I've seen that have a claustrophobic feel and a body-horror theme -- Jacob's Ladder, Silent Hill, and Dead Girl, to mention just three.

Or it might be that my lack of protection did attract a spook after all... and that while I slept there was a spectral monster squatting over me like in the painting by Fuseli, making me have a bad dream.

Related Posts:  Custom-made hells;  More musings on hell