Lilac Bushes
I rarely have nightmares. Usually, my dreams are lucid, so if it looks like it's going to be a bad dream, I prevent them from happening by either changing it or just waking up.
However, there are a few that I have no control over. These are the dreams stick with me for years. It isn't as creepy as some other dream, but I couldn't sleep well for a while.
So onto the dream:
…
It was a dark and stormy night- No, seriously. That's how it started. The thunder rolled in the background as I listened to my husband get ready for work. Except it wasn't exactly our house. It was my home where I lived my teenage years.
In the dream, the layout had changed a little. We were upstairs, but the bathroom was actually between us and stairway, which is odd in retrospect since there was no reason for it to be there. It was a dream, however, and since when they followed real-world logic?
I decided to get up with him. I don't remember going down the stairs, but I do remember walking the long dark hallway that ran from the kitchen to the living room. In real life, the stairway was at the beginning of the hall, next to the kitchen. I don't remember it being so long in real life. By the time I reached the end of the hallway, I knew that there was no power because of the storm.
Suddenly I had a flashlight, and I used it to look around the living room.
The wall that was supposed to be the original logs on the opposite side of the room was transparent, and I could see outside. The storm was terrible, and I could see a lot of tree damage. I can also see what I thought was someone checking out the area. I first thought that he was looking to see if anyone needed help. He appeared to rummage through some downed branches.
I flashed my flashlight at him to let him know that we were here. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea, but in the dream, I guess that's what you do. The figure didn't respond.
I thought that maybe he either didn't see me or he may be up to no good. So I headed back to the kitchen. Why I didn't open the French doors in the living room, I have no idea. I guess the kitchen door was a better option.
When I reached the kitchen, I opened the back door.
"Is there something I can help you with?" I called out.
The man turned towards me, and he had no face. He was just a dark shadow. At that moment, things slowed down to a crawl, and I knew something was very wrong.
"I'm coming to get you!" he said in a low guttural tone and started towards me.
I tried to step back into the kitchen, but it was like moving in molasses.
I screamed, "Mike! Get your gun!" very slowly, as I worked hard to try to get the door closed quickly.
At this moment, I knew I was dreaming. I forced myself awake.
It was still dark outside. I worked to get comfortable again. Considering that I was eight months pregnant at the time, it took a little while. Then I went back to sleep.
I found myself standing outside of the same house in the previous dream. I can see the mountain view I saw every clear morning when I fed the farm animals as a kid. It was wet everywhere as if rained heavily.
This time, I knew I was dreaming.
I wanted to know if "it" was there.
I walked past the house to where the lilac bushes are, and sure enough, a dark shadow emerged, and everything slowed down as before. This time instead of running away, I punched it. Hey, I was dreaming. I knew I could.
"What do you want?!" I yelled.
I did my best not to let it touch me. I had a feeling that if I allow it get a hold of me, it would be over somehow.
He responded in the same guttural tone, but I couldn't understand him.
I punch it again. "What?! What do you want with me?!"
Another guttural response.
I was waking up. I tried my best to stay asleep, but couldn't. I asked again, then while it was responding, I woke up.
For a few years after, every time I would dream about this place, I would get a sense of dread as if someone or something is out to get me, and I would wake up. After a while, if the area even resembles childhood home or yard, I would instantly wake up without really knowing if I was dreaming or not. It was as if my brain was trying to protect me, somehow.
A few years later, while visiting my parents, my mother found some family photos. She explained that some might have been lost, but I could go through them and scan the ones I want to keep.
I took this as an opportunity to try to convince myself (either consciously or subconsciously) that there was no ghost by seeing if there were any "signs" of paranormal activities. You know, orbs, light strobes, dark shadows, etc. It's stupid on the surface, I know, but I also know how the placebo effect works too. If you can convince yourself that there is no problem, then your body follows suit.
As I flipped through the photos, I found nothing of the sort. It was my siblings and I as kids, doing kid stuff with the animals, kid stuff with the snow (one year it was over three feet deep, and we made snow tunnels), and kid stuff with school activities.
I scanned as many photos as I could. We were leaving for Texas so that I couldn't finish. No matter, we'll be back, and I could finish them then, baring a house fire that could destroy them.
We packed everything into our camper and moved to the campground several days later. I finally dreamed of our childhood home. No dark entity, no ghosts, and no creepiness. I knew I was dreaming and I let it play out. It was a flying dream, why wouldn't I?
I went through the pictures again on my laptop the next day. Life wasn't perfect, I had a lot of trouble with my foster siblings, but it wasn't bad either.
Then I realized that I had no pictures of the lilac bushes.
The lilac bushes were on the other side of the wall of the living room. It was the same side of the house where we used to play a lot. My younger siblings made a "fort" under the bushes that we could hide in when the leaves were out in the spring. We cut countless of flowers for the kitchen vase that my mom would set out every season. Yet, there were no photos that included that area of the house.
It was on the Northeast side. It was colder and darker than the rest. The snow and frost melted there last, but it was an excellent place to play in the heat of the summer. It was the same area where that dark entity was in my dream.
I remember taking photos with a 35mm camera of those flowers, but I haven't seen them anywhere. As a matter of fact, I don't remember seeing them at all. In hindsight, it could have been those photos that never developed or perhaps it was the ones that came out overexposed.
Unlike digital cameras, you couldn't just look at them right after you took the shot. You had to wait until the entire roll was filled, then send it in, and then wait about a week (unless you want to pay more for the one-hour photo shack). By the time you got them, you pretty much forgot what was on them. At the time, I supposed, I didn't give it much thought until I thought about typing this to share.
I still haven't had any similar nightmarish dreams. If any of them are memorable, it usually ties in with the day's events, parenting anxieties, and the most recent crappy life's events that are not worth the "creepy" title. I have done some research on dreams, and it seems my dreams are pretty much textbook.
I haven't visited the house either. It's in the middle of nowhere, on a dead-end road that turns into a driveway for the house, so I always felt a little uncomfortable of driving up into someone's driveway.
However, I still wonder, on occasion, that if the shadow in the dream was tied to a life event that was traumatic enough to be repressed, or there is something lurking in the lilac bushes.