Nightmare Nights!

I have been stabbed multiple times with a sharp knife by an unknown assailant, I have hopelessly lost my way in strange and lonely places without any idea of where I was or how to return home, I have missed a step and have fallen into deep bottomless chasms, I have been trapped inside burning buildings without any route to escape, I have driven speeding cars whose brakes had given away, and I have had to face intruders who had broken into my house in the dead of the night, all alone…

I experienced all this at different periods of my life, but the one common incident that followed it was that I used to wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the night, sometimes sobbing, and terrified to death and feeling scared even of my own breath. My heart beat rapidly causing all logic to fly out of the open window into the dark night. I thought I might have let out a blood curdling scream, but on second thoughts, I guess, it was just a whimper of an incoherent sound that barely managed to get past my dry throat.

The first few seconds upon waking up from a nightmare is really tough. Frightened out of my wits, I am strongly convinced that there is a dangerous monster of an intruder in my room, lurking behind the dark curtains or hiding below my cot, ready to pounce on me any minute. While a tiny part of my mind keeps nudging me to flick on the light switch and to have a drink of water, my limbs refuse to move, as though stuck by the ‘Petrificus Totalus’ curse straight from Harry Potter’s world. All I am able do at such times, is to hug my sweat drenched pillow tightly and huddle under the blanket with tightly shut eyes, till my runaway logic returns sheepishly, saying ‘all is well’…

Nightmares can certainly be horrifying!