"I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough." - MC Escher

I had this dream last night that kind of really had me spooked this morning. It was similar to the back-to-back dreams I had a couple weeks ago, but different. This one was more real. So freaking real. And in the end, this one turned out to be more disturbing too.

The last time I had a dream like this it was pretty freaky. I woke up because I thought I heard footsteps in the apartment - or I thought I woke up - it was actually just a part of the dream. Normally, if the HB walks with heavy steps you can hear the clomp clomp clomp of his footsteps, and maybe feel a slight tremor from the floor but that's it.

In my dream though, the apartment was shaking like the floor here at my office does when someone walks across the floor with a determined purpose. I could feel the apartment shake with each footstep, I could hear the deep rumbling of the walls and floor shaking, of the windows rattling in their frames. In the dream, the footsteps were louder than normal, causing more structural movement than normal, and in the dream I realized this was weird. 'That's a bit much... almost like an earthquake,' I thought to myself in the dream, '...but its not an earthquake... it must be the HB... he must be home.'

And as I'm thinking this to myself in the dream, I could have sworn the footsteps came into the bedroom. So I waited for the HB to come over and give me a kiss on the cheek, which he sometimes does when he comes home and I'm still asleep (which usually only happens on weekends) and I absolutely love it when he does that. So I'm waiting, but nothing happens. And for some reason I start to panic because I'm positive I heard/felt footsteps in the apartment. If it was the HB he would have given me a kiss (which isn't a definite-always thing, but this is dream-reasoning here) so since I didn't get a kiss... holy crap what if someone else is in the apartment??? I think this and get super freaked. My senses become all super heightened like they do when you're nervous and/or can sense imminent danger. I strained to hear or sense the presence of someone else, but there wasn't anything to sense. I eventually relaxed, sufficiently self-convinced that no one was in the apartment with me, because if they were they would have made their move by now. So I relaxed. For a few moments. And then had the dream all over again.

The dream was SO real, so freaking like real life that when I woke up moments later I didn't realize that I had just woken up. I thought I'd been awake for awhile, hearing footsteps, that it was all a real memory. Only after awhile, after I thought about the abnormal footsteps and about how paranoid I had gotten, did I realize it was dream. I fell asleep a few minutes later, only to have the dream again. I thought I was still awake, hearing and feeling the footsteps again. It was enough to drive a girl crazy. Actually, now that I think about it, I didn't realize it was a dream until after the second dream that night.

Each time I had the dream I could have sworn I heard real footsteps, I felt them. It was real. And each time, when I didn't get a kiss, and realized it wasn't the HB's footsteps I heard, I became paranoid that some burglar / rapist was in the apartment. And each time there was a moment in the dream where I thought to myself, 'footsteps don't usually sound like that... cause the building to shake like that... take that long to get anywhere.' In my dreams, I realized that the footsteps were over exaggerated, and with each new dream the exaggeration became less and less. The dreams became more real, more believable as actual states of consciousness.

Its like my brain was trying to figure out the best way to fool me, to trick me into believing that this time the dream wasn't a dream but the real deal.

What the hell is up with that?!?!

Okay, this is becoming a really long post. Part II of the Spooky Dream Saga in a few minutes...