psychic nightmares.

i tend to pride myself on my ability to remember my dreams. it's a rare skill, so i'm told, so i embrace as much of it as i can. sometimes i remember to write them down, usually in a little notebook i've kept around since late 04/early 05 full of early-teenage-girl ramblings, nonsensical daydreams, minute-by-minute crushes, and eventual goals. i'm forced to handle it with care, since the first 35 or so pages are completely separated from the binding, but i haven't lost any as of yet. now i use it to calculate how much out-of-pocket money i'll need to pay when splitting purchases between gift cards, or to plan class schedules and write out call numbers, or to make little lists of books (authors, really) i'm asked to buy.

but that's irrelevant. i was talking about dreams. anyway.

i'm also a little (okay, maybe very) superstitious, and — yes, i mean this, and yes, i'm crazy — i believe i'm a touch psychic. i'm not surprised that i sound psychotic when i write this out. but really, i mean it. maybe i remember my dreams so i recognize when they're turned into reality. recognizing things i've already dreamt of is a much different feeling than déjà vu is — the latter is very heady, like my mind has separated itself from my body and i only have a few seconds to figure out why i've done all of this before. recognizing my dreams is less like watching a scene from an old movie i should know and more like wondering why i didn't make the connection between my dream and reality in the first place. i'm trying to articulate how it feels in a way that would make the most sense, but i'm rambling, and i figure it's nonsensical, so i'll just leave it at the idea that i'm crazy and have magical powers to see into the future. i wish it was more exciting than recognizing building façades and mundane conversations. whatever.

i suppose that's why i can be afraid of my dreams. my nightmares aren't exotic — i can't remember them ever being so — but they're so vastly steeped in potential reality that i can't shake them out of my mind once i wake up. i worry mostly that segments of them are portents of what is to come. but they're really run-of-the-mill things when you get down to them; frightening, but never life-threatening.

recently, there was the early morning hallucination of three men in my room, one deep, harsh voice telling the others she's asleep, the feeling of clumsy, forceful hands sneaking themselves between the covers to grab a hold of my right hip and inner thigh, the terror at trying to scream and finding myself unable to, the cold rush of adrenaline as i woke up to realize i had only been dreaming.

a few days ago, i became trapped in that world of half-sleep (when you know things aren't real but you can't help dreaming them anyway) only to be subjected to images of bodies, touching and caressing each other against walls, on streetcorners, by stairwells, anywhere familiar enough to make be believe their reality.

and then there was the old man, restored to senses, back from the dead, dressed in a navy suit and sitting in his favorite chair. i took one look at him and burst into tears.

"how did he look?"

"fine. normal."

"did he say anything?"

"no."

"did he look at you?"

"no."

"did he say that the end was near?"

"no."

"did he give you the winning lottery numbers?"

"no."

"oh. well. are you sure he didn't say anything?"

it is this last dream — ironically, the least "frightening" of the nightmares — that frightened me the most. perhaps, i thought, it was because the strange way the details of the dream are so imprinted in my mind (i can tell you exactly what dress i was wearing, how many buttons of it were done up, how the bow in the back was a little off-center because i always tend to favor the right). perhaps i didn't know how to deal with my grandfather being back from the dead, silently sitting in the corner of the apartment as if nothing had ever happened, as if he had been kept up-to-date with my life, as if whatever celebration i was at in my grandparents' apartment was nothing out of the ordinary. perhaps because i could sense that in his silence, something was wrong. naturally, i assumed the fault was mine, and what could grandpa be mad at me for from the grave?

and then, all at once, it hit me: he wasn't angry, but overwhelmingly sad. i burst into tears in front of him because he didn't speak. and he didn't speak because i can no longer hear nor remember the sound of his voice.