It is a chilly evening and the fire is attracting bugs, nothing I have seen before. These are weird, they look like frogs with mosquito wings buzzing around our heads. Everyone is having fun and I don’t want to be the bummer so I just sit and listen to the conversations. I look back to the mansion – there’s nothing but miles of empty green lawn between us and the big house. I don’t remember which one of these people by the fire lives there. Why are we here in the middle of nowhere? How is it so quiet? Nobody is saying anything and we all just stare at the fire with the sounds of buzzing insects and crackling wood filing the space around us.
We are walking down the spiral staircase, someone in front of me is leading the way but his torch is flickering and one heavy gust will drop us all into darkness. I don’t want to go down there, I know there’s something scary. I can’t turn back, there are other people following me – I know these people, but I can’t remember who they are.
There is a wardrobe, its shaking like there is a Boggart in it but I know there is a ghost in it, its waiting for me.
Pujyay Raghavendraya Satyadharama Rathayacha
Bhajatham Kalparukshaya Namatham Kamadenuve
Hindu Prayer
My brain repeats the shloka over and over again.
The arch is towering over me, I stepped into the mud puddle because I am busy staring at the dead tree in the back. The path has a lot of potholes, its like playing skipping steps. Someone calls my name, I look behind me and a very blurry figure is walking over towards me. I can’t find my glasses and I can’t see who it is but I recognize the voice. I try to say something but no words come out.
I am standing on the balcony of my Hyderabad house having successfully escaped the lion that was chasing me. I almost fell off of it but balanced myself just in time, I look behind me and a hundred snakes are covering the balcony staring at me.
***
This was a recurring dream I had from the ages of twelve to seventeen. Sometimes it was the entire dream and sometimes it was only parts of it. I used to have this dream (nightmare actually) even during naps. There was never any pattern to when I had these dreams but my brain had taught itself to repeat a prayer whenever I got too scared. I also knew it was a dream because I could try and touch something but I couldn’t feel anything.
I still have dreams but no recurring ones and I often forget them now. Have you had any dreams that haunted you? Or nightmares that you could never forget?
Across the Ocean 
When my dad died, he showed up in the dreams several times. He started aging backwards after the first few – then he became a clone in the dreams looking like he did when he was raising me, young and youthful, but he had no memory of adult me, though he felt some responsibility toward me and I him. Eventually the clone and I no longer had anything to say – he was younger and developing his own life and I was ready to move on. It took several years, but it was a good goodbye.
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I don’t think I’ve had any recurring dreams. I often dream about work or people at work but it is usually something so crazy that I realize it is a dream and wake up.
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