Inverse Nightmares
They're not nightmares and they're not just dreams either.
You know that feeling of relief when you wake from the most realistic and terrifying type of nightmare? When a killer is so close that you can feel his fingers brushing the back of your neck as you run for you life, or being devastated to your core when you learn that someone close to you has died, or any multitude of horrific scenarios that you wake from absolutely terrified only to realize that you're safe in bed, that you're not about to be murdered, your mother, or wife, or your child is still alive, that it was just a bad dream.
Everyone has these moments, everyone can relate to this feeling, it's part of the human experience. These vivid nightmares are incredibly frightening and yet also entirely relieving, for the feeling of second chances that they provide once you awake from them. That’s the beauty of nightmares. They give us the chance to value the things we once took for granted, to appreciate the things we've over looked.
They're our own personal Christmas Carols, all of us playing Ebenezer Scrooge.
For the first year in prison, every time I fell asleep I had inverse nightmares, where the beauty and hope is found in the dream and the terror is in the reality you wake to.
Every night I would dream, often innocently, of freedom. And not the freedom of walking out of the prison gates, or being freed from shackles, but the freedom of a mundane life not behind razor wire and fences. Often it would be as simple as walking through the grocery store, downloading podcasts on my iPhone, or just talking with someone.
They're dreams of life, so simple that they have to be real, and somewhere in these dreams, deep in the back of my mind, I feel the afterthought of a nightmare I had once a long long time ago. A nightmare about prison, or jail, or being confined, I can't recall anymore than a feeling of deja vu and it doesn't last long before I return to what ever mundane activity I was doing, but for an instant it's there, for a moment I know that this life is better than it was in the past.
In these dreams, that are closer to reality than reality itself, I get lost in the fresh air and the company of the people I love. More often than not its Monica, and I'm telling her all the things I've been waiting to tell her. I hold her and my son and cherish the moment, having learned, from my distant nightmare, what is truly important. And just when my heart comes back to life with hope and love, when I feel that everything is indeed going to be alright. In that moment of beauty and safety, I wake up into the nightmare of reality.
And in a way, every morning is the first morning in prison. It's crushing to look around with new eyes to see the brick and razor wire world that I'm trapped in. So I lay there, staring up at the bunk above me, and swallow the rising hope deep down into my gut hoping it won't rise again. Then, with nothing left to do, I get up to brush my teeth, make a cup of coffee, and start living this nightmare. All the while knowing that it'll start all over again the next time I fall asleep.
These inverse nightmares come less and less with every year that passes but they never fully leave. I have a feeling they will haunt me long after the day that I can walk out of here and into my dreams. When that day comes, I wonder if I'll ever be sure that I'm not just dreaming, moments away from waking up in my cell yet again?