Reality was an ice cube...

..melting away, but then re-freezing.

i woke up today in a state of shock, it felt like, and nothing could make me feel better. My eyes were immediately wide-open, which is weird, and i was even scared of Nat. i felt like being in reality was too good to be true. i have never in my life had such a powerful dream, one that had such resonance and residue in my waking world. It was without a doubt the worst dream i have ever had.
it was crippling, and terrifying.. i felt enslaved by the fear the whole time, and so overwhelmed and sick that i might throw up/faint at any time... is that even possible in a dream? Do you merely faint into your waking life? i have yet to find out.

To sum up: i was visiting my (actual) old best friend from when i was a kid, Molly. We were at her (actual) childhood home, in my (actual) childhood neighborhood, and we were back in the early '80s... only we were all grown up, in our late twenties.

A lot of the beginning of this dream is foggy, but something bad happened to Molly. something that Nat and i were responsible for (accident, or neglect..), and she was dead. We had chopped her up and put her in a trash bag and got rid of her somehow; tossed it in a lake, i believe.

Then i found out Nat was time-traveling (to prevent that from happening, maybe?), but something fucked up in the fabric of time. He was taking a shower in Molly's bathroom while i was freaking out in the hallway and her creepy 3-year old daughter was walking around with a pen that she drew oil paintings on the floorboards with, paintings of her dead mommy's ghost. More specifically, her dead mommy's ghost's shadow. i felt like throwing up, so i went into the bathroom, and saw Nat standing weirdly in the corner, leering at me and looking kind of floppy like he was swaying and might fall down at any moment. i gave a strangled yelp because i realized that Nat was still in the shower. There were two of him in the fucking room.

Jesus christ, this is hard for me to even type! it is making me physically ill.

(kittens! and bunnies! and rainbows, and ice cream, yay!!!)

...So, where was i?

Oh yeah: so Nat cries out, and tears aside the shower curtain. What's wrong?! he asks me. i am practically having a seizure with panic as he hugs me, dripping wet from the shower, and all i can do is gesture wide-eyed at the creepy-smiling figure (of him) standing 4 feet away. Nat looks mildly surprised, but starts moving quickly and explaining that everything is okay, this is just a small problem with the time warp scenario. He ushers me out into the hallway and closes the door.

Flash forward in the dream, Nat (both of them) has dreadlocks and is wearing all of these weird cloth arm bracelets. i am so terrified of Nat#2, that the original Nat has made him crouch in the corner of the bathroom and stay out of our way. Needless to say, i have not set foot in that bathroom for almost 2 weeks. Suddenly, someone has left the back door open and Molly's strawberry-blonde toddler is heading for the (treacherous) back stairs, and we are six stories up or something. i close the door just in time... She is asking me where her mommy is, but telling me that everything is ok, because her mommy is watching all of us, right now. She is painting one of her weird kid-style oil paintings on the floor, with that damn pen.. i am shivering, and clammy with sweat and terror. Now Molly's parents are coming home from their vacation, but they already know that she is dead, and they think it was an accident, but they want to talk to us anyway. i should be relieved, but i am not. i keep telling Nat that i "want to go" (back to our own time, maybe?).

Forward more in the dream. i realize that the "real" Nat is in fact an impostor, after noticing that he has been unusually rude and cold towards me. At some point, a switch has been made. i can tell because he is rather too meticulous in detail, too perfect. The real Nat has hair that is more sun-bleached, and some of his cloth arm-bands are tattered and faded. i go to him in the bathroom, break the spell, and we hatch a plan to get rid of the (evil) clone Nat, or whatever he is.
Fast-forward, we are on a train platform, and we send the Fake off on some random errand, with his bike. He looks suspicious as he pedals off, and i can hear the train coming, from, it seems, an eternity away... i want the sound of the train's whistle to make me happy, to make me feel better, but instead it feels like it will never get there in time, to save us.

So yeah. The end. Or as they say in the world of films,

..-~F I N~-..