Wow what a dream(s)

Ok it's Thurs, my Friday for this week, and I'm excited for this workday to be over. Wow I slept super great last night! And when I sleep great I dream. When I sleep extra great, like last night, I dream that I dream. And sometimes there are more levels. And that dear reader is exactly what happened.

This one started out with me already knowing that I was dreaming. Now there are sometimes that I have to pull myself out of a dream if it gets intense, making myself realize that I'm dreaming. However, this one started me right out with that knowledge. Bonus right? And for a nightmare, that's odd. Here we go.

First off, there was a very wide and overly steep set of stairs set at the end of a dark street, or perhaps an alley, I couldn't really tell. There was no sense of anything solid behind me but a presence lingered there, a pressure against my own personal space if you will, informing me of a great mass in the darkness preventing my escape completely. I never turned to look though for there before me was the staircase leading up to an immense, ancient hotel and it drew my attention, nearly calling out to me.

How I knew it was a hotel is beyond me. There were no signs, no vacancy advertisements. Some how it was clear to me though. I could feel a pull from the building, as if by a dare, to come forward to spend the night inside its lightless rooms. No warm glow spilled out from any windows or visible doorways. No distant warmth shown from within, all being cold, overlaid in inky blackness. The shades all were drawn and the dark, heavy double doors with ornate carvings were shut tight. I knew as I looked at them that they would be easy to open from this side but also knew that once shut and inside the building, they'd be difficult if not impossible to open again. I started toward the stairs as I noticed the first movement.

There was a child standing on the landing off to the right from the door. I hadn't noticed it before and by that I was unnerved. The clothes were old but the little child seemed solid enough. Boy or girl I could not tell, either from dress or hairstyle with the distance being too great to make out features of any kind that would lend clues to the gender.

By size the child appeared to be around 7 years old, perhaps slightly younger having blonde very curly hair that followed the roundness of its skull closely so that none draped down but stayed very neat. The child stepped forth giving no visual cue that it had noticed me but I knew it had. And somehow I dreaded to hear the words that would be spoken. I could feel them coming, the moment I wished to avoid. As his/her footsteps drew near the top of the first stair where I knew they would stop to speak, my mind though I knew this to be dream, briefly screamed for the words from this odd young one to never be uttered. But come they did.

In a high sing-song voice I was welcomed to spend the night. An airy, light invitation filled with dread wrapped in the promise of horrors untold delivered by the lips of innonence.

I don't remember ascending the stairs but there I was alongside this young oddity. Even being so near to me the gender of the child was still a mystery. So rather than expend more thought I decided to think of it as a boy since that was the strongest impression I had. I also knew that we'd most likely not become the best of friends so there was little chance of offending him later in pleasant dinner conversation.

Looking down I noticed I had some overnight luggage which I didn't remember having at the bottom of the stairs. As I realized this I thought of the hotel, knowing that somehow it had provided me the means by which to stay, removing all excuses to decline any invitations given, no matter how threatening the undercurrents.

A wrinkle occurred then and we were in my room rather suddenly, me with the knowledge that we were many floors up in the hotel. But no walk had occurred, no check-in and no elevator ride. This place seemed too old for elevators. As I thought about it an image of the front desk came to mind with behind it, cubby holes full of cards and keys. Maybe I'd checked in after all?

I could tell my new young *friend* was about to speak. The dread had returned.

With arms loosely held at his sides, in a somehow simultaneously stiff manner, he turned squarely to face me. An odd pose to strike when the next thing to come is conversation. No other movement preceded his mouth opening. Although I knew what to expect since this was after all a dream, I was still taken somewhat aback by his mouth when finally it moved to form words.

Rather than the expected motions one would look for, his mouth rather yawned open as though someone was tearing wide a cloth. The edges were jagged forming a circular space from which he spoke. As he became more agitated, as children sometimes do when speaking, there were times that most of the front of his skull was open revealing nothing but a swirling darkness inside. There was no other movement than his mouth. No facial muscles to draw up the lips. The absence of that, along with a hundred of other things one expects to happen, made him very disconcerting. His other features were simply consumed, their space being negated, as his mouth formed words.

I wish I could remember what he said but the dream fades now. It was more instructions for the night than anything. I recall an irresistible desire to go to bed as soon as possible.

As I lay down on my right side in the bed to sleep, in this most odd of places to rest, another dream came quickly. And the nightmare began, although within it I remember that I knew where I was, that this nightmare within my dream wasn't real either. Its an odd sensation.

The other nightmare was vivid, filled with truly frightening images and violence of which I'm unaccustomed. Splashed of color, gore and tangled masses of matter punctuated by shrieks in the distance it was like a glimpse into hell itself. After only a short time of that I pulled myself from it and woke back up to my original dream. The feeling of relief was intense. To be safe back within the nightmarishly old hotel felt soothing now.

The pull of the nightmare from which I'd awakened was still strong in the room. It wanted me back. Tempting me to lay down; slumber.

I felt as though however, that I'd answered the challenge which at first I'd not even understood. I'd lain down in what seemed to be a horrible place and dared to sleep, facing the true nightmare this place offered. The hotel held no more threat for me. And the child was gone. His presence remainded though. I sensed his quickly dancing eyes watching me as from some great distance.

A sense of leaving the hotel overtook me. Although I don't remember exiting the building, I was suddenly back with my friends, telling them that I'd dreamed about being in this old hotel and then of the dream I'd had within in it.

There were some other things that continued on with talking to my friends, having some lighthearted fun with them; stuff like that.

Then it was time to go to work and blog all about it :)