I have a theory that when I wake up from a bad dream it means I died in said dream. Now I know this isn’t new and a lot of people agree our brains don’t know what it’s like after we die, so we just wake up.

For me though, I don’t think I’ve ever actually dreamed of myself being killed or dying (that I can remember). Instead it seems I wake up several scenes before it would get to that point which is kind of weird to me. After all the horror/thriller movies I’ve watched I know my brain definitely has the material work with and yet it just doesn’t happen.

Let’s take the most recent dream which left me feeling that weird…I don’t know if it’s anxiety or adrenaline or a racing heartbeat. In the dream I was being stalked, the person was arrested, and I was driving with a friend somewhere to unwind. During the drive I started to realize the wrong person had been arrested and it was my ‘friend’ who was doing it the whole time. Then the dream jumped to me in a hotel bathroom trying to get service to call the police. The door was locked and my friend was trying to get in to see if I was okay; growing more and more aggressive as time went on. I couldn’t get service for the life of me and eventually my friend was able to chip out a bit of one of the slots on the door that look like permanently closed blinds to peek through. I was having trouble moving properly and I’m pretty sure I was drugged, but I tried to stay calm and not let them see I was crying/freaking out while trying to text 9.1.1. instead.

What happened next? I don’t know. My last memory of the dream before waking up was managing to pull myself close to the window to try and get reception to send the text.

I think it’s pretty safe to assume I didn’t send the text. Or that I didn’t make it period, but that’s A-okay. I’ve never really looked into the meaning behind dreams or anything except for the whole “if I wake up in a bad situation then I didn’t make it” bit, so there really isn’t much I can say about it. What I can say though is maybe it’s my fear of death that makes it so my dreams never really dip into the dying stage? It certainly makes enough sense on my end.

Artist: oshtu