Memento mori

I watched a movie called A Haunting in Connecticut right before i went to bed and my sleep was broken and full of nightmares or hallucinations. The first ‘scare’ i remember i’m not sure if i was awake or asleep or in between. A strong cold breeze touched my face and exposed arm. I pulled the covers up over my arm and up to my chin. I felt the sabre-tooth jump onto the bed and realized the cool breeze was just him pushing the door open. My hand touched something cold and hard and i jumped, causing the sabre-tooth to jump off the bed and leave. My hand had touched my night table but it felt like a coffin. Then i thought about the movie some and wished i had somebody in my bed with me because i was scared. Then i think i must’ve slept some because a few hours later i woke up to the sound of Cameron talking on the phone. The light from her bedroom was shining in my eyes. She was talking on her cell phone and had turned on the shower to let it warm up. It was so goddamned loud! I realized she hadn’t shut the bathroom door. I could hear her telling the person she was talking to that she didn’t need an alarm clock because she had an inner voice that would just tell her when it was time to wake up. I was going to yell for her to shut the doors but i guess i fell back to sleep. My last thought before unconsciousness was what was she doing up so early and then figured she knew what time i get up and wanted to be out of my way so she got up earlier. Some more sleep time. Now i’m on a campus and in line. As we get closer to the entrance i realize it’s a school and i have no idea what i’m supposed to do or what classes i’m taking (classic scenario). Once i enter the building it occurs to me that i don’t even GO to school anymore and continue up the wide hallway looking for an exit. There’s quite a lot of hustle and bustle and the building is more like a hospital or office complex (generic institutional building). I have no idea where i am or how to get out so i’m looking for a bathroom to duck into and get my bearings. I find myself in a big atrium-like lobby. There are guards on the upper levels and i decide i better put on my company ID badge so they know i belong there. Finally, i get to the front entrance and exit the building. I have a wheelchair for a vehicle and it’s tiger striped metal. It goes really fast and i’m zooming up a boulevard, passing pedestrians and dodging road hazards (pot holes, dirt patches, rocks). Then i’m in the mall i go to sometimes in dreams. I have to cut through a restaurant to continue and the place is so crowded i fold my wheel chair up small and put it in a little Christmas gift bag so i can maneuver through the crowd. The restaurant looks like it was maybe built in an old movie theatre because after the top ‘flat’ part, the floor slants down pretty sharply. There are fewer tables but now there are people sitting in arena or theatre seats. As i start down the stairs a couple with a little toddler leaves their seats several stairs down in front of me. The man and woman are walking down normally, leaving their toddler to make her way down on her own. I’m concerned she will fall and quickly catch up to her and rest my hand on top of her head to steady her. The parents have reached the bottom and are looking back up at me with their daughter and seem a little angry. When the daughter and i finally get to the bottom i remove my hand from her head and leave, ignoring her parents. I’m back out in the mall now and about to get back on the road when i realize i don’t have my wheelchair. I got back into the restaurant and i’m standing by the check out area. A woman from the kitchen comes out and hands me my xmas package and i leave. Now i’m walking through another restaurant and Betty is sitting at t table. Apparently she was expecting me so i sit down. There are a lot of “business” people around us, men in suits. Betty hands me a menu for drinks. It’s got several mixed drinks with fancy names i can’t remember now, and a list of shots. I’m surprised there’s no tequila on the list and look it over several times, looking for tequila. Some other ladies join Betty and i at our table – one is LyndaB, not sure who the other was – and Lynda also comments on the missing tequila. Now i’m back on the road in my tiger wheelchair. The road is bad for wheelchair driving and i keep getting stuck. The sand is white sand. Cars are passing me and i’m nervous about getting hit and wake up to Strawberry Fields.

So tired. Hit the snooze two times like always then got up. The first thing i noticed is that my door was closed so the breeze i felt couldn’t have been from the sabre-tooth pushing the door open. I got a little bit of a chill wondering what really happened then. When i got into the hall i noticed that the Cameron wasn’t in the bedroom and hadn’t been there (and why would she have been, on a school night) so i don’t know what light was shining in my eyes and what i was hearing that sounded like the shower running. For a second i thought about alien abduction and the crackpots who believe they’ve been abducted, so i did a body inventory and it didn’t feel like i’d been prodded or sodomized so figured it was some blend of dreaming and sleep paralysis.

That’s a pretty good movie that can get into my head like that and mess up my sleep. It had lots of references to ectoplasm and séances that were so popular in the Victorian era. Photographs of the dead posed like they’re still alive. That was popular too and has always fascinated me. Morbid? Creepy, for sure. There were some good authentic photographs in the movie. This is the one that struck me the most. Poor living brother. Dolls with teeth and memento mori photos of the dead never fail to creep me out. I love it! The imagination can be the best drug of all.