Night Mares @SamieSands

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"It was just a dream, nothing more. Just a nightmare."

Do you dare delve into the unconscious
mind to find out just whay your dreams
are trying to tell you?

Watch out...something is coming!

Featuring...

Rob Shepherd
Andy Lockwood
Katie Jaarsveld
Alex Winck
Valerie Louidis
Kevin Hall
Samie Sands
Jason White
Greg Rickman

Night Mares Sample

Somniphobia by Samie Sands

Come here, lie down on me, Lila. It won’t be so bad, I promise you...
“Shut up!” I scream pointlessly in the direction of my bedroom, it isn’t like the bed is actually speaking to me in that deliciously seductive tone, it’s all just me. Maybe I’ve gone a little nuts recently and my fear of sleeping’s gotten to the point where I can’t even bear to lie down, but I have just about enough of my faculties to know that my bed isn’t talking. It’s all just in my mind.
Just rest, for a little bit. It can’t be so terrible, can it?
I squeeze the side of my head hard with my hands as if I’m trying to block off the blood flow to my brain. I don’t know how to stop these thoughts from rolling through me like a tsunami, but I’m going to have to find a way eventually. I can’t end up going truly mad over this, I just can’t. It’s already consuming too much of my life.
The worst part is I don’t even really know when all of this started, all I know is it has total control of my life now. Not so long ago, a few months I’d say, I was living a normal life. I live in a cute one-bedroomed apartment that I can barely afford on my news researcher wages, I have a small group of girlfriends I go out with on a Friday night, and I just started dating a very sweet man named Brad. That’s a totally normal live for a twenty-four-year-old, isn’t it?
At least it was…until the bad dreams started.
I don’t recall the first one. Or more, I don’t remember exactly what happened in the very first night terror. I can just remember the bolts of ice cold fear shooting through my veins, right to my heart. I was running, but I don’t know what from. I just knew I couldn’t stop or I’d die.
I woke up in cold sweats, but a sense of gratitude that at least whatever I was afraid of couldn’t hurt me in real life. I was almost smug in my happiness as I went through that day knowing that I’d survived whatever had scared me in my dreams.
If only I’d known that was only the beginning.
Following that, the nightmares only got worse. Every single night became a battle against some unknown assailant, a need to get away from something that wanted me dead, a horror so lucid and real that I developed a true terror of even going to sleep. How can I relax knowing that as soon as I drift off into dream land, something’s waiting for me? How can I look forward until the end of the day when I know with utter certainty that I’m diving straight into hell? The thought of putting on my pajamas and stepping under the sheets makes me want to throw up, it causes my lungs to squeeze so tightly I can barely breathe, it makes my heart pound so violently I can feel it about to explode in my brain.
So now, I just don’t sleep.
Maybe to someone else that would seem like the craziest plan in the world, but to me it’s the only thing that makes sense. If I’m not asleep then nothing can get me, if I don’t dive into Hell that my brain has created, then it can’t get me.
Logical.
Only now it’s getting hard. At first I did pretty well surviving with no sleep, I actually felt good. I’d found a way to defeat the demons in my brain, what else could I ask for? But now…well, now sleep is coming for me whether I want it to or not. It’s chasing me down like there’s no tomorrow and I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can keep fighting it.
Come on, lie down. Close your eyes, just for a second.
“No!” I scream while bundling my knees up by my chest. “No, I don’t want to. I don’t want to fight anymore, I’m too exhausted, too tired, I can’t keep fighting.”
You’re tired because you need sleep. You need to rest. You’ve already started messing things up at work.
“No, no, no!” I shake my head violently from side-to-side as I ignore the taunts. It isn’t just work that’s been affected by this mess, it’s everything. My friends think I’m ignoring them because I haven’t been out with them for two weeks in a row. Any minute now they’ll stop talking to me completely. My co-workers think I’m losing it, I overheard one of the girls saying that I’m gonna lose my job any minute. And then there’s Brad.
Ah, dear, sweet Brad.
After six months with the most horrific idiot of all time, a man who thinks cheating is fine and ghosting is even more acceptable, meeting Brad was a brand new start for me. I met him via an online dating app, I never really expected anything to come of it, but instantly we clicked. I could tell he wasn’t going to treat me like the others, I instantly knew he could respect women.
I wanted him to be mine. I still want him to be mine, but that’s never going to happen. What sort of man would want a woman that after only three weeks of dating turns into a hysterical mess? I never told him about the nightmares, I didn’t want him to think that I was weird, and now he must think even worse than that. I don’t care about my appearance anymore, I’ve lost all concern with how I act in public, I’ve forgotten how to behave normally and somewhere in all of that I’ve left him a whole bunch of crazy video emails.
‘I have enjoyed my time with you, but I think we both want different things from life…’
The email where he dumped me was so polite, so him. Instantly I broke into a sob. I can’t blame Brad, he doesn’t understand why I’ve suddenly become a sodden mess, but still I resent him for leaving me when I need him the most.
Can’t he see? Why can’t anyone see?
Come on, just five minutes, that’s all you need…