Fluffy's Run

There is a dream. It is a recurring dream I’ve had over the years. Sometimes just every once in a while, sometimes more frequently. I’ve had it twice in the past two weeks. I am always on the lam. Sometimes someone is trying to kill me. Sometimes it is more graphic than others. Sometimes someone comes along in my sleep and stabs my mother or Cheryl, the two women who have been most important in my life. Then they come and stab me in the back. The dream is so real, that I feel the terror. I am pinned in my sleep, unable to move. I hear the sound of the knife enter. It takes me several minutes of panic and terror before I can get to a lucid place from which to wake myself. I try to force my limbs to move, my eyes to open.

Other times, killers are chasing me down and I am always just one step ahead of them. They always manage to find me, yet I do escape just before they arrive. Sometimes I am a fugitive from the law. Sometimes I am caught up in intrigue. The most recent time I had this dream, there was some kind of underground railroad trying to help me, yet the men who were trying to kill me had still managed to find me. There is never an end to this dream. I am always just a step, or a half a step ahead, and they are relentless in their pursuit. I always wake up in the middle, exhausted, like a cop drama that has no ending. I have had this recurring dream since I was eight years old.

My dog used to run in her sleep. But I think it was a more pleasant running than mine. She would yelp and kick her feet and you knew she was dreaming of chasing a cat or running with a pack of freewheeling dingos. Maybe she was being chased by other larger, meaner dogs, and maybe she, too, woke up tired and that might have been why she slept all day.

It’s not that I believe that people are out to get me, and this is not a proving my mettle dream. It’s just a tiring running to keep up with things, to stay one step ahead of everyone -- maybe of expectations, of the bill collectors. Maybe it's a need to escape and the person chasing me is the life, the history, the baggage that I can't get away from. Maybe it's a symbol for everything that would try and distract me from the things that really matter. And the running is a distraction. When you are on the run, the only thing you can think of is safety. In life, as in dreaming, I am always grateful for a brief period of respite.