h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is that possible? A 'Nightmare II'?

Well, how else am I going to explain the fact that I knew what was coming?

It was one of those dreams you have just before waking up in the morning, making it a lot easier to remember.

It seemed to be several years ago, since my father was still alive, and my younger brother still lived with our parents.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For some reason I am staying with our parents, in my old room, despite the fact that I have my own flat.

It is early in the morning, I am slowly waking up. Still half asleep, I catch a glimpse of a big, red eye staring in through a gap in the curtains, in the corner of my eye.

Suddenly I am jerked wide awake because I recognize it. I have barely enough time to throw myself out of bed, away from the window, down on the floor, before an enormous, bright red Pteranodon comes crashing through the window, claws spread out to clutch me.

I roll in under my bed, but then I remember that last time it came after me, it had no trouble at all reaching after me and dragging me out from under the bed.

I pull up my knees under me, bent over double, pushing my back against the bottom of the bed, trying to wedge myself in between the bed and the floor (it is a very heavy bed). I also grab hold of one of the legs of the bed, so hard that my knuckles are whitening.

Then my brain, until now numbed by the sheer terror of having to go through this again, starts working again. I remember that this time, I am not in my own home, alone, but in the flat of my parents, and they are both in the next room.

I start screaming, and screaming, and screaming. After what feels like an eternity, I hear the door thrown open, and a lot of shouting, cursing and sounds of fighting going on. Then everything goes quite, and my mother peeks under the bed, trying to ease me out of there. 'It's OK' she says, 'it's gone now'.

I roll out from under bed, and see my mother armed with a rake, and my father with a shovel.

After having a quick look over the edge of the bed to make sure the Pteranodon really is gone, I rush out of of the room, into the hallway, which has no windows.

Finally my mother manages to talk me into having something to eat, in the kitchen, where she has first closed the blinds.

But suddenly, sensing rather than seeing me, the Pteranodon comes crushing through the kitchen window, but gets itself entangled in the blinds.

This time I am scared awake.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

While I lay there, in my RL bed, trying to calm down, I started remembering.

(OK, irregularity no.1: my parents have never had any garden, they have always lived in flats, they do not own a shovel or a rake.)

I remembered why I was staying with my parents. I had just been allowed to leave hospital, and was still a bit weak.

I had been taken in to intensive care two weeks earlier, a bit bruised, and with some nasty cuts that looked like claw marks. The doctors thought that they had been caused with some kind of tool, because there is no creature with claws that big. Ha! Little did they know!

But what they could not understand was my state of mind - by the time I was brought in, I was deep in coma, with a brain fever.

When I woke up from the coma, I could not account for what had happened. Whatever it was that had occurred, I could not remember it. I suffered from amnesia.

But now I that I was awake in RL, I even remembered what had happened to me.

Yep, it was that same Pteranodon, that had come crashing in through my bedroom window, clutching me in its claws, and flying away with me, to its master.

(And now irregularity no.2: from now on, the memory becomes very science fiction-ish, something that is rather uncommon in my dreams.)

Its master turned out to be a mad scientist (how stereotype) trying to build a mind control machine, and use it to take over the world (of course). The machine would be worked by a built in artificial intelligence. For some reason, he needed my mind to complete it. And no, in the dream, I am not a genius, so I do not understand why he needed MY mind.

After that my memory is a bit blurred. I remember being strapped down, with a lot of electrodes connected to my head. I remember seeing the scientist fiddle with the switches on a big control board. I remember weird and scary images floating in my mind. I remember fighting it, fighting him, fighting to defend my mind!

I guess it must have strained my mind too much, and that I had fallen unconscious, and of no use to the scientist until I had recovered - why else would he have made sure they would find me, and bring me to a hospital - and then send the Pteranodon after me once I was feeling better?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

What confuses me now is that I do not know if this memory is from an earlier dream, or a dreamt-up memory from the dream this morning...

And then, I had to check if it really was a Pteranodon I saw - I am not even sure I got the name right.

Yep, it was a 'Pteranodon ingens' - I even found a painting of one that looks very much like the one in my dream. URL to painting can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A531505

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A531505

Oh yes, I almost forgot - the mad scientist has his lab in a spaceship (see, told you it was science fiction-ish) in orbit around earth, avoiding legal jurisdiction (not sure I got the expression right).

It seems you were "Lucid Dreaming".
Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A164530

Shaunak.

Oh, and it's not wise to reveal one's dreams.
Some people (me too ) can analyse a person's psyche by knowing the dreams she/he has. I think I just analysed you to some extent.
I don't like analysing people, but the dream was very interesting.
My apologies.

Shaunak.

Shaunak? Sounds familiar.. *searches among conversations*
Oh yes, I ACEd you, didn't I?

And I'm not particularly worried about revealing this dream, since it's very different from my usual ones..

..in fact, it might have been my subconscious mind emptying the trash bin - sometimes when all the input has been categorized and memorized, there are some stuff left over - impressions, ideas, images, emotions - and I never sleep well on those nights when the trash bin is being emptied - my dreams become so packed of stuff, and with no consequence or logic at all, that I wake up feeling completely exhausted...

Oh, and I found the dream interesting too, otherwise I wouldn't have posted it - but I don't think it's always possible to analyse dreams - sometimes they are a mirror of your subconscious, and sometimes they are just full of crap!

Like this morning, when I woke up from a dream discussing a certain computer game, and I tried to find it on my computer, and realized I had been playing it before - but just in my dreams! Don't know the name of the game, because I don't think it really exists, but I could describe some of the details, being quite familiar with it having played it in two dreams so far..

From my experience (which isn't much - I'm not even a psychologist), I've found that each and every dream is meaningful - you just have to dive deeper into it.
The dream may contain wierd images, but that's probably condensation, displacement and representation of various objects according to your sub-concious.
I feel they're meaningfull.

Shaunak.