A Recurring Dream

We've all had those dreams. You know the ones, the ones that leave you shaking and drenched in sweat when you wake up, and make you dread going to sleep every night. Those dreams, of course, are the recurring nightmares.

Luckily, as a child I was not afflicted with the burden of going to sleep in fear every night of the nightmare from the night before tainting my dreams again. But as an adult, I haven't been so lucky. Well, I shouldn't say that, as only very recently, the beginning of the month I believe, I began having a recurring nightmare every single night. I still remember that first night, March 1st, the first day of the month, and I had just moved into my new home a day before.

The dream originally appeared to be a whimsical dream with a beautiful dreamscape. I was sitting in a clearing in a dense forest. The only source of light was the massive moon shining above, and the only sound was the repeating hoots of owls. The numerous amounts of trees all towered above me and were all the size of skyscrapers with jagged edges that pierced the sky like a dagger.

After a moment of sitting and doing practically nothing, I deemed it a smart idea to go investigating. It was when I stood up that I noticed something in the clearing with me. It appeared to be a person lying on the grass. I cautiously walked over to the creature, careful not to make too much noise.

To my shock, when I walked over my presumptions were right, it was a human, but after I saw the grisly figure that lay below me, I wished I had been wrong. It was a man, with no shirt on and some torn jeans. He has scratches and cuts all over his chest, with some strange burns too. His face was even worse. There still was an abundance of scratches and scars, but he was missing his mouth. He was covered in stitches, and some of the skin on his face didn't match up with others, leaving me to presume it wasn't his. His eyes were shut, and he was either in a comatose state, or dead, and given his circumstances I presumed it was the latter. The shock of seeing such a grotesque thing on an otherwise serene dream horrified me so much, I woke up instantly.

When I awoke from my terrible slumber, I realized two things. One, I needed to change as I was covered in sweat, and two, that it was only 3:00 in the morning. That night I couldn't bring myself to fall back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried to keep my mind off the terrible dream.

When the sun came up, I had almost completely blocked that dream out of my mind, and was ready to continue on with my day. I had a normal day, and payed little to no thought of my nightmare the previous night, and when I did I laughed at my stupidity, being scared of a stupid dream, hah, I was such a fool.

Even with me telling myself that the dream wasn't even that bad, when lying in bed, the nightmare crept into my thoughts, and left me a bit scared. Once again, I dismissed this thought in the hopes of actually getting a good night's sleep. Sadly for me, I succeeded.

When I noticed my surroundings in my dream, it was a scene all too familiar. A large forest, densely populated by trees, and only illuminated by the large moon above. I immediately recognized where I was, and got up to ran. However, once I stood up, I saw the person from the dream before once again lying down in the grass.

I didn't want to go to it, but I was compelled to. I was forced to, like I was a toy in a sick game. When I approached the body, he appeared the same. I peered down at the poor soul, trying not to scream in fear that I will break the peace and that my dream will turn even worse as a result. As I looked at him, I noticed something. His arm began to twitch. I looked back up at his head, and to my shock, his eyes darted open, matching my stare. I recoiled back in horror, and just like that I woke up.

For the rest of the night his horrible eyes corrupted my thoughts. I could have sworn I saw the glowing, distorted yellow eyes watching me out my window in the freezing March night.

This was the second night I had the same dream. I was a bit weirded out by this, as such an occurrence had never happened to me before. That night when I went to sleep I was a bit more cautious going to sleep, but eventually put my nerves to rest by telling myself it was a one time thing. I went to sleep that night with my suspicions at bay, although I still was truly scared.

An overwhelming feeling of dread swept over me like a title wave when I realized my surroundings. Knowing what would happen next, I ever so slowly arose from the grass. To my absolute horror I looked down into the grass that normally contained the deformed man and nothing was there. Instead, the man was wandering around the clearing with a look of confusion on his face. I was paralyzed with fear. He looked at me, his glaring yellow eyes stared into my soul.

He ripped a small blade out from his back and taunted me, and then proceeded to walk into the middle of the forest. It was at that point I awoke once more. I was drenched in sweat and any skepticism I had on this being a recurring dream was thrown out the window. I was truly horrified of going to sleep for the first time in my life.

The next night I was truly dreading going to sleep. I tried to pull an all nighter but failed and eventually dozed off at around, 2:00 AM. For the first time since I started having the dream I was thrown into the middle of a scene. The mutilated man once again ripped a blade out from his back and taunted me, shortly before running into the woods. I was compelled to chase him. Just like before I didn't want to per-say, but I was being controlled by some otherworldly being of sorts. I followed his random footprints for what felt like centuries.

I woke up mid search session to my relief. This night's dream wasn't that bad compared to the others, other than the beginning of it. For whatever reason, for a while my dreams would consist of me chasing him down and tracking his footsteps amid the animal footsteps scattered among the forest floor. That all changed on, I think March 20th.

I went to sleep that night expecting nothing more than another chase sequence, but I got much, much more. I eventually found the end of the tracks. They led to a magnificent house to my surprise. I looked around, and eventually found the strange man hiding behind a bush, spying on the house, almost staking out it seemed. Just as I entered the area his head snapped backwards to look at me. I jumped back so much that I was woken straight out of my dream. No matter how much I hated to admit it, it seemed as though these dreams were about to take a turn for the worst.

The next night I was popped right back in where I left off, the man eerily staring at me. Soon, his head snapped back into staring at the house. He appeared to be exasperated over something, but what that was remained to be seen. Soon, he sneaked up to the house and walked up to the door, still hunched over with his spine showing through is skinny, scarred body.

I woke up after that, wondering what he was doing, but yet also not wanting to find out. The scene stayed the same for the next few nights until March 25th I believe, when things took a major turn for the worse.

The man was up at the door, where he knocked the door, awaiting someone to answer him. Once someone opened the door, a man in his 20s I believe, he was subdued and dragged into the forest. I ran to go chase after them, once again in spite of my futile attempts to run back and just avoid the situation.

I ran after them for a while, but couldn't find them. After searching for a long time I was eventually let free of my prison-like dream. I rejoiced to find that this dream would continue for a while. It did until last night, where I had quite possibly my worst dream yet. I found the man and the owner of the house.

What I saw nearly made me puke in-dream. The house owner's skull was shattered on a rock next to him. Brain matter and skull fragments were everywhere, turning the once magnificent shades of green to one dark red. The worst part of this was that the man had apparently skinned the house owner, and was applying the bloodied skin to his body. The man noticed me watching, and stared at me. I couldn't wake up, nor could I move. The man pounced from the ground onto me, and once he did that I finally woke up from that hell.

Right now it is March 31st and 9:30 PM. I hope to god that the dreams stop tonight. I've been doing some research and I've found that- I'm sorry but I have to end it here, somebody is knocking on my door...