Worst. Dream. Ever.

Last night I had the absolute worst dream I have ever had in my life. Ever.  It didn't even fall into the "horrid nightmares that occasionally return to creep me out to the point of not wanting to look in the closet or under the bed" category.  It was absolutely awful.  I woke up shouting and sobbing, and held on to hubby for half an hour in the middle of the night.  Then I only slept for 10-20 minutes at a time for the rest of the night because every time I fell completely asleep, one scene kept repeating itself and I just kept waking up trembling.  I have thought about it all morning, and hope that it just stays a dream and NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER TO INFINITY HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE.

Normally, my nightmares fall into 2 categories:  Critters I despise, and harm coming to those I love.  I've gotten to the point where dreams of me falling and breaking various limbs has turned into a "Stooge-esque" affair, where I just shake my head and think, "yeah, that's probably what's gonna happen one of these days."  But it doesn't SCARE me.  The recurring critter nightmare is one where I have the Midas touch, only everything turns into poisonous snakes or spiders.  And of course, the spider one is all the more disturbing because spiders do actively seek me out to bite.  After one of those nightmares, I find myself praying for kittycats and puppydogs, or sitting up and counting my blessings and then turning on the TV to watch a movie for about 15 minutes until I've cleansed my mind of the terrifying thoughts.  It always works for me.  The nightmares about those I love are a little harder, because they have that small element of truth to them.  I find myself praying for that person or people, and then telling my husband the dream.  He's really good at soothing me back to sleep, and he usually turns on the TV or radio to quiet my mind until I get calmed down enough to go back to sleep.

Last night, though, nothing worked.  In that weird way that dreams work, time was flexible, locations appeared that I have never seen before, and you find yourself doing things that seem impossible in the light of day.  The dream started off innocently enough.  I was in the hospital having a baby. I have those kind of dreams every now and then.  No biggie.  We bring him home to our house and life goes on as normal.  (And by normal, I mean that one second we're bringing him home and then the next second, we've been home for a month.)  I don't recognize the house at all, never been in it before in my life, but I don't think twice about the fact that it's my house.  (Everything sounds great, right?)  Anyway, I find myself sitting at the kitchen table eating a Sub.way Meatball Sub.  (Which I have never had in my life--What's up with that?)  I find myself getting ready to send them an e-mail on a pizza sub idea I had.  Then I sort of sigh and smile as I pick up my iced tea, and reflect upon the fact that hubby and I had been cozy the night before and that it might be possible that we could have two children within a year...(And right now is when my mind should have been red-flagging this as a total dream, due to my PCOS, but it didn't.  I am still not realizing that this is a dream.  It is all as real to me as this computer is.)

...at that exact instant, I drop my iced tea glass to the floor and realize that I have not heard my son cry or make any noise whatsoever.  Furthermore, I can't remember when the last time was that I saw him.  It strikes me that it's been over 24 hours since I fed him, and that I don't know what's wrong...(I know now that this would not be possible, but once again, at 3:00 in the morning when I woke up, this was NOT an impossible situation).  I scream for my husband, and he rushes into the baby's room. By the time I get there, he's screaming and crying and trying CPR.  I see him holding our baby, and there's no movement, no sound, no nothing.  And because of my vast knowledge gleaned from all the crime shows I've seen, I know that our baby has been dead for at least 12 hours, and I never had checked on him in that time.  Who doesn't notice their baby is dead for 12 hours?  What kind of horrible person was I?  I just fell to the floor sobbing and screaming...

And then I woke up.  In my head I know that I will be a good mom when that day comes, but in my heart right now, I'm wondering if I would be a good mom.  It's just scared the bejeebers out of me.  I spent at least 30 minutes just sobbing and shaking, and apologizing to my husband for not being a good mom.  He just kept holding me and comforting me, and praying over me until I stopped shaking and the sobs had subsided.  I have seen that baby's face every time I close my eyes since then.  You would think that something so obviously NOT real wouldn't stick so strongly in my mental movie gallery, but that's all that's playing right now.  Ugh.

It's like satan is using my biggest fears against me.  Add to that the fact that my cousin lost her little boy last week, and I know kinda where this dream came from.  But my dream was sooo vivid, and so realistic...

Let me state what I know.  I know that I do not actually have a baby son.  I know that I do not live in that house.  I know that I don't eat that kind of food at Sub.way.  I know that I would not ever "forget" that I had a living baby.  I know that I would worry if I didn't hear my baby breathing over a monitor.  I know that I wouldn't "forget" to feed my baby. I know...that this was a nightmare, using things that I hope about and things that I fear, twisting them together until it becomes something that would never happen...I know these things, but like any good lie, there remains that niggling doubt in my head and heart. 

It's going to be hard to go to sleep tonight.  I need to watch something completely benign before going to bed, and then have something in the DVD player that is just funny to get my mind off of things so that I can go to sleep and NOT have this dream again. EVER.  I don't even want anyone to joke about it.  It bothers me greatly, and is still giving me the willies. 

I know that if you're still reading this, you've probably decided that I'm certifiable.  Right now, you're probably not far off the mark.  If there's any consolation, it's that I'm not normally like this.  You also probably didn't want to hear or read any of this, but I needed to kind of "write it out", in the hopes that it would keep it out of my head tonight.  Here's hoping for a better night tonight.