Blog

dream diary home archive
Prologue: The First Nightmare
Original date unknown; transcribed Thursday, July 15, 2021

A Fisher Price children's tape cassette player   I thought I'd start out this dream journal with my oldest remembered dream. It's a nightmare I had when I was under 10 years old, maybe 7-ish? I know I was still playing with my Fisher Price Tape cassette player, and I had a radio/cassette player by around 9.

   In this dream, we were at a marina, covered boat docks that I think were like what my grandparents kept their houseboat at when I was little.

   My mom was there. I don't remember if anyone else was. There was, for some unknown reason, a mattress, stood up on its side, somehow completely blocking the length of dock that ran between the boats. Dream Mom decided that the best way to get past this obstruction was to walk over it, cartoonishly, up one side, across the length, and down the other.

a covered marina storing multiple boats    At some point in this process, she lost her balance. She fell into the murky green water, or would have had it not parted ahead of her, allowing her to land directly on the white rocks beneath. I don't recall actually seeing her lay there (thankfully), but the "camera" panned up and away, towards where the parking lot (blocked from sight by a hedge) would be. I heard sirens approaching in the distance, but I knew they were too late.

    And then I woke up, presumably frozen from post-nightmare horror. This childhood dream stands to this day as my most vividly remembered dream, and I'm halfway through my 37th year as I write this. I'm glad most of my nightmares haven't bothered to stick around like this one has!