New neighbors and bad dreams

No sightings of the new neighbors since the first... though I am not surprised. I suspect they only come out at night, and they may come out as bats for all I know. I doubt they will come out as wolves, unless they can turn into little bitty ones that look like coyotes. You don't see many wolves around here, though you do see bats and coyotes. If I ever encounter them, I will work my diabetes into the conversation- I'd be a bit of a snack rather than a full-course meal for them. Wonder if they have blood type preferences? Of course, it is entirely possible that they are NOT vampires... nah.

A bad dream about someone I loved a long time ago woke me out of a sound sleep this morning. I think we maintain a small cache, a tiny residual, of every love stored somewhere in our brains which we tap into during unguarded moments, like sleep. In my nightmare, this person I once loved was badly hurt and might die. Friends were gathering to keep vigil, but I could not let my fear, worry or love show, because he was someone else's. In the same dream, as we were leaving the scene of the original injury by car, following the ambulance, I guess, we witnessed a horrible crash of a green VW bug with three people in it, hit with such force that the car became semi-liquid and molded to the people thrashing around inside it until they were still. The adult driver was decapitated. The two slightly younger passengers were dead. I woke up.

So you tell me- where the hell did that come from? And how do I shake it? I hate nightmares because they hang around after waking, and put the whole rest of the day on unsettled footing. I am used to my dreams having an internal logic that makes no sense once I am conscious. I can even recognize some dreams as types- wish fulfillment, fear confrontation, past revisiting- but nightmares are a different kettle of fish. They are like a trip to the Twilight Zone, so surreal and yet so present; so charged with emotional energy that the return to the waking world carries wisps of that energy with it. I've been having nightmares a lot recently. I wish they'd stop.

We have a superstition in my family to never tell your dreams before breakfast unless you want them to come true. I have just ignored that superstition. Kelly and I were up until 5 am yesterday/today, don't ask me why. She is still asleep, but I was awakened by a bad dream at 9 am and haven't eaten yet. It's time to let some of my superstitions go. My dreams affect no one's reality but my own. I hope. I'll keep my fingers crossed, just in case.