The Power of Nightmares
‘White Bear’, the truly unnerving and remarkably horrific 2013 episode of Charlie Brooker’s ‘Twilight Zone’-for-the-twenty-first century series, ‘Black Mirror’, was the main topic of discussion when I saw a close friend the day after its transmission. We were both gobsmacked by the emotional impact of the programme and how ingeniously it tapped into the bloodlust of the modern media mob. My friend said she had a nightmare when retiring to bed that evening, no doubt inspired by how much ‘White Bear’ had unsettled her, and claimed it was the first nightmare she’d had in years. My response to this was one of surprise. ‘You mean you don’t have nightmares every time you fall asleep?’ I asked. I didn’t realise this wasn’t commonplace. I’ve had nightmares all my life. I don’t think I’ve ever slept without having one for company.
Perhaps only having to look at somebody else’s holiday snaps is more boring than having someone recount a dream to you. It’s not as if you’re being told about a great film you have the opportunity to watch yourself following a glowing recommendation. A dream only ever has the one solitary viewer and nobody else can share it. And most are either so predictable or incomprehensible when you receive a review of them that restraining a yawn is as hard as attending a Mariah Carey concert bereft of earplugs.
But there is a distinct difference between a dream and a nightmare. I also occasionally have those dreams wherein things happen to me that are of no interest to anyone else – usually featuring old friends I lost touch with years ago, or deceased relatives who were pivotal figures in my childhood. Occasionally, I have the ‘I’m related to somebody famous’ dream, ones which never select anyone famous I’d actually like to be related to. Past family members include Paula Yates and Debbie Gibson (don’t ask!). Back in the days when my clock radio was tuned into Radio One, the record midway through being spinned as the radio switched itself on would worm its way into a dream rather than waking me up. I remember ‘Vindaloo’ by Fat Les in the summer of ’98 being transformed into an edition of ‘Top of the Pops’ in my dream, one in which Gary Glitter strolled onstage and scooped up a child from the studio audience, something that sparked a few worried ‘ooos’ before said audience burst into laughter at Mr Gadd’s knowing gesture. I can only calculate this must have taken place around the time The Leader paid his fateful visit to PC World
There is an entire landscape mapped out in my dreams – houses, streets and statues in towns that never existed, yet ones I have visited more than once, often years apart and almost always at nightfall. As a writer, I can’t help but be fascinated by the subconscious and what it produces, largely because it is utterly out of my control. When I was a child, I regularly asked my parents why I dream, but never received an adequate answer. I wanted to know why I had a nightmare that placed me on the main road that ran along the bottom of my street – hearing a marching band approaching along that road when it was free of traffic in the middle of the night and then seeing ghostly apparitions of what resembled phantom eighteenth century soldiers slowly plodding towards me like dead veterans of Culloden. That one made such an impression that it remains intact in my memory more than forty years on. Even now, when I hear the strains of a marching band, the sight of that bewigged platoon in tricorn hats is the first image my mind calls upon.
There was also an incident around the same time in which I was convinced a pair of hands grabbed my feet at the bottom of the bed, something that caused such trauma that I kept my feet curled up when going to bed until my mid-teens. And this is the first time I’ve ever publicly admitted that! I’ve subsequently learnt this is a fairly common phenomenon, which makes me feel less of a freak.
My nightmares tend to follow a fairly familiar pattern, in that I regularly find myself marooned in some urban hell hole – a sink estate somewhere or surrounded by old houses in the process of demolition. I visited such a location as the latter a couple of nights ago. Perhaps this taps into my childhood again, in that I was witness to endless demolition, usually old terraced back-to-backs; possibly the fact that my original home went the way of the wrecking ball has something to do with this as well, the lost Nirvana I can never go back to because it’s been erased from the map?
There are times when I abruptly wake in a cold sweat, pretty much believing the nightmare had been reality; it can take several minutes before it dawns on me it was my obstinately active imagination refusing to switch-off even when the rest of me had. Then I wonder if it’s because I’m a writer and I spend so much of the waking hours inhabiting worlds I’ve created that the creative juices continue to flow when I don’t need them. Other theories have been put forward; one is that having a cigarette last thing at night before extinguishing light from the bedroom is to blame. Mind you, I didn’t follow that routine as a child and I was still tormented by nightmares then. I stopped drinking coffee at suppertime and opted for tea in the belief that the final beverage of the day might have been responsible, but it hasn’t made any difference.
I suppose a sensible psychological answer to the mystery of nightmares would be that they’re a manifestation of our most deep-rooted fears. Certainly, when I was once in a band, the recurring dream of stepping up on stage and suddenly finding I’d lost the ability to speak (let alone sing) would back this theory up. Equally, having moved home a lot over the last twenty years, some of the awful residences I’ve been guided around by lying letting agents have no doubt conspired to put the recurring worry of ending up surrounded by crack head chavs into my imagination when I’m not in position to act as guardian of the shit-filter.
I have accepted the fact that when I drift into slumber I’m no longer in possession of where my mind wanders. I do recall a character in Marvel’s ‘Dr Strange’ who went by the name of Nightmare and ruled over a Dali-esque, nocturnal netherworld populated by cobwebs and shadows, as memorably portrayed by the great Steve Ditko. But what makes actual nightmares so scary is that they’re not decked out in the comforting clichés of Halloween; they’re as real as the perception you have of the world you’re in as you read this. Only when we wake does it dawn on us that reality was playing a cruel trick – or was it? Is what we consider reality the very thing we’re dreaming and what we thought was a dream is for real? I hope not…but sometimes I’m not so sure.
Petunia Winegum
-
July 5, 2015 at 9:18 am -
“I do recall a character in Marvel’s ‘Dr Strange’ who went by the name of Nightmare and ruled over a Dali-esque, nocturnal netherworld populated by cobwebs and shadows, as memorably portrayed by the great Steve Ditko. “
Ahhh, yes. It’s to be hoped the upcoming film captures some of that surrealism and playfulness with visuals.
-
July 5, 2015 at 9:20 am -
I sympathise Pet; I don’t normally have nightmares, but my recent ‘week on morphine’ took me into a strange new world – at one point I thought I was married to someone who looked exactly like Mark Williams-Thomas to my intense distress, another night I was floating on the open ocean on an inflatable sun bed – this for a woman who never sun bathes, and wouldn’t go near a lilo – and my only hope of rescue was attracting the attention of a cruise liner that was itself sinking…..took me several cups of coffee in the morning to recover from that one! Primordial fears!
Sans morphine, I sleep so soundly that I was surprised the other morning to wake and find there was no need to water the plants, it seemed to have rained. Mr G stared at me in utter amazement as it dawned on him that I had slept through the biggest and most dramatic thunderstorm England has endured in years!-
July 5, 2015 at 9:53 am -
but my recent ‘week on morphine’ took me into a strange new world
I take large amounts of codeine phosphate a day and have learnt never to take it just before retiring. Codeine fuelled nightmares are almost hallucinatory in their ‘realness’…you wake screaming only to find that you are really still asleep -but you only realise this after the monsters have come out of the wall again…or logic doesn’t kick in and you awake in a Secure Ward.
That’s just codeine, I hate to think what pharmaceutical grade smack brings. Chainsaw tooting succubii probably.
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:05 am -
Ever taken Tramadol? Yeurgh! Weirdness even when awake…
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:39 am -
Tramadol is what my kids’ used to refer to as “Dad’s Candy”, but personally I prefer the synthetic opiates available in Europe and pretty much the rest of the world (“Mexican Aspirin”) just not on the dear old NHS. Tramadol only works for about 30 minutes in my experience…but that might just be because, according to the doctors-them “Gods In White Coats”- I have too many pain receptors or something.
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:33 am -
I took codeine for a while, couldnt go to the toilet for a week!
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:45 am -
Sometimes, that is exactly why it is prescribed.
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:58 am -
Sometimes, that is exactly why it is prescribed.
Indeed, that’s why I take it. I have “FABS”- F****ing Angry B owel Syndrome. Even on insanely high doses of codeine a day (300mg + for the last 3 decades) and Imodium (which is codeine without the narcotic bit) I still ‘go’ several times a day.-
July 5, 2015 at 11:08 am -
I can empathise. Both HIV and the medications taken to counter it have the effect of…er… loosening oneself to the point of loss of control. I am acutely aware of the toilet location wherever I go and carry appropriate personal hygiene/change of clothing with me. However, can we get back to dreams… so much more interesting!
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:21 am -
However, can we get back to dreams… so much more interesting!
I have been trying to formulate a reply to Pet directly all morning but Dwarfette-in-law is at 7cm dilation and my thoughts are with Youngest Dwarf. So I find distraction in…crudity. Easier to banter deftly about my bowel, whose speed of motion could replace dilithium crystals, than say something of meaning to Pet.
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:30 am -
You can power Warp Drive? Get thee to NASA now!
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:54 am -
And hope all goes well with Dwarfette-in-law.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:45 am -
July 5, 2015 at 1:37 pm -
I too sympathize with anyone who suffers form the “night terrors”, especially children. I don’t know if my experience just might be of help. As a small boy I witnessed some unpleasant violence whilst living in foreign parts (my family were soldiers). When back in England I often woke in a state of abject terror. One night my screams attracted the attention of my Grandfather. He was a typical Edwardian, stiff upper lipped, no nonsense type. When asked what the matter was, I told him I was being chased by men with machetes who were intent on hacking me to pieces.
His solution was that next time it happened to turn round to the pursuing mob and tell them to bugger off and maybe we could all get some sleep. Following this advice, I quickly learnt to so do. As I became more adept at controlling my dreams, I honed the technique sufficiently to be able to steer any dream in whatever direction I fancied. I eventually learnt to perfect the trick of appearing to float above my prone body and look down at my sleeping form. Please don’t think that I found this to be some sort of spiritual experience. I am an atheist and know sufficient of science to be aware that it is a chemical process. Much latter in life I learnt that this trick is recognized as Lucid Dreaming and I understand that it may be learnt by those who suffer from nightmares. I note that several Raccooners have mentioned drugs and their effects on dreams. In the sixties I tried to combine my dreaming world with LSD. Regrettably I could not, subsequently, remember anything. Hope this might be of help.-
July 5, 2015 at 2:39 pm -
Definitely worth saying twice, even if it is just a nightmare browser sceanrio…
God forbid anyone who suggests to the modern Hysteric that they should get a bloody grip….
-
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 9:28 am -
I love dreaming and look forward to sleeping just so my mind can surprise me with it’s random visuals. Usually I forget them/don’t even remember them – but then something weird happens. After a few weeks/months, these dreams come back to me while I’m awake and I am confused as to wether these are dreams or memories of actual events. Maybe that shows how mundane some of the dreams are – they could really have happened – but others, although freakish and impossible in the real world, feel absolutely concrete and it’s hard to persuade myself they are just memories of dreams, not actual events. The mind is a strange thing. Maybe it slips into alternative “me”s in the Multiverse (only half joking..) Maybe I’m bonkers, but I hope it’s just side-effects of medication….
-
July 5, 2015 at 9:37 am -
The Australian Aboriginals believed Dreamtime WAS the reality and the waking days were the nightmare.
Having seen the Australian interior on the TV I can understand why they took that approach…-
July 5, 2015 at 10:04 am -
Maybe it’s a defence mechanism – or maybe they are not so “primitive” after all.
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:22 am -
Anyone who can invent a stick that comes back on it’s own after you’ve thrown it is a bloody genius in my book.
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:44 am -
I have a friend who once commented: “Don’t talk to me about Aboriginal “civilisation”! Any group that lives in the desert for 20,000 years without inventing the flip-flop is NOT civilised.”
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:02 am -
Tie their kangaroo down, Sport. We may not have Dreamtime but we can know the previously unknowable via Internettime.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3628727?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents-
July 5, 2015 at 11:05 am -
Fantastic! That made me laugh. Thank you – indeed you do learn something every day!
-
-
-
-
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:50 am
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 9:59 am -
You’re taking it all far too seriously, Pet. It’s apparently all about sex, according to that nice Dr Freud, so just lie back and enjoy the ride. When you’ve worked out all the suppressed root-cause issues and write them up, we look forward to that colourful post with relish.
The Landlady’s got an excuse for her recent erotic night-trips, being completely off her head on morphine – if she’s got any spare …….
-
July 5, 2015 at 12:00 pm -
July 5, 2015 at 12:56 pm -
“if she’s got any spare”
Well, if you really wish to experience waking up next to MWT in your nightmares, I could oblige, but I don’t recommend it…
-
July 5, 2015 at 1:01 pm -
Did you wake up feeling well-groomed?
-
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 10:43 am -
…at one point I thought I was married to someone who looked exactly like Mark Williams-Thomas to my intense distress…
Ye Gods, you should have demanded compensation!
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:24 am -
SHUT UP! Stop giving people ideas. I see the headlines now : “Savile raped me in my dream!” .
-
July 5, 2015 at 12:07 pm -
All aboard the Suck You Bus.
-
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:45 am -
I used to have vivid nightmares as a child, the gist of which I can still remember and would no doubt be a ‘dream’ in itself to those prone to analysing these things – I just see them as a way a young mind works the world out. When I was ill I used to often have hallucinatory nightmares, something else that passed with the onset of puberty.
Curiously, just before ‘White Bear’ was screened I had a bad dream of being holded up in my local service station/Tesco Express due to the immiment end, all dark skies & apolyptic overtones, very much like the ‘garage’ scene on that Black Mirror film. Bad dreams have returned to me with a vengeance, but then again they are routed in reality and quite honestly I’m not sure if they are any worse than real life. I genuinely had a dream a year or so back that we were under nuclear attack and ‘at the end’ – twas very disappointing to be jolted awake and discover it wasn’t so.
Up until a couple of years ago I used to have regular ‘erotic dreams’ – and they have all stopped.
Living The Nightmare, you might say…-
July 5, 2015 at 11:54 am -
I’ve also had an ‘end of the world’ nightmare, a couple of years back. So real it was terrifying. I watched a black fog envelop the scenery through my window. Bloody horrible.
-
July 5, 2015 at 12:04 pm -
And one when I was driving down the dual carriageway with my Dad and black whirlwinds were racing towards us head on and I was saying “there’s no point trying to reverse back and avoid them, we’re f***ed”
Like I say, not much different to real life now.
-
July 5, 2015 at 12:08 pm -
July 5, 2015 at 12:15 pm -
Cannot help but think folk like Brooker might not be better off trying to live in the real world, but then I guess the approval of one’s peers is not something given up lightly in la-la land.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/02/wake-up-witness-terrifying-balok-
July 5, 2015 at 12:36 pm -
My eagle eyes on Twitter have actually noticed quite a bit of grumbling about ‘the other CB’ from the Twitterati Comrades – he’s not following their script anymore, damn him.
I find it one of the wonders of the modern world how *that lot* belong to an online community called ‘Cook’d & Bomb’d’ which is supposedly based around the worship of satircal subversive Chris ‘Brasseye’ Morris, yet singularly fail to ‘get it’, moribund sense of humour failure abound with much of the patent hand-wringing.. I kid ye not when I say I saw the other day on there a 27-page thread on how awful the 1980 Little & Large Christmas Special is/was……-
July 5, 2015 at 2:44 pm -
They have of course created their own nightmare reality since it is a fact that the “Sarah Cornley” Establishment cover-up was plainly a key part of the early savilisation notions. And it is also a fact that it was created by BBC Alternative comedians.
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/all-news-thats-fit-to-print.html
I have picked up moor recently that those BBC comedians actually created that spoof Hignificant “evidence” with the express intention of suckering in a particular journalist…. maybe Dan Davies?
-
-
-
-
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 11:48 am -
lying letting agents have no doubt conspired to put the recurring worry of ending up surrounded by crack head chavs
Ahhh yes…you didn’t realise the phrase ‘sparkling character’ referred to the crystals the neighbours’ smoke.
-
July 5, 2015 at 12:23 pm -
“There was also an incident around the same time in which I was convinced a pair of hands grabbed my feet at the bottom of the bed.”
I had the real thing happen after complaining about having just such a dream about age four. Elder sibling subsequently decided it would be ‘fun’ to undo the bedclothes and grab my ankles for real. On the second occasion I came awake very fast and punched him hard enough to split his lip. This cured him of his propensity for practical jokes, but has left me with the lifelong habit of being on my feet looking for trouble before I’ve even woken up.-
July 5, 2015 at 12:30 pm -
You could be just sort of person that MI5 or 6 are looking for.
http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2007/05/mi5_and_mi6_advertising_for_the_same_staff.html
-
-
July 5, 2015 at 12:30 pm -
My nightmare happened thurs morning, the thunderstorm took out my internet connection, phonecall to youngest son, he said i,d had a current spike! and the modem was burnt out,anyway he had a solution , an old wlan modem connected to the wlan socket on old modem router bypassed it and the router authenticated the connection, So never throw stuff away it will come in handy! ther must be thousands out after that storm, sorry for being off topic, but you could probably help someone!
-
July 5, 2015 at 12:33 pm -
In conversation with my old squadron chums it appears that most of us had ( and sometimes still have) nightmares in which we were falling. Never had to use the bang seat or bail out for real though, so it must have been a hidden fear we shared.
-
July 5, 2015 at 1:24 pm -
Pet, I love you loads (in, of course, a purely blokey, shoulder punching , ethereal way) but you are whinging. The price of being a writer isn’t cirrhosis of the liver, infected veins, syphilis or lung cancer. The price you pay for your talent is the Nightmares. You’ve watched ‘Gothic’ so you should already know this. Either give up writing/being creative or learn to ride the Nightmare (unless your family is from Norfolk then you could do something else with that mare I suppose). You could spend the rest of your life overanalyzing your dreams-both good and bad, you could take all the psycho-pharmaceuticals and wear a bald patch on the couch but the simple stone cold truth is; you’re a writer-you will have nightmares because words have power and power always has a positive and negative. Defraging your memory, clearing your the cache of your imagination, doesn’t work the same way for you as for ‘normals’. You want to spend the rest of your days pushing shopping trolleys around in a ‘NUTS’ induced daze? Be normality’s gimp? No? Well that would be your life without the constant nightmares and I am talking about the constant ones, the recurring ones. Everyone gets the odd bad dream, just like everyone has erotic dreams but that’s because everyone has an imagination. The difference with you is that you got the Uber-ultra-mega-super-duper pack , the BOGOF of fantasy.
You aren’t supposed to ‘live’ with them, they should power you to creation and self destruction. To misquote a book title “Feel The Fear and then spend the rest of the night chainsmoking and taking barbs…or watching videos of cats playing recorders on youtube” Simples equation, the more nightmares the better the artist.
/rant …and I’m making full use of my Constitutional Right to be Wrong….so I apologise in advance if this verbal ‘slap upside the head’ was totally misguided.
-
July 5, 2015 at 1:32 pm -
” and self destruction.” should have read ” and self destructive behaviour”, I’m talking Kerouacesque consumption of red wine etc, not suicide.
-
July 5, 2015 at 3:12 pm
-
{ 47 comments… read them below or add one }