Back
to the Mystic Moose
The Nightmare
By Bud James
I was falling, falling past stars, past planets with two and three moons, past strange debris, past planets with rings. It was beautiful and surreal and horribly terrifying. I was completely out of control. The pressure was all around me! How can I make it stop? I had this growing feeling of incredible fear, and it was more than just mine. There were others with me – I could sense it. There was this very painful gelatinous substance all around my body. It was pressing in on me. I could hear/sense a kind of terrifying, gut-wrenching, silent screaming. It hurt. There were other images that would flit in and out of my awareness. I couldn’t tell if they were real or parts of my tortured imagination. Clocks that were floating around me in space, slowing down, striking longer and lower tones. Gears and cogs that were part of some huge machine that were grinding loudly to a stop. Screeching Sounds... There was an Angelic–like being that was watching us – not helping – not stopping us – just watching. Why couldn’t he help us? I tried to reach out, but where were my hands? My arms?
And the pressure! This goo was pressing in all around me. It filled every part of my senses that were still functioning. It felt like a cocoon. It was pressing in on me and pressing on me until everything – stopped – motionless – dead calm – dead quiet. I couldn't move.
At that moment, it felt like the Universe ceased to exist - time and movement had completely stopped. The clocks and gears all stopped. Then the mindless screaming would begin - huge, loud, shrill screaming. In my head. The screams of myself and others on a telepathic level. It was absolutely horrifying. The pain would go right up my spine and into my head. The blackness was coming. AAAAHHHHHHGGGGG….
I then realized that the screaming was being accompanied by shaking and someone was calling me – calling – someone - calling - oh – that’s my name!
"Buddy, Buddy - wake up!"
"It was my Mom - or my Brother - not sure. Yes, that’s it. Oh - it's OK" I would think. They would have to shake me awake to stop me from screaming. It was very, very loud. I would wake up in a cold sweat, shivering, recalling the nightmare. Slowly coming back into "reality".
"You were having a nightmare! Are you OK?", they would ask. "Here, have some water".
I would sip and stare, disconnected. Shivering, wondering what was going on. I knew I wouldn’t sleep the rest of the night, because that vision was right there, on the other side. The second I dropped off, I would be "there" again, falling – screaming. I did a lot of all night reading stints in those days. Fear is an incredible motivator.
"The Nightmare" started about when I reached puberty, (about 11) and would come along about every 4 months. My folks went to great efforts after the first episode to get rid of any scary books, magazines and forbade me from seeing any scary movies. None of that helped. The worst part of it was that about the 3rd time it happened, I had a premonition during the day, right out of the blue that I would have the nightmare again that night. I did. It was just as bad as before, and I had even tried to talk myself out of it. I remember being rather angry that "The Nightmare" had cheated me out of another night’s sleep. The next day I went to the library at my school and starting reading everything I could on dreams and dream interpretation. It was actually quite fascinating to me. I recall not quite understanding the Jungian descriptions about archetypes and skipping past it. (I came back to this information later when I began my study of Tarot.)
Once I read all that I could on dreams, I moved into the books that were right near the dream books on the shelf and started studying hypnosis. I learned that Hypnos was the Greek God of sleep. Fascinating! This was the answer! I would hypnotize myself and program out those horrid nightmares. So I began in great earnest learning all I could. I tried different techniques and styles, and finally found one that worked for me. It took me almost a year and a half. I started in on programming that would eradicate this horrible dream from my sleep. I remember thinking, well, how would I know if it worked unless I waited for months until the next episode? I decided to remove ALL dreams from my sleep. Wow - that worked. No more dreams. At least, no recollection of them when I was awake. This was significant because I was having a lot of dreams and would do dream interpretation on them. I got pretty good and would do it for some of my friends at school as well. I continued to study hypnosis and decided I needed to try it out on some of my friends. By now, most of the books I had been reading were from the Public Library on clinical hypnosis. Peace, at last.
My self interest expanded to others. On a camping trip with my Boy Scout troop, I asked my two tent mates if they were game and they said "sure, why not". I whipped out my notes and began putting these two guys into a deep hypnotic state. Gee whiz - this works great! Now what? Not really knowing what to do at this point other than bring them out of the trance, I decided that they should go outside and go Snipe hunting. (Now if you’ve never heard of Snipe hunting, it is the mandatory experience all senior Scouts inflict on the newbies. The initiates need to search in the woods for this illusive (and imaginary) creature, the Snipe.) Well, the post-hypnotic suggestion was that Snipes were real, were rather large, and pink. I had them wake up and we all left the tent and went out with a couple of other guys. The suggestion was "triggered" of course, by asking if anyone wanted to go Snipe hunting. My buddies immediately said yes, to the chagrin of a couple of the other scouts, and off about five of us went into the nearby clearing. Guess what? Large Pink Snipes were sighted lurking amongst the edges of the clearing within minutes! Oh what fun! And what an insight I had to the inner workings of the mind. Needless to say I got rather lambasted by the Scoutmaster. That was an important lesson, too.
From that time forward I was "On the Path". Today, after many years of study and reflection, I realize that this Nightmare, this dream, has many spiritual meanings and lessons for me. It closely parallels the original en-masse coming to Earth of many souls as they left the Godhead. It is similar to the stories some tell of the banishment from the Garden. It speaks of many things long ago, but also to things yet ahead of me on my path.
It was a terrifying awakening, but very effective. The message came through the veil. I have since turned my dreams back on, and many are right there, waiting for me, on the other side. But there is a difference.
I am awake, now.