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February 26, 2005

nightmare hotline gives you so much more

I dreamed I was walking down the hall to get to my apartment, and as I turned my key into the lock, a man with curly redhair and thick, disdainful mouth shoved me inside the room and planted a syringe into my arm. It was called Orfine and turned the edge of everything I touched into razorblades, so I couldn’t open the door or escape through a window. Panicked, I asked with all my might for another dream, and it worked. I then dreamed of an old scholar in a dark armchair, with a pile of horror paperbacks beneath his feet. He was addressing me solemnly, as mean orange gleams filled the room. “Read these scary stories at daylight, after lunch or while commuting, not before going to bed.”

I woke up and thought about my dream for a long time. Despite its perceived ‘controlled’ resolution and the silliness of it, I was still feeling anxious and upset. The bad thoughts lingered over breakfast, and I remembered about the free Nightmare Hotline I read about a while ago, on slowwave.com. I had carved the number on my placemat for fun, but never thought about calling. Until something drew me to it this afternoon.

The prerecorded greeting and bad musak reminded me of prank calls to the Mr. Christie’s cookies Hotline and the likes, in company of giggling schoolmates. I suddenly felt that the nightmare volunteers’ goodwill shouldn’t be sneered at and I was about to hang up, when a lady came on the phone.

Her voice was frail and old, but also warm and soothing. I felt self-conscious, not sure if I could let my reserve go. I asked if they offered interpretations, or consigned the dreams for research, or something else. She left a few seconds of silence extend between our voices before saying, dreams cannot be interpreted, only dreamt, and told. She invited me to share a childhood nightmare, and I went on from there.

One of the interesting aspects she mentioned was in regards to the themes and symbols that a recurring nightmare involve, and how theory suggests that a parallel can be established with an unresolved issue in the dreamer’s waking life. She said that maybe the dreams just parallel and feed one another, their meaning contained within themselves. She told me some funny and twisted moon indian tales, of giant bears found to be frauds, of dreams used as smoke signals. Unlike me writing this down, the lady conveyed such an empathy, a gracious curiosity towards the strange nighttime workings of our minds, that the thought of this old woman giving all her attention to strangers’ nightmares, and providing comfort (perhaps the same way she once cared for her own tearful children, awaking in a sweat), the thought simply overjoy me.

Posted by nathalie at February 26, 2005 6:37 PM