A Milroy Moment

Something's been up with my sleep schedule lately. I've been having very strange and often very scary dreams that have caused me to wake up every hour, on the hour... which is weird enough in itself... but I've also been having a recurring dream that I haven't had since college (but which I used to have on a nightly basis when I was younger) that causes me to wake up at 3 a.m. Naturally, my first thought when I look at the clock during one of these episodes is of the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, in which they talk of 3 a.m. being the devil's hour. Insanely scary movie, by the way.

This, coupled with the howling wind (made worse by my apartment's poor insulation and useless double-paned, POS windows) that this sudden temperature plunge has brought with it, and added to the fact that I've always been nearly convinced my apartment is haunted... needless to say, it's been a freaky couple of weeks.

So I thought I would take this chance and share some of my stories with you guys, in the spirit of Halloween and all. Plus, I'm totally trying to make my own collection of October Moments a'la Magazine Man over at Somewhere on the Masthead. (Not that I'll ever be such a fantastic story teller... but, you know. High hopes.) I think I'll call mine Milroy Moments, in honor of the beautiful street I live on... even though, technically, I live on the crappy side of it.

--
HE'S MAKING EGGS!
(A recollection of a dream I had a few nights ago. This is more funny than it is anything else... but I still woke up in a cold sweat.)

I was sleeping in my bed, but I was right at that point of the waking stage where you’re aware of what’s going on around you, but not aware enough to do anything about it. In my dream, I woke up slowly. I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach – a nervous feeling. I looked around at my bedroom. It had been torn apart; things were strewn across the room. I didn’t panic, though, until I saw that the closet door nearest me (I have two) had been open. Something was in front of it, right in the crook of the door where the hinges are... all I could see was a silhouette of something, not quite shaped like a human, but something about it gave me the feeling that it wasn't simply an inanimate object. I’m not sure what it was, but it made me realize that the door couldn’t have just blown open if something had been placed before it.

(Note: The closets in my bedroom have always scared the bejeesus out of me - but that's a different story - so the fact that one was open in my dream nearly made me wet myself.)

I sat up slowly, terrified. I very slowly left the bedroom and entered the rest of the apartment, which looked exactly the same. Laundry baskets full of my clothes had been rooted through and carelessly tossed to the side. Kitchen cabinets were open and things were strewn across the counters and onto the stove and floor. Even my furniture had been moved. My first thought was that I had been robbed. I looked for a sweater in one of the laundry baskets on the living room floor, and I moved a chair out of the way from the front door. I pounded on my neighbor's door several times until he answered – I had awoken him. He chuckled and said, “Here’s my wake up call lady.” I apologized and asked if he would come to my place with me – I put my head in my hands and my voice broke when I told him I was really scared. He came over and was appalled at the sight.

The next thing I knew, the two of us were in my bedroom, and there were two other people there, although I’m not sure who they were. I was laying in bed on my side, looking at the three others who were sitting on the floor and in chairs at the bedside. I don’t know what we were talking about, but the atmosphere seemed somewhat relaxed. Then we all heard a noise from the kitchen – it sounded like my stove burners were being turned on, like the clicking noise the burners make when you're waiting for the flame to ignite.

(Except that I have an electric stove in my apartment, so it makes no noise at all.)

We all looked at each other and walked out of the bedroom together, crowded in the small hallway between the bedroom and the kitchen. Frightened, someone cried, “He’s making eggs!” And I realized that there was a frying pan indeed cooking something on the stove of its own accord - no one was standing before it. The pan was in the air and the food inside turning itself over, as if someone had flipped the eggs just by jostling the pan in the air. I was horrified and didn’t move from the clan of people gathered just outside my bedroom door. Suddenly, I realized it wasn’t eggs being cooked but ground beef of some sort – the pan had tipped forward and emptied its contents into a big red dish made of plastic on the floor. It reminded me of a dog dish.

I woke up terrified and hoarse from trying to scream. I don’t think I completely awoke, though, because there was really no break between that dream and the next one.

Which will have to wait for another day.
--

So there you have it, folks. I've been trying to force myself out of bed after a dream wakes me up so that I can write down its contents for research the following day. (So I believe that dreams carry a degree of meaning along with them. Sue me.) I was in luck this night because I had been working on my laptop before I fell asleep; it was lying next to me on the bed. My hands shaking, I typed the entire thing out (and laughed for like five minutes when I reread the "He's making eggs!" part") then turned on a Fresh Prince rerun to calm me down before trying to fall asleep again.

Major elements for research: closet, laundry, furniture, kitchen, stove, eggs, beef, dish.