Recurring Nightmares...

[sultrysquirrel]

I didn't realize I'd been having a sort of recurring dream for the last couple weeks until this morning. Not entirely recurring, but recurring location and recurring character. In my dreams, there is a run down castle or keep of some sort… more like a big tower, imagine a smokestack if you will. If you walk in and turn the corner to the right, there is a set of stairs. The stairs turn right again and go back across the breadth of the tower, suspended in the air. There is no railing, just a walkway that you can see from the ground where you came in, ending in an open doorway that is not so much crumbling as aged and worn with small debris around the opening. About halfway across the walkway is another walkway, perpendicular to the first. Once it goes a certain distance it makes a ninety degree turn left and disappears into another doorway. Now from my earlier dreams, I know that somewhere behind the open doorways are two rooms that have an adjoining wall, debris scattered about the floor, rats, etc. In the room that the main walkway goes into, there is a secret passageway that goes down into some sort of dungeon far below the tower… (this was in my other dreams and I don't remember what was down there, I just remember it was unpleasant. I believe it's the home of the recurring character which I'll tell you about in a second). In the room that the second walkway runs into is, if I remember, also a hidden passageway. That is the exit to the dungeon from below… either that or you exit the dungeon on the main floor below where you come in. I can't recall completely on that one. Either way, the recurring character is a sort of Quasimodo-ish type character (best description I can think of at this point). He is either (and I say either because my memory is fuzzy on exactly what he looks like) misshapen, skin seeming to slide off his bones in places, with a strange shuffling gait and his clothing fitting but tattered or he looks like the Dr. from Who Framed Roger Rabbit when he turns into half toon/half human at the end, but with the toonish features on a human, if that makes sense. He has very evil eyes, very shrewd and bright irregardless of his physical appearance… and a wicked smile. I don't remember what happened in the previous dreams… I just remember him, and the tower. In last nights dream (or this morning, not sure which), I was in the tower with a bunch of people… they hadn't been there before and I was uneasy as all hell to be there, just being in the place made me shiver. I don't know why exactly I brought them there, but I did. We went inside and they started for the stairs, I warned them against it, but they wouldn't listen, laughing and talking. I reluctantly followed them. As we started across the first walkway and disappeared into the main room, the camera panned back and you could see the evil guy come out from the back room and start across the perpendicular walkway. I didn't show my friends the secret passageway down to the dungeon and when they were finished exploring we headed back to the walkway. As we were hitting the walkway intersection, I noticed the evil guy coming towards us. Somehow, maybe he was running at us, I'm not sure, there was a scuffle and we were all knocked off the bridge to the ground below. He had a pocket knife of some sort and was trying to attack me with it. When we fell a bunch of his goons were down below… maybe 3-4 of them. In the ensuing scuffle, somehow I got the knife and he laid on the ground, one of the goons lay on the other side of me. My back was the the middle of the room and the goon was closer to the wall… (I can see this all in my head, sorry if it's not clear on placement of people, I could draw this if I had any artistic skills). All my other friends were somewhere across the room, waiting out the tension as the evil guy and I spoke to each other… we had some sort of a strange relationship… I wish I remember what had happened down in the dungeon in the previous dreams… the conversation sort of played on that. At some point during it all, I started to write a letter, or answer an email or something, putting all of my attention to that. When I finished, I looked up. My friends were looking at me aghast, the evil guy was grinning his wicked grin and had moved to the other side of me, his lackey was near my friends. I looked down toward my hand that had been holding the knife and it was gone. The evil guy held it up to me and smiled. I felt as if I'd let everyone down and a sense of terror swept through me. He grabbed me from behind, one arm around my stomach, pinning my arms to my sides, the other holding the knife up to my chest. He pushed me against a high counter of some sort (it came up to about mid ribcage so I couldn't lean over or bend or anything). He then scraped the skin from my chest up to my throat, it felt like he was trying to shave me with a very dull razor and pressing really hard. I said "ow" and then in my head in the dream I thought that if he slit my throat, ‘ow’ would be a bit of an understatement. I felt stupid saying it with my friends sitting so close and being tortured or who knows what. I could only catch glimpses of them out of the corner of my eye. He then proceeded to say things in my ears and forced me to say all sorts of things loud enough so my friends could hear… things meant to demean me and them. I don't remember what they were. I remember saying them through gritted teeth and wishing he would just slit my throat…

Then I woke up…

I think I'll stop sleeping for a while... maybe it'll go away...

I remember when I walked into the place this time that I'd been there before, I had a sense of foreboding. When I saw the evil guy again, I remembered him, remembered the feel of his breath on my skin... unpleasant...

Discuss... someone interpret this for me... cause I can't.