What dreams are made of..

So I had a dream last night. I tend to take my dreams more seriously then I let people know, though it probably wouldn't make a difference to them. I'm labeled crazy already, I'm sure this only adds to the insanity. No, that's not the reason I don't say much about it. I have very authentic dreams, as well as nightmares. I believe they're my mind's way of processing what I usually repress or ignore, during the day.

If I'm worried about something, it usually comes out as anxiety in my dreams. If I'm angry, it reflects as causing others pain. If I'm excited and happy, my dreams become unrealistic and plain weird. I usually wake up laughing from those, or wondering about how it ever made logical sense while I was experiencing the dream.

Then there's the nightmares. They only occur when someone I care about is hurting. The less I can do about it, the less I can help, the worse the nightmare. I've never really taken the time to think that through and write it down, to maybe understand it better, and perhaps easing the intensity of them. Till now.

I didn't have a nightmare, last night, but something occured in the dream that had me thinking about a particular nightmare, when I woke up. Despite my nightmares being so realistic, this one really scared the shit out of me. Normally, when dreaming, you don't register the things I registered that night. How the temperature and humidity changed when I entered a room. The feeling of my eyes blinking and trying to adjust to the darkness. The ecchoing of my footsteps. The smell of a closed, wet room.

I've woken up screaming twice in my life, in horror and panic over whatever it is my subconscious has tried to show me. Those two times don't come anywhere near how I felt when I woke from this one. I was sure it had been real. I could still smell the blood, feel it on my hands, taste it in the air. I was ice cold all over, despite the blankets and the cat warming me.

And I couldn't get the voice out of my ears, it kept screaming in pain, kept telling me to stay away, kept telling me it was my fault.

It took me weeks, before I was finally able to go to bed, without being scared of dreaming that again. I sometimes experience periods of time, it can be days or weeks, where I'm haunted by nightmares every night. I barely get any sleep during those periods. It's not the nightmares that keeps me awake, it's the fear of that one nightmare. I never, ever want to wake up from that again. I think I'd rather just die, before experiencing someone suffer like that, again.

I'd rather take the pain myself, then see someone I care about go through it. If I can bear that pain, I will. Because seeing people I love suffer that much, hurts more then the pain ever could.