nightmare

I had survived a very serious car crash.  There wasn’t much imagery for this, just background knowledge that I had been involved in a car accident that should have killed me, but somehow I survived.  Although the knowledge was no clear or specific, I had been in another incident that should have taken my life and had not.  With this background information I found myself in a hospital, waiting in a large commons or waiting area. The hospital is new, lacking the hospital smell.  The paint is fresh, the chairs are cushioned, and the floors are clean. I am not sure why I am there, but I am sitting in a navy blue chair watching a couple sitting across from me.  They are discussing moving in together and it is clear that the woman is feeling under the weather. The man, (young twenties) had blonde hair, a lean stature and had his arm around his girlfriend who was a head shorter than he with brown shoulder length hair.  They were all smiles.

Then out of nowhere there is a horrible noise and I open my eyes to see smoke.  People are lying on the ground, there is screaming, rafters and debris is everywhere and I quickly piece together that a bomb has gone off.  I am not worried about myself as I am still just an observer.  I notice the couple across from me.  The man is unhurt but kneeling over his girlfriend who is bleeding pretty severely.  Doctors rush up and start working on her and the same action is taken with other victims that have been injured.  The response is quick and in hardly any time everyone is thought to have been taken care of.  I get up and start observing the damage.  The white speckled floor of hospital tile is now grey with dust and debris.  Chairs are overturned, and glass is all over the floor.  I head toward what looks like a wall and notice a fairly large puddle of blood that is undisturbed.  I look around the wall to see a little alcove leading into an office and there on the floor is an African American woman with a piece of glass, rounded and large like sun visor for tanning, sticking out of her neck.  I hear her wheezing and gurgling, desperately trying to call for help and I scream.  The image was so vivid and real as I saw the terror I her face as she sobbed, blood gushing from her neck and pooling on the floor.  It was a miracle she was not already dead with the evident loss of blood soaking through the light blue scrubs she was wearing.  I run as quickly as I can back around the corner and straight into two doctors and indicate someone had been missed.  I hear the other doctor scream as she rounded the corner.  I cringe as I hear the same wheezing sobs as they strap her to a gurney and rush her away.  I remember feeling sick and terrified. 

I then see the man talking to a doctor and overhear that his girlfriend died of her injuries.  The man’s face freezes in unbelief and the doctor, for whatever reason decides to let the man know that the woman’s test results had come back and that all she had been sick with was the flue.  The wan walked away, clearly in shock and my heart hurt that his girlfriend had come in with the flue and would now never be walking out with him because of the bomb.

Then all of the sudden I am over next to the chairs again and talking to a group of about ten other people who had been in the hospital for whatever reason.  I am talking to them, almost like I am preaching to them telling them that I should have died in that car accident and since I cheated death, death continually looks for me, and I end up hurting all these people unknowingly as death chases me.  I remember feeling like I would die soon, as if this was my last free pass and I was left untouched and unharmed. I kind of wished death would take me so I would stop hurting people around me, but I was fearful as well.

I woke up terrified and jumpy.  Everything was so realistic, down to the way the nurse’s blood pooled around her as well as the detail of the cracked glass as it stuck out from her neck.  I couldn’t sleep four hours as I heard the same gurgling sound over and over in my mind.  Never before do I remember dreaming something so violent, graphic and disturbing. 

I couldn’t help but see the parallels in my life.  I have survived two things that should have killed me: the car accident and the apartment fire.  The neck wound was also very symbolic of Josh when he was injured in Afghanistan.  I never found out what happened to the nurse in my dream, but it seemed unlikely she would survive.  This is sometimes what I feel about Josh, as when he returned home from deployment he was no longer himself, almost as if he had in fact died in his bomb attack.  I just got this real foreboding  feeling that there would be another near death experience coming my way and that someone close to me was going to die.  I still feel on edge as I felt it would happen soon (within a year) and after what I have already experienced, I am scared to death of something else coming my way.  I would love anyone else’s interpretations though!