Writer's Insomnia

Am I dreaming?

Everything seems to be in the right place but I know something is wrong. I can feel it in my gut. I crinkle my nose when I notice a sweet smell in the air. It’s heavy and dry as it sits on my clothes and hair. I try to shake off the weird feeling, I quickly blame it on the new experience that is sleepwalking.

I clench my jaw annoyed that there is no way to escape the overwhelming thoughts now forming in my brain. I try to persuade myself that I can think about all this in the morning. There is a part of my that hopes I won't even remember it actually happening. I stretch my arms out to release the tension in my muscles and I look over at the bed. I stop midair.

There is someone lying in my bed. A woman. Her face is pressed to the pillow, she looks familiar and oddly strange at the same time.

I cover my mouth to catch a scream. The panic fills every cell of my body and I start shaking. Just as I take a step to get to the door for help, I start noticing the similarities between me and that person. Her hair is just the right shade of red, the messy curls are spilt everywhere around her head, I notice the same tattoo of the moon on the back of her neck. I look down at myself, then at her again. We're even wearing the same T-Shirt.

A big sigh of relief escapes my lungs as I finally realize what is going on. 

It’s me. I’m lucid dreaming. 

I’ve never been able to do this before. When I was younger I used to be fascinated by the art of lucid dreaming, but I never got even close to succeeding. The only thing I managed to do was filling up two notebooks with the detailed descriptions of my dreams.

Now, years later, here I am. Better late than never, I guess.

I take a step towards the bed and as soon as I do that an alarm turns on. It’s loud, banging in my ears, and reminds me of the test-fire alarm that wakes me up every Wednesday. But today it’s stronger, shaking every inch of my body, drilling a hole in my head with its intensity. I press my hands to my ears as hard as I can but it’s not helping. Tears build up in my eyes and I collapse on the ground.

‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,’ I tell myself but it doesn’t work. It feels as though I’m trapped in here. I start hitting my body, but I don’t feel any pain. On the outside, I’m numb, only on the inside, there is a war. A war I seem to be desperately losing.  The panic grips my chest, it’s pressing down on it. The floor under my knees is shaking violently. When will this nightmare end?

I try to scream, but it gets stuck in my throat. My mouth is open, but even the tiniest squeak doesn’t manage to escape my body. 

I need help.

I force my body up. I try to ignore the overwhelming pain building up inside my limbs. I just need to wake up and then everything will be fine. It takes all of my strength to walk to the bed. My legs are logy, every step I take hurts. Finally, I reach the bed and I grab my arm to pull the body to face me. It’s heavier than I would have expected. I shake it with all the power left in me, but it doesn’t seem to react.

I bring myself closer and focus my eyes on her, my, face. It’s a scary shade of white, looks almost transparent. The eyes are not entirely shut, as if the other me is pretending to be asleep, waiting to jank them open and scare me to death. The lips are swollen and a bit red. The feeling in my gut gets stronger, telling me to run.

Then suddenly the jaw falls open. I jump back and the new wave of terror clenches my stomach. 

And then the realization hits me.

The scream finally escapes my lungs.

I wanted to find a picture that would suit this story, but nothing from the past 3 years seemed good enough. So I opted for this random picture of the moon I took last year:)

Until now I haven't posted any of my stories on this blog and I really want to change that.

So here is the first one - it's based on a real nightmare I had during my second year at uni. For days after that experience I couldn't sleep, terrified I would die without knowing and being able to say goodbye to my family.

So I did what any writer (or at least an aspiring one) would do - I wrote it all down. It's weird to have memories written as short stories, it so easy to forget what the reality is anymore.

I truly want to write more of those. It feels great to be creating, then going through and editing, improving, changing. Whenever I have a break from writing I tend to forget how much joy the whole process brings me.