But What Does It MEAN?!

Early (really early!) this morning, I was awoken from sleep by my subconscious, which had just tortured me with a dream so disturbing that I almost (almost!) called for my mommy. Seriously.

I lay there, paralyzed with fear, my legs cramping up (because I'd somehow been managing to sleep on my back, with my knees up and my feet flat on the bed). I couldn't even check the time, so terrified was I. Finally, I moved my legs very, veeeeeerrrry slowly until I was lying flat on the bed with my eyes screwed shut as tightly as possible, because I knew that the second I opened them, I'd see a flaming skull or something equally nightmarish hovering above my bed, waiting to consume my soul or whatever. (Because, don't deny it - when you wake up from a dream you're convinced that there is SOMETHING in your room, because your brain is going, "There's gotta be something here. Why else would I just wake up out of the blue? There's a presence here, I can just feel it. But I can't open my eyes or it will know that I know that it's here and it can't allow that information to get out and it will KILL ME!!! Maybe if I just lie really still it'll leave me alone...")

So I finally got the courage to open my eyes. Nothing. My room was my room. My bed was my bed. There was no flaming skull, no ghostly shadows, no Marilyn Manson hiding in the corner. I breathed a sigh of relief and kept repeating (in my head, not out loud...just in case) that it was only a dream and that I'd feel stupid thinking about it in the morning.

And I was right.

The dream that inspired five to ten minutes (again, not sure on the times because looking at the clock would have involved moving) of sheer terror?

I dreamed that the wall in my parents' room had a face in the wall, a la the face in Cordelia's wall in that episode of Angel when she rents the haunted apartment. And the face would say vaguely threatening things whilst the pipes overhead leaked water all over the attic in what can only be described as a highly sinister manner. So I looked for a route of escape (naturally), and when I turned around and saw the face again, I knew the jig was up. How did I know this? Was it the face's creepy voice? Had the face become an entire body which was now grabbing for my throat? Were the pipes leaking enough water to drown me almost instantaneously?

No. The face was wearing sunglasses.

That's what scared the bejeezus out of me at three (ballpark guess) in the morning. Not the fact that a wall, which is by its very nature inanimate and, oh yeah, FACELESS, was talking to me (threateningly). I was freaked out by the SUNGLASSES.

And sure, then I tried to escape and the evil forces in the room whipped up a wind that kept pushing me closer and closer to the Wall of Doom, which was not too fun either. But the sunglasses still freaked me out more.

Dear Lord, what is my ISSUE? I think I need a shrink.

Maybe my sunglasses fear stemmed from the fact that I went to the beach with Maria yesterday, which was loads of fun, even though I wiped out really bad and a giant wave sucked me under and deposited me awkwardly and painfully on the sand with my arm twisted behind me (ouuuuch, shoulder in pain!) and water in my mouth and up my nose. I finally got my head out of the water and stood up only to be knocked over again by the next wave. I am sure that it was a very entertaining scene for all the other beachgoers, but at that point I was too glad to be inhaling air and not saltwater and chunks of sand to care what anyone else might have thought of my none-too-graceful moment. But yeah, it was intense - the elastic came right out of my ponytail! Whatever, though. Our beach day was fun and relaxing aside from that one major incident, and I got the beginnings of a nice summer tan (hurrah!). However, along with the nice tan I got a major sunglasses tan line. It's not pretty. So maybe that's where my sunglasses fear is coming from. Oh, and the leaking water represents the whole "my face is in the water and I can't breath!" thing.

Apparently, my subconscious didn't have as much fun at the beach as the rest of me.