December 15, 2001
12:45pm

I am now on my third week of nightmares and I'm really getting sick of them. I would like to actually be able to sleep when I go to bed.

One of the more recent ones that I remember dealt with a trip to a museum. The museum was having an exhibit featuring "Timmy the Killer Kangaroo." Why anyone would name a killer kangaroo Timmy, I don't know. Anyway, the kangaroo was huge and gray with glowing green eyes. At first it waved contentedly at the crowd like some large ill-begotten museum mascot. Suddenly it burst through its cage and began attacking the crowd. As I ran for my life I remember thinking how surreal it was that, of all things, I was running from a killer kangaroo.

I thought I was home free when I made it outside the museum, but then giant serpents burst up from the ground. They had large fangs dripping with venom and promptly went to work devouring people. The ground liquified and rippled when they slithered back into the earth.

That's when I bolted upright and realized I was still in bed. I was breathing hard and my chest muscles felt very tight, as if I had really been running. It was strange.

My next nightmare was even more gruesome, but at least I know where it came from. I had been watching a program about female pharoahs before I went to bed that night. The stepson of one of the female pharoahs tried to have her memory erased after she died by chiseling out her name and image on the hierglyphs of all her buildings. The chiseled images made strange bumpy patterns in human forms. It was like someone was trying to show what the absence of a person looks like. It was weird and kind of disturbing.

In my dream someone had chiseled me out, except I was alive and three-dimensional. I had blood and wounds all over my body from where I had been hacked into. I was in great pain, but I couldn't get anyone to help me. They walked right through me because I didn't exist. I had been "chiseled" out of existence.

I wonder why so many of my nightmares end with my mutilation. What the heck does that mean?

My last final was yesterday and now I'm officially on Christmas break. I planned to celebrate my new found freedom by attending my campus ministry's Christmas party. However, I was so inexplicably sleepy I couldn't even hold up my head. I felt bad because Nick had asked me to drive someone to the party, but I had to get some rest. I soon fell into a deep sleep. Then I woke up for ten minutes and fell asleep again. I tried to stay awake, but to no avail.

It was very late when I finally woke up, and I was totally wired. For some strange reason, I decided it was a good time to get some grocery shopping done. So I headed towards Giant Eagle in the middle of the night.

At first everything was going to plan. I deposited my check and headed towards the grocery store. However, when I got there I was unable to park. There were plenty of spots, but I kept circling the lot because I was unable to decide where to park.

This behavior is very unusual for me. I'm never picky when it comes to parking. I don't care how far or near it is; I just get out of the car and walk. Now it was the middle of the night and I was unable find a spot in a practically empty parking lot. I finally made myself park by swerving into a spot. I decided that I needed to get my shopping done as quickly as possible because something obviously wasn't right with me.

The situation quickly worsened as I tried to go inside the building and found the doors were locked. It was then I realized that the building was not the grocery store. I stood there and stared at it for a while because I couldn't comprehend that I wasn't in the right place. In fact, I was many miles away from the place I was supposed to be. I was completely dumbfounded as I looked back and forth from my grocery list to the building. Perhaps it was slowly dawning on me that I could not get my shopping done there.

To make things worse, there was some strange guy parked outside the building. He kept saying, "Psst! Hey girl! Hey girl!" My name is not "girl," so I chose to act like I didn't hear him and went back to my car. I was obviously in no condition to deal with strange men right then.

I left the parking lot absolutely determined to get to the grocery store. I did so, and afterwards everything went fine. However, I was (and am) really worried that I had completely lost my mind. I have been to that Giant Eagle a million times. I planned the route I would take before I left my apartment. I was completely awake. Yet, I found myself in a strange place and eerily having no control over my actions. It was as if my brain had temporarily malfunctioned and there was nothing I could do until my senses came back. Something like this happened once before, but it wasn't this bad. Perhaps I should get myself checked out; or maybe I just need more rest.