Writing my post, Nightmares do come true, has creeped me out.
I was taking Toby for a walk this evening when I remembered another nightmare I had a couple of weeks ago. This was a wake-dream, where I was conscious I was lying in bed in the dark, when something came crawling up the blankets from my feet. It was small, white and doughy – like a fat, flabby child – and when it reached my chest, I saw it had no face. Its head was a mass of grey-white lumps. I tried to move my arms to push the malevolent thing off me, but it was like they were nailed to the bed.
The thing kept coming. I remember having the feeling it was a witch. I could feel its weight on me, which struck me as strange given that part of me was telling me all through the horror it was only a nightmare.
When it reached my face, it started sucking air from my mouth, and frighteningly I had a bout of apnoea. I couldn’t move or breathe. As with my arms, my lungs wouldn’t work.
By this time, I was fully awake, and the white thing dissolved into the darkness. It took me a few more seconds for my lungs to start working – a lot longer for the long chains of chills to stop running up and down my spine.
I think it was a dream of a succubus. The world has a long history of succubi – though now it seems it’s been turned into a medical condition called sleep paralysis. But for me, the encounter felt so real I still wonder whether something supernatural visited my room that night. I just hope the awful thing doesn’t come back to finish me off!
Dean Raven 